Earthling's adventures in the Wild West–and beyond!

 

It is field trip time!  Yes, that’s right, I am back from my trip, ready to tell and show all about it!  So kids, get your parents to count this as extra credit, and parents, you get your kids to read it.  After all, I will cover history, geography, science, culture….gee, enough already. Just skip school for the week and read my blog!

My first plane flight–that I remember, that is–was pretty cool!  We had an over an hour flight into Nashville, then an almost four hour flight into Phoenix. It was so STRANGE. In a good way though! Very surreal to me–I know people fly all the time, but to me it was like something from Star Wars–I can’t believe I actually woke up in my own bed, went to an airport, got in an airplane, and a few hours later was across the country!  I liked flying a lot–what can be better than getting to sit down, relax for a few hours, look out at a pretty view, and have people bring you free drinks and snacks whenever you want them to?!  That’s right, nothing!

We did struggle a bit getting ALL our bags in the airport….we were not tired a bit afterwards, though, of course:

 

Okay…maybe a little.

We got into Phoenix, got our bags, rented a car, and drove up to Prescott, which is very near where my great uncle and great aunt live.  We had dinner with them that night (which was incredible to see them! Love them so much, and it was so awesome to be able to see them again and spend time with them).  We were pretty exhausted by that time–the time difference gets to be a handful with kids (and me!).

Next morning we get onto something even more interesting. We went out to breakfast with my aunt and uncle, then they took us to the Grand Canyon.  Wow! It’s definitely…grand! And incredible. And a bit scary, too. But we didn’t lose any children down the side! That is always a good thing.  It was pretty icy and snowy, so instead of going down on the trails, we just stayed up top and amused ourselves by throwing snowballs down the Canyon.  Hehe, never thought I’d do that!  We had fun there, and then going to my aunt and uncle’s house that night.

(Told you there was snow!)

(all of us, except Mom, because someone has to take the picture!)

Sunday, we went to church with my aunt and uncle, then headed out to California.  Wow! I really like Arizona–it’s very pretty!  It is def very different from Maryland, though, especially the part of Maryland I am in! There are no cactus and dry creek beds and mountains in Maryland!  The drive to Cali had the old western movie feel–you know, you are expecting Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday to be riding through the brush all of a sudden!

(It’s a cactus!)

 

(Welcome to California!  Can you believe you have to go through a border station to go from one state to another?!! What happened to simple "you are now in California" signs?)

We got to Palm Springs Sunday night. It’s a neat town–known as the "Playground of the Stars" and "Little Hollywood". Luckily for me, it was the playground of the *old* stars, so I fit right in.  Everybody had a house there–from Frank Sinatra to Elvis to Lucille Ball!  You can tell it, too–down to the names of the streets!

Speaking of streets, let’s take a walk down the main road in Palm Springs.  It’s complete with it’s own little "Walk of Fame"–follow the path of famous stars to all the shops and restaurants along Palm Canyon Drive.

 

If you are lucky, you may even spot some famous people…or what is left of them!

(Lucille Ball statue….we *love* Lucy!)

 (we don’t love Marilyn Monroe. She’s yucky)

Enough of stardom for now.  Let’s head out to Joshua Tree National Park–about 25 miles from Palm Springs. This park contains two deserts–the Colorado and the Mojave. The park is great for climbing, hiking, and wildlife spotting–and not to mention picture taking!

(Mom and Dad)

(It’s a cactus! Yes, I touched it, and yes, it hurt. And yes, I knew it would. Yes, I’m foolish. Happy?)

(awesomeness, it was like a jungle….in the middle of the desert!)

(sunset in the desert)

Of course, while Dad is working, we had to keep ourselves busy without a car.  Mostly, that meant taking advantage of the free breakfast, fruit, popcorn, and coffee (seriously, I think my blood has probably turned into hazelnut flavored coffee, I dosed up on so much!)….but we did hang out at the pool a lot too (and some of us, actually, really mostly just me, did school, but that’s boring!).  The pool was beautiful–there’s something about swimming in a pool surrounded by palm trees with snow covered mountains in the background that is just amazing!

