"When my roommate's away, the cat will [want to] play... and rub all over me."

Carrie's birthday!

My last full weekend in Monterey has passed! (phew!) And so, I am trying to cram in as much fun stuff as possible with all the great people I've met here, in the time I have left!

My love at Lover's Point!

Friday night, Natalia and I enjoyed our last night together as roommates, since she flew home to Moldova on Saturday night. We ate at Crystal Fish (the BEST sushi on the peninsula) and met up with Kevin after his (LONG) drive up from LA to go to a few bars downtown. Of course, I found the only other Marylander at the bar (from Easton), who was probably the only other person in the bar rooting for the Ravens to win the replayed game that was on the TVs!

Cool bottle window

Kevin and I enjoyed some other yummy new places this weekend, and we hung out with some coworkers to celebrate a birthday Saturday night. We went to Lover's Point on Sunday morning for a picnic brunch, then left with some of my things in his truck (I've expanded past my one-carload-limit with a shelf I bought here for my unfurnished room!) Thankfully it was his last long drive home from my apartment in Monterey! 

Rabbit.. Five ways! (stewed, pate-ish, fried,
roasted leg, one other I can't remember!)

Monday night, I shared an AMAZING dinner with some coworkers at "A Moveable Feast," which is attached a little general store in the middle of NOWHERE in Carmel Valley. An hour from Monterey on super-windy roads, they only serve dinner on Monday nights and have a pretty unique menu! I ate "rabbit 5 ways," which was YUMMO! 

Band, restaurant, great food! 

Great place, backwoods atmosphere, totally unique (four-hour+) dining experience. 

Kim, Andy, and I

Walking around the lake in my
neighborhood with Kim! 

Two more days of work before I'll be MOVING ON!!

"If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done."

My time in Monterey is slowly ticking away! In only 2 weeks, I will be done at the VNA (not complaining) and ALICIA WILL BE HERE FOR A VISIT!

As far as where I'll be heading next, I will start work at Kaiser LA Medical Center on September 9th, located on the outskirts of Hollywood. It will be nice to be out of my car and back in the hospital for a while! I spent this weekend with Nardos in LA, apartment-hunting and saying goodbye to Jeff and Hill for a while, as they'll head back to Michigan in a week. I've only got one traveler friend left in California, while the rest have all gone back to Michigan! 



Spending the weekend with Nardos was great, and I'm excited that I'll soon live within a half hour drive of her apartment and within an hour drive of Kevin's! I found a place in Los Feliz, within a mile of the hospital and very close to Griffith Park, cute downtown Los Feliz shops, and walking distance to stores - it'll be a good transition from living in Monterey and being able to walk/bike everywhere here too! I'll have a roommate again, (this time, her name is Lauren too, so she's gotta be awesome :-) which will be nice living in the city. 

I did a little bit of solo exploring while Nardos was out extra-ing in a movie scene, through the gardens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and through the recognizable lights out front of the museum (seen in multiple movies).






The walk through the city was a nice way to ease back into some activity after last weekend's excitement. Kevin and his friend Jeff came to Monterey for the Spartan Beast race, a 12+ mile obstacle/mud/hill/torture race. We finished successfully, but definitely a little bruised, exhausted, and sore! 

 As far as tonight, I spent the afternoon and evening driving back to Monterey, though the beginning of my trip was stalled by this wildfire. Lots of fire fighters on scene (thank goodness!) and lots of traffic. Hopefully they have gotten it under control by now! 

And finally, who doesn't love baby animal photos? This is Ruby, who belongs to Natalia's future roommate. She has been staying with us on weekends to get to know our current kitty, Leeloo, a little better. Ruby just happens to think she owns the place! (until you turn on the shower :-D ) 

"Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts"

Long time no blog. Here comes a [mostly photo] recap of the past month of fun!

Ali and her friend Megan came to visit at the end of June, which was AWESOME! Finally, a few photos have surfaced from their trip (thanks Ali!), though I'm still waiting for the close-up seal and otter pictures from our kayak trip through Elkhorn Slough! It was a beautiful day for our hike at Point Lobos. 

 

Took a little while to grab this group shot with the tide threatening with every attempt to jump up onto the rock! 

