March 30th to April 6th
Negotiating marriage (which let’s face it….is a much bigger and more important negotiation than any of us non-world leaders will experience) this past year included agreeing to plan a camping trip. It’s no secret that I don’t love camping. But that’s pretty much B’s favorite thing to do, along with mountain biking, skiing and working on his pond. Last summer he planned our trip to Sweden. It was supposed to include a concert to attend, but the electronic dance concert he found for us to attend cancelled. Is there a true consensus on what makes marriages work, let alone, what makes the best marriages when it comes to hobbies? Do you have to enjoy the same things or is individuality and differences the glue that holds you together? I don’t know the answer but 30 years in, since we don’t enjoy the same hobbies, we are doing a lot of negotiating. It’s probably more important to negotiate respectfully, have the same values and a sense of humor….
Since I was heading out to Pismo Beach anyway when spring break started, I planned that B and the twins would bring B’s new camper van toy he bought himself for Christmas, and they’d meet me out there and we’d go set up camp on the beach. I loved that I had two nights on my own in a hotel room with a nice big bathtub and comfortable bed before they picked me up and we embarked on our camping adventure.
As they drove down I-15, they started off at Calico mine, where B has very fond memories of the legend of losing his brother Steve in the mine. I got a text from Ari asking if B had a brother named Steve. The Taylors have many legends, two of the favorites are losing their brother Steve in a mine and finding Paul in a tortilla factory. We have one more year with the twins home, B feels the need to share all the stories he may not have shared with them.
They also found a very twilight zone-ish store called Eddy World that they were legitimately worried they wouldn’t be able to escape from out in the middle of nowhere along 1-15. It’s worth a stop at if you are driving by. We don’t really know what the mascot of the store was. Of course, they had to take me to it on the way back.
After they picked me up at my retreat, we headed to find our camping spot. I assumed it was right on the beach – but glad that it was within walking distance of the beach and we had bathrooms and showers available to us. TT set up his tent he got for Christmas a couple years ago and it drew a lot of attention from passersby.
Ari and I did some coloring, we played some Monopoly – B beat us every single time – even when we tried to gang up on him – (he’s definitely got a gift for understanding how to win in business), we threw a frisbee (where I actually learned how to do it correctly and didn’t look like a total idiot out there), listened to music, hunted for pinecones to burn since our firewood was a little on the hard-to-get-it-to-burn side. We attempted to ride the sand dunes in a polaris, not realizing that you do not want to ride those sand dunes in anything but a very low to the ground dune buggy. I bailed very early and Ari followed suit. You have to be 30 to drive those things, so B driving and TT as a passenger did their best to enjoy it. If there is a next time, or if you are reading this and are going to Pismo beach – rent a very low to the ground – almost impossible to flip dune buggy!
Ari & I did some coloring 
On Wednesday, we decided to leave our Pismo beach spot and drive south. It was supposed to start raining and we wanted to miss it. We ended up in Malibu for one night. The camp grounds there were all burned out from the forest fires, so we stayed in a funny little Inn on top of a cliff with the steepest driveway ever. We went to Neptune’s Net for shrimp. The twins had fun looking in caves and tide pools, rock climbing and body surfing at Leo Carillo. I’m pretty sure that’s their favorite beach. When they came out last spring break and stayed with Master D, that’s where they went too. They’ve officially decided they like Malibu better than Huntington. They didn’t fight with each other to the point of being unbearable. And I hope they have good memories from being there. It keeps hitting me smack in the face how little time we have left being parents of minors. I’m certainly not foolish enough to believe that’s when parenting ends, that’s just when the novelty of believing you have any control ends.
What would my blog be without a photo of a flower and some of the reality checks? On Thursday, it started to rain in So Cal, so we headed back towards St. George wanting to miss the traffic of Vegas on the weekend. It ended up that there were zero available camping spots in St. George and I absolutely refuse to park in a Walmart parking lot to spend the night. TT claimed he wasn’t tired at all, so we let him drive. I might as well have driven because it wasn’t like I could sleep making sure he didn’t fall asleep and we pulled in to home sweet home at 1:00 am reminding me how much I really dislike long ugly road trips. Aub had come to visit anyway, so it was good to get back and hang out with her. And just so it’s written, I’m convincing myself that I got a lot of camping credit.