 

Thursday we left Palm Springs. By the way,. Palm Springs is home to a gigantic windmill farm of 3,500 windmills that provide 1.5 % of California electricity.  Aren’t they cool?  Although we decided they looked like they were positioning to attack!  They were all over the place; wish I had a picture that showed more.

 

We arrived in LA early afternoon (despite traffic, getting lost, and crazy drivers).  We didn’t have much time, so all we did was stop in Hollywood to see Grauman’s Chinese Theater (that was my pick, obviously!). We all enjoyed looking at the signatures/footprints/handprints of the stars, and comparing ours to theirs! (no, my feet aren’t as big as Gary Cooper’s, but they are bigger than Johnny Depp’s!) 

Of course, we hadn’t even thought about it, but we went just a couple days before the Oscars.  They were setting everything up for it….we even walked on the red carpet.  We must be a lot more special than the stars at the Oscars, though, because they laid pink plastic over it for us!  Someone even asked if we were here for the Oscars–I was tempted to respond, "Yes, and I have three nominations!"  Someone else thought my little brother looked like Leonardo DiCaprio (huh?).  I tried to sell autographs but no one was fooled. *sigh*  Must be the whole size of a seven year old thing. And then the poor kid was so disappointed when I told him what the person said, because he had thought they said he looked like Leonardo da Vinci!  I’m with him, da Vinci is much more cool! 

 Here’s where I will really bombard you with pics!

Follow the Hollywood Walk of Fame….

 

….all the way to Grauman’s!

(My brothers, me, and my man Darth)

(Let’s play I Spy–who can find the Oscar statue in the background?)

(Look, it’s the theater!)

Finally, the actual footprints (The ones with us in it are here, I’ll add the links to the others so I don’t have you looking at a million pics and you can decide you want to see! Anyway, we’re better looking than signatures and handprints):

 (Seth with Zeppo, Groucho, and Harpo Marx)

(Gregory Peck and me!)

(Seth and John Wayne….surpsingly, he’s got really little feet!)

(Lila and her pal Trigger…and Roy Rogers!)

(Star Trek cast and Seth)

(Lila, Gene Kelly, and I)

(Rosalind Russell)

(Fred Astaire)

(Jimmy Stewart)

(Bob Hope)

(Clark Gable–wow, Sid really must have been a great guy, at least according to Clark AND Henry!)

 

(Irene Dunne, one of my favorite actresses ever!)

(Rex Harrison)

(this is one of my favorite pics I took the entire trip–Lila and Gary Cooper. Her hands are so tiny…and his aren’t, it’s just so adorable!)

(More Gary Cooper–and Mom, Seth, Lila, and Stephen in the background….it case you are wondering, it says "Sid, I got here at last". Kinda how I felt, too!)

and last but not least, who? Could it be?  Possibly?  Oh yes, it’s Cary Grant! (you know that was coming, right?!)

(Very suiting, us ladies with Cary!)

(Hey, I think I’ve played this game. It’s called Twister!)

Wow, I feel horribly vain for posting all these pictures of myself.

 More:

 Stephen’s Feet and Maurice Chevalier

Joan Fontaine–tiny feet!

Forget Sid. I think Henry Fonda is pretty great himself!

William Powell and Myrna Loy

Deborah Kerr

Van Johnson

Donald O’Connor

Ginger Rodgers

Margaret O’Brien

Stephen, Douglas Fairbanks, and I–well, at least our feet!

Mary Pickford–from 1927! Wow!

Olivia de Havilland

Greer Garson

Lana Turner

Elizabeth Taylor–yuck. Sorry Liz fans, I can’t stand her!

Rock Hudson

Johnny Depp–one of two modern day actors I actually took a picture of….

Hard to see, but I assure you this is Frank Sinatra!

Doris Day

The other modern day actor–Harrison Ford. As much as I hate admitting I *love* an actor that isn’t pre-Golden Age…well….there’s Harrison.