July started off great... with more visitors! Kevin drove up and Nardos took the train up, and we spent 4th of July weekend together in Monterey. On the 4th, we bonfired it up on the beach with a bunch of my coworkers (yay, friends!), grilled some delicious eats, and melted up some s'mores. The rest of the weekend we spent lounging, eating, chatting, shopping, bowling, and just enjoying each other's company! 

And then there was Maryland. The flight there sucked, but the rest was amazing (okay, except my rental car... I'm clearly not a Ford girl). 

So many great parts to that trip... the long awaited first snowball of the year. 

Box Hill. The crab cake. The friends. The family. The work family. The baby bumps. 

What a fantastic week, humidity and all. Love ya, Maryland!

After a great vacation, sometimes the best remedy to a stressful 2-day workweek is another vacation. Megan, my San Jose traveler friend, wanted to see Vegas before she leaves the west coast to head home for Michigan, so there we went! Kevin was sweet enough to meet us there, and Megan's friend David helped hook us up with a suite in the Venetian. A quick trip, but a fun one! 

Because I can't turn down a party, I drove down to SoCal this weekend (first time in a while, almost forgot how long it takes :-P) to accompany Kev to his cousins' 40th birthday(s) party. Super fun masquerade party, which apparently ended in a proposal (we left before it happened to go to bed so we could wake up at 445 the next morning) - congrats Jeff and Dwayne! 

There I go!

On Sunday we somehow woke up for a fun day of climbing with Val (my awesome Loma Linda roommate!) and some new (to me) friends! New Jack City is only ~1hr 15 or less from Kevin's house and has lots of routes to try in the future, so I'm sure we'll be back! By the time we left after our climbs, the temperature was >100*, so it was definitely worth the early morning trek!

And so the story goes...

This is how Monterey gets ya! It's chilly,
but too gorgeous not to love <3

It's not a successful climb unless you enjoy the journey.

Last weekend:

View from the top of the mountain where we camped at Blue Jay Campground, overlooking Lake Elsinore. (the only picture I took all weekend :-)

This weekend, I took the much-needed opportunity to relax at home (after working on Saturday, that is). I went on a solo hike this morning at Pinnacles National Park, recently changed to national park status from national monument status earlier this year, making it the nation's youngest national park! I hiked from one side of the park to the other (there are two entrances, east and west, that aren't connected by any roads) on a big loop, enjoyed the volcanic rock creations for which the park is named, and explored the Balconies Cave. 

Admittedly, I did spend the first mile or so hoping I wouldn't get pounced on by a mountain lion, but it was otherwise a very relaxing (but still sweaty and moderately strenuous) hike. 

About 5 miles in, I was steadily walking along behind an older man, in awe over a) how skinny his legs were, and b) how QUICKLY he could walk! I was actually trotting down the hill at times to prevent falling down, and I still wasn't gaining any ground on him! I did end up finally catching up to him at a crossroads in the trail, and we shared some nice conversation for the last 3.5 miles of the hike. 

The fun part doesn't come later; NOW is the fun part.

After three more weeks, I've got hundreds more pictures and some fun new memories. 

I spent Memorial Day weekend in SoCal (yep, I'm racking up many miles on my little Mazda!) My roommate made the drive with me, as her boyfriend was visiting LA the same weekend! It was kinda nice to spend those hours chatting with someone instead of trying to find a Pandora station to entertain me for five hours!

On Sunday, a small group of us trekked out to Joshua Tree National Park for some outdoor rock climbing. It was mine and Kevin's first time top roping on real rock and not slippery little fake rocks at our respective climbing gyms! Thankfully, we had some experienced friends with us, and it was a BLAST!! I will not deny that I was not excited to look down the first time I made it up the wall, but after that first time, I felt much less nervous :-) Overall, it was an awesome experience, and I can't wait to do it again soon!

SInce I had a weekend to travel in the opposite direction and check out some new sights the following weekend, Megan and I headed to Yosemite! What an amazing place! It was absolutely gorgeous. We hiked up the Mist Trail to Vernal and Nevada Falls, which was quite the workout, but definitely worth it for the awe-inspiring views! The mist from the falls was both refreshing and COLD at the same time. Thankfully, we were smarties about our hike, but one hiker was not so lucky when he took a walk into the river above the waterfall and sadly was swept away. Coincidentally, this tragic accident was witnessed by a couple of our friends who were also in Yosemite that weekend (we didn't know until we both posted pictures from our respective trips..) 

