On Tuesday, we mostly worked during the day, but in the evening after dinner, Jeremy drove towards San Diego and found a cheap hotel to stay at and spent the night so in the morning, he could bike up Mt. Palomar. He spent a couple of hours doing that, and then drove to UC Irvine to have lunch with Vince and pick up some bags/luggage and Vince’s bike to drive up to northern California. Vince stayed at UCI to finish off his final week at his internship.
Meanwhile, Elka, Edda and I spent the time in LA with Julia. I watched an episode of Endeavor with Julia (a murder mystery on PBS) which was a lot of fun, 90 minutes (!) and we asked each other questions during the confusing parts, lol. Elka loves being a California dog. Spending so much time outside in Julia’s yard, sleeping in the sun, sleeping in the shade, chasing squirrels. Saying hello to various visitors. It quite agrees with her.
Wed night was the last night in LA, we went to Lunetta for dinner and then to Rori’s for ice cream.
Thursday morning, we repacked the van with Jeremy’s bike, our luggage, Vince’s bike, Vince’s luggage. It was a tight squeeze. Jeremy was, at times, thinking it wouldn’t work out, but it did. We do not travel light. We have three full sized monitors, three laptops, a wheelchair, an inflatable bed/crib. Nine packs of diapers, a guitar (I probably shouldn’t have brought that, I’m knitting rather than playing guitar which is much smaller). And dog food and a dog bed.
We had to mount Vince’s bike on the back with this suction cup device which did hold onto the bike on Interstate 5. It seems very precarious, but it held and did not go flying off and Jeremy thought it probably didn’t increase our fuel consumption very much. Everything gets more and more complicated. 1. Edda can’t move very well and needs a relatively spacious bathroom to be changed and cannot be left alone 2. Elka can neither be left in the car, no go into stores/restaurants 3. the van can not be left out of sight, lest someone steal the bike.
We said bye to Julia and thanked her for sharing her space with us. We had a great time. The rest of the trip, we are paying for our lodging, staying near friends, but not with them.
We had lunch at a drive through McDonald’s and then met up with Vince’s partner Dani who is finishing up her summer internship tomorrow. We managed to go to an ice cream parlor where we could sit outside with the dog and keep an eye on the van and have ice cream. And we had a great time with Dani. It’s the first time I’ve met them, Jeremy has met them once before when he was out on a business trip to Sacramento.
They went to an arts high school and love to draw, so we got to see a bunch of their work. I’m not quite sure when we’ll see each other next, maybe at graduation? Then we headed to our rental for the next week in Berkeley.