  My big disappointments–didn’t see the Hollywood sign and didn’t end up finding Humphrey Bogart’s handprints….and if that’s all, I did pretty good!  

We spent Thursday night somewhere between LA and San Diego (we were very tired, very confused, and I’m still not sure where we were! Hehe!) 

Friday and Saturday were probably my favorite part of the trip, for lots of reasons. Friday we were able to meet up with the Pepito family (some of you may know them through TOS). They are a wonderful missionary family in Mexico.  Mr. Pepito was kind enough to meet us in San Diego and escort us to the border, and down to their house near Tijuana.  We had an incredible time getting to know the family, fellowshipping (is that a word?), playing with the kids, and doing a little work around their house (although I wish we could have done more!). Saturday we went into Tijuana to the orphanage and had a cookout for the kids (we brought some food from the States).

The orphanage is a two bedroom house on a little lot in the city.  I believe there are nine girls and eleven boys all ranging from eighteen months to fourteen. Wonderful children, they were all very friendly and fun!  I’m the only one in my family that speaks any Spanish (and trust me, my Spanish isn’t great!), so i had the advantage. Hehe.  That was very interesting to me, because I’ve studied foreign languages for six years, and I have never used any of them outside of school. I was rather surprised at how well I actually did! No, I wasn’t perfect. But I was able to communicate with the kids (especially the two year olds, our vocab is practically equal! lol!) fairly well, considering. I admit, I’m proud of myself! It gave me a little bit of a thrill to be able to hold a conversation with the children.  It was fun, too–putting my experience with kids AND Spanish to good use!

I found it very funny, as my dad pointed out, that we eat Mexican food at home all the time, yet we got to Mexico and make hamburgers! lol! The kids seemed to like them though, and the really enjoyed the ice cream cones, although some of the younger ones weren’t sure how to tackle them–do you eat them from the point down, do you drink out of them?  Quite a few chocolaty faces after that!

The others did good, too. Lila was delighted that she could say "Hola!" and she actually said it to a few of the children (which is quite something for her, we were very proud of how social she was!) Stephen was rather shy, but some of the older boys were very nice to him so he warmed up a bit after that. Seth was very anxious he wouldn’t be able to learn enough Spanish in time, but he managed a few phrases and jumped right into games with the boys.  I had to do a bit of translating for Mom and Dad–so we managed to pull it off pretty well!

I am so glad we were able to go.  I know we didn’t do much at all to help, but just being able to interact with the kids, make them smile and laugh, and see how appreciative they all were (I have a wallet-full of notes and pictures from various children!) was amazing.  I admit, I wouldn’t have minded taking some of them home!  There was one little boy, about two, that totally attached himself to me.  He followed me around and was only content if I was holding him or playing with him. I bet I had to put him down a dozen times when we were leaving because he kept coming up to me and holding on to my legs and crying until I picked him up. I don’t blame him, I didn’t want me to leave either!

I would really like to go back sometime, for longer.  Maybe when my Spanish gets better!  It’s something I really feel like I can do, with my love for kids (and my experience, between being at home and working at the pre-school), my love of languages, and frankly, my love of cultures! I have never been to Mexico before, and despite it being void of a lot of American conveniences, I liked it.  Everything was so simple there, and yes, although there was a lot of poverty (in American thinking, anyway) and Tijuana isn’t exactly the safest city, it was rather refreshing.  It made coming back to American a more interesting experience.

Speaking of coming back, I have to rant over border security. Terrible.  They hardly checked anything, opened the door of the car and glanced in.  Sorry, lousy security is my pet peeve. It gets on my nerves everywhere–from the White House to airport to Disney world–so what if it’s harder, takes more time, etc?  I guess I’m just odd like that–my parents said I’m the only one who complains that the border wait is too SHORT!

(sunset over the Pacific)

(doing dishes at the Pepito’s)

(the orphanage)

(me and my buddy. see, told you he had to be with me every second!)