We met some really nice people while camping, which worked out for us since we weren't able to reserve a second night's stay at our site because everything was booked! The campers next to us let us move our tent a few feet over onto their site, and we shared a fire that night and got to know them a little bit (2 from Italy, 1 from France, 1 from San Fran, all there for a weekend of climbing!) One more campsite over, there was a big family there for a week, celebrating a birthday and 

enjoying each other's company. They were STOCKED with enough wood and kindle to give some to us (thanks!) and also offered us lots of food and drink too! In return, Megan offered them some fantastic occupational therapy advice regarding a tendonitis issue ;-)

The next weekend brought me back to San Diego, one of my favorite places in California :-) Thanks, Beth, for letting Kevin and I stay in your awesome new house! We definitely missed hanging out with Mike, since he was out to sea, but it was really great to spend some time with B again! Color me Rad was a super fun 5k, though it was actually only 2.5 miles so... more like a 4.02k. After an awesome nap, a failed trip to REI (the garage sale was the NEXT day, whoops!), and a yummo smoothie, Ali arrived for a ~12 hour visit (YAY!!!) and we all headed out to dinner and downtown to hang out for a late-in-the-week night out (Kevin's birthday week celebration!) 

Amazing weekend to see some Maryland faces (even though one of them is a transplant like me!) and of course, always a fun time with the beau. 

Bring on the next weekend of fun! 

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate”

If I could only use one word to describe Monterey, it would be "beautiful." (If I could use two, I would also use the word, "windy.") There's no denying that California's central coast has a lot to offer outdoors. I've come to think that maybe I don't find Monterey to be a boring place because of the place itself (because honestly, I've been able to find thing to do to occupy myself with and really enjoy myself doing them!), but because of the lack of people I interact with here. 

Thankfully, I've got a great roommate to spend time with though, and another traveling therapist (who also came from Loma Linda!) in nearby San Jose that I was finally able to hook up with this weekend to start enjoying some adventures with!

Natalia (roommate) and I saw 42 on Friday night. It. Was. Awesome. It was not only a great movie, but it really reminded me of how much I love baseball, and of how badly I want to go to a game at Camden Yards! It was also the only movie I've been to where it was absolutely quiet before, during, and after the entire movie - I feel that had a lot to do with the fact that Natalia and I were the youngest movie-goers in the theatre. All the young people appeared to be in the ridiculous line for Star Trek. 

Old barn marking the start of the hike

Saturday, I woke up early to head down to Big Sur for a seven-mile hike. Trail reviews describe the hike as "steep, but doable for anyone with in at least moderate health." California seems to have a different idea that Maryland of what a "moderate" fitness level entails, but it was a great workout, and worth the screaming quads I now have today, for the sweeping views at the top. I chose to hike up the steeper side of the mountain so that I would finish the loop in the shaded sequoia grove at the end of the hike.. turned out to be a good choice, because I can't imagine trying to scramble down that steep hill in the heat! Though there were signs of snake and big animals, I didn't see any. I did see a bunny and a lot of bugs and lizards though! 

Westward view from the top

Next stop... sequoia grove down in the canyon

Headed out of the canyon back toward the bay!

Saturday night, I drove up to San Jose to spend the evening with Megan, another friend from Loma Linda who happens to have come north like me after finishing up there. We went into downtown San Jose and walked around to a few different bars before heading back toward Castro Street, a little strip of stores/bars/restaurants just a mile or two from her apartment. The Sharks won, so hockey fans were out in full force and in good spirits. We were part of a rare minority in regular clothes, not sporting turquoise and black hockey jerseys. 

Weird picture, but big tree! 

I spent another SUPER lazy Sunday relaxing, prepping for another week in the car (aka my office). The highlights of Sunday do include 1) Skype-ing into the May family birthday celebration, and 2) Leeloo (the kitty) bringing us home a furry gift from her outdoor playtime. With much time, a shoebox, a small audience of children offering to "go get my dad to help you," and a small struggle from all involved, we managed to get the little gopher away from the apartment and into the safety of a far-away bush, where he will hopefully stay out of Leeloo's paws!