Home Again!

I spent this last weekend in sunny California and I had a blast! A girl from my ward invited me to come along on a trip to Southern California so we could all go to the Price is Right.

Thursday:
We left Thursday evening with 4 boys, 4 girls, and 2 cars. We got about an hour south of home and one of the cars ran out of gas. The other car came to the rescue with a gas can but then the car wouldn't start. We got to hang out on the side of the road for a couple of hours for the whole fiasco and ended up getting the car towed back up north. The two owners of the car could no longer come with us and one of the boys volunteered to stay behind. So, 5 of us squished into the remaining car and continued on our way.

Friday:
We drove all night and drove straight to the beach. We spent most of Friday on Newport Beach playing in the water and sand. I got a bit of reading in and a very interesting sunburn. Even though I put sunblock on and reapplied, I ended up with my yearly odd sunburn. This one consisted of stripes across the backs of my knees, a very splotchy burn all over my back, and a white stripe on my shoulder. That night we camped at a state park where we had an interesting run in with power ranger girl and her fire regulating abilities. I guess you kind of had to be there for that one.

Saturday:
Saturday morning we headed to a local Starbucks to charge our phones for a bit and to try and use the internet. We then went to Six Flags Magic Mountain. We were there from basically opening to closing. We wanted to hit all of the rides in the park but the lines were much too long to meet our goal. I really enjoyed the rides we went on especially Tatsu (you're parallel to the ground doing all sorts of loops and curls, it feels like you are flying) and Dejavu (you basically do the ride twice, the second time backwards). That night, we stayed with the family of a guy that was in our ward. The boys slept downstairs in the living room and the girls shared a king sized bed upstairs. It was a little cramped but we were so tired and it was much more comfortable than the sleep we had the night before.

Sunday:
We attended church in Santa Clarita in the single's ward our friend attends. We only went to the first two hours as we had to get moving along. We were able to announce that we had extra tickets to the Price is Right and got a few very excited people that asked to go along with us. We then headed down towards LA and to our hotel. We spent the rest of the evening driving and walking around Hollywood. I now have a new boyfriend...some creepy guy said, "Goodbye, Love" to me as we walked past him...it was interesting.

Monday:
We woke up early and headed to CBS studios. We got there early and waited for the rest of our group to show up. We had to have at least 15 people show in order to use our guaranteed tickets to get in. We got really nervous as it was getting closer for the deadline and we still had a few people left to show. We did get in. It took forever to go through all of the processing. they had us fill out information cards, take our pictures, and interview each person before we went in. The studio is really tiny. On TV it looks huge with tons of people when really only 325 people are sitting in the audience and the stage is slightly larger than what you might find in a high school auditorium where there were always at least five to ten people on stage but off camera at all times. You can't hear any of what Rich Fields is saying so when they call people down they have to hold up cue cards with their names on them to let them know who they are calling down. My friend who organized the whole trip ended up being called down and got on stage to win a trip to Florida. It was fun. After the show, we quickly grabbed a bite to eat then headed toward home. We rolled into town just before 3 am. Let's just say that I was very happy I did not have to work the next day so I slept in until 1 pm.

I had a great time and am so glad I decided to go. I wish I could go on roadtrips with friends more often.

Of course, this is also the second time I was within 4-5 hours of home this summer and I haven't made it home yet. I do plan on extending a trip to get me there this October, so I just have to wait until then!