Trip to California from the Dayton group

Santa Monica with Terry Mahoney

Justin and Stephanie in LA

The Cancer Survivors Statue and Park with Leslie by the sign

Hello Family!

Justin and I ventured across country to deliver Stephanie's car to her in Los Angeles, CA. We had 10 days to do this in and made the most of it. We started by meeting Leslie and Mark in Kansas City, MO for the first night. They were at a beautiful place called Club Plaza, an area of old spanish buildings and shops. The amazing thing was, right across from their hotel was the Cancer Survivors Park. It was a beautiful park with a statue of people being newly diagnosed entering the maze of treatment and coming out of the maze victorious. I got some great pictures of it and one with Leslie standing by the wall...she is victorious!!!! We had a great visit with them and enjoyed our first night on our trip.

From there we drove to Grand Junction Colorado where we stopped to see a friend of mine from high school briefly, then ventured on to stay in Denver for our second night. The mountains were beautiful, we stopped at many sight seeing places and took pictures. The next day we drove to Las Vegas. On our venture there we stopped at a sight seeing spot and our car was spitting out all kinds of liquids. Justin and I not knowing much about cars were a little freaked out by this. We tried our cell phones to call AAA but had no phone service. Justin said he just saw a sign that said no services for 100 miles.......great. So we are in the middle of the desert, it is at least 110 degrees, no phone service and no service stations. As we tried to figure out what to do an Indian man truck driver brought us a jug to fill up with water for the radiator thing. There were a lot of people stopping to sight see and not one of them offered any help. There was an Indian couple selling jewelry there. She had been observing us white folk looking lost so she came over to offer her help. She said we overheated and we just have to wait until it cools down then add water. We had the jug to fill up with water but unfortunately there was no running water at this stop. Thank goodness we had a 24 pack of drinking water in our back seat, so we used that. She told us not to run our a/c going up the mountains....we learned a lot from that ole woman...so I had to buy some jewelry of course. As I observed only the Indians were helpful to us!!

We made it to Las Vegas a lot later than expected and were very tired but had to stay up, drink a beer and gamble a little like all the rest of the people there. We stayed at NY NY where Greg and Sheryl often stay and it was wonderful. I would like to go back as there is a lot to see and we just saw a small portion of it. Nevada and Utah were beautiful to drive through but unbearably hot, especially because we were scared to use our a/c going up the mountains. On our drive we hit a torrential rain storm. I was driving and decided I cannot see anymore so we pulled over and planned to switch drivers. Justin had a good plan, I hop over to the passenger seat he gets in the back then hops into the drivers seat....good idea. The only problem was I forgot to push back the seat and he almost got stuck trying to squeeze his long body into the seat, very funny sight, good picture.

We made it to LA the next day. We went to Stephanie's apartment first which she shares with a friend near USC campus. It was a nice place they had with a pool. It was so nice to see her, she seems happy there. We ventured through LA that night and she stayed with us at the motel. The next day was the memorial service for Michael Jackson. We were right down the street from the Staples center and walked around mixing with all the fans and buying t-shirts on the street corners. It was sad and subdued, not the crowd they expected. I have never seen so many police officers in one place before.

While we were there we visited several beaches. We visited with Terry Mahoney in Santa Monica and went out to dinner with him. He drove us around and gave us a tour, it is a beautiful area. It was great to see him and catch up on family news. He looks great and seems very happy there.

We ate a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. from the movie Forrest Gump, it was fun. We went to Hollywood and saw all the stars on the sidewalk. The most interesting thing we did was go to Venice Beach. This is a very fun place to go. It is a boardwalk of all kinds of interesting people doing interesting things for a little money. Reminds me of Yellow Springs but a lot more far out than that. See the pictures of the guy holding the sign, on the other side of the sign it says "I can't lie, really I just want a beer". Very fun place.

We had a wonderful trip and it was great to see Stephanie and spend time with her. The weather out there is beautiful and seems to agree with her much more than this midwestern weather. She is currently looking for a job, now that she has her car it will make it easier.

Our love to all,

Beth, Justin and Stephanie