(she was a wonderful little girl, talked my ear off, although bless her heart, I only understood about half of what she said!)

(yum, time to eat!)

(Boys enjoying game of soccer. Seth’s in the green and white striped shirt)

(is this little fellow cute or what? He fell asleep when I was pushing him on the swings outside–I’ve never seen anything so funny! I was pushing him and his head was dropping down more and more, till I realized he was asleep and took him off and held him. lol!)

(waiting at the Border)

Went back to the States and had a culture shock by going to Disney.  I’ve been to Disney in Florida as a kid, but this is the first time since I was seven. It was a much different outlook–I felt like I was seeing it more through the eyes of a parent.  Kinda nerve wracking! Too many people, too many kids to keep an eye on. Too many crazy rides that involve you losing your lunch, and too many little brothers dragging you on 50 foot plunge drops and whatnot.  Thank you, I think I prefer the sweet little boats that go gently through the water while the people around you sing!

It was also interesting in comparison to Mexico. I have nothing against Disney, but after being at an orphanage it was a bit sickening.  It wouldn’t be so bad if Disney advertised themselves as entertainment.  But instead they’ve bought into this "we’re here to make life happier for millions, fulfill dreams, etc" and all that garbage. Uh, no, you aren’t.  Sorry.  Disney isn’t a ministry. It’s a theme park to have fun, not to change your life!

Nonetheless, I enjoyed it.  We did a lot, a whole lot more than I did when we went as a kid–although carrying water bottles around made me miss the days when we threw everything into a stroller (or two, at some times!).  I think my favorite were the Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars rides, but there was a lot of neat stuff. 

 

(oh, she thinks she’s SO funny!)

(wow, it’s actually a good picture of all of us. What a change!)

(Mickey’s house….it’s bigger than I remembered!)

(I think she found a friend)

(and another one. I was scared of her though (come on, what naturally unscary person wears that much eye shadow?)….that being the Queen, not Lila. Although she can be pretty scary too.)

Monday we drove back to Palm Springs, as Dad had more work to do there.  We kinda took it easy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday–although Tuesday Mom and I went all adventurous. We went out for dessert.

Let me rephrase that. We went out to dessert at Cary Grant’s house. 

Did you get that? I had dessert at Cary’s!

Yep, that’s right, Copley’s on Palm Canyon–once Cary Grant’s bungalow, but now a high class restaurant. (too high class for us, we just went for dessert.  We are both too cheap to eat dinner there; we went to Panda Express beforehand!)

It was pretty awesome.  Truly the best ice cream in the world! And banana coconut cake…yummy! Quite an experience.  Now I’m truly a nutcase….when I’ve dropped by my favorite actor’s house for a snack! 

(yum, take a look at that food!)

(the outside)

(this was hanging across from the men’s room (WHAT?!!?), Mom had to take a pic…or two..or more like six!)

We left Thursday.  The flight home was pretty uneventful….well, until we got to BWI, picked up all our baggage, couldn’t find my bag.  They lost a whole bunch of bags from our flight.  I was trying to figure out how I was going to survive with the one pair of underwear I had left at home until they could ship my bag, when they found it. Phew.  Guess it was better to lose it there than at Phoenix, though!  Then the big shock came–we stepped outside. NOOOO! It’s freezing in Maryland!  We had 70 degree weather, if not hotter, most of our trip.  We step outside in MD and it’s 25. Yuck. I already miss wearing sandals and shorts!

Well, I guess that’s about all of my adventures on this trip. If you actually stuck with all of this, you officially go on my wall of fame. Or I could just get your footprints and signatures in cement blocks and place them outside of my house a la Grauman’s!

I cannot believe we actually were gone two weeks! It all is a bit of a blur–it doesn’t even feel like we were gone! I think that might have to do with the fact that we flew–the whole "heading home" thing took a few hours, rather than three days.  Kinda sad!  Anyway, it’s probably time for me to go–after all I have loads of laundry and unpacking to do! I need to get back to the real world–in other words, I know how have to make my own breakfast once again!