Chick Road Trip

My BFF Linda and I have been friends for almost 42 years, give or take.  I now live in Arizona, she's still in Nebraska.  So we try to get together every year, either here or there.  When she comes out here, sometimes we take a side trip.  When she was here in 2012, we drove over to California.....with my husband John as our chauffeur.  Bad idea.  So this year, we tried again, sans John.

Much better.

We had no hotel reservations, no idea where the hell we were going, and only two definite plans: take the TMZ tour we missed the first time around and join the audience for a live taping of "The Talk" - a totally "chick" show.   We left on Friday, Oct. 18 and headed to
San Diego.

The drive over there is relatively simple.  Get in your car and head West on I-10 then get on I-8.  Before you know it, you're there.  

Unless you're talking the entire time.  Then, while you're discussing driving through the many immigration check points, you accidentally drive through a weigh station.  Yeah, I did.  But we were courteous.  We slowed down and gave them the "Queen in a parade" wave.  I'm sure they thought we were idiots.  We didn't care - we were having fun!

When we got to San Diego, we were looking for the PCH - Pacific Coast Highway.  We wanted to drive up to LA with beach views all the way.  Except...here's where a little planning may have come in handy.....the PCH doesn't go through San Diego.  After looking for it for, say, an hour, we finally deciphered the map and were on our way.

First stop - Oceanside.  Have I mentioned the first thing on my Bucket List is to live in California for at least a year before I die?  I have now decided Oceanside is where I want to be.  It's gorgeous.  We walked out to the end of the Pier and had a shake, pie and brownies at Ruby's.  Hey - we were on VACATION - nothing you eat on vacation has any calories.  It's a beautiful city.  I even spotted a house for sale that would do.  It was turquoise and on the side of a hill overlooking the beach.  However, the sign said 6.5 mil, so we just slowly drove past and sighed.
 
We chose a really nice LaQuinta Inn at a great price and settled in.  Did you know that hotels now have Papa John's coupons on their plastic key cards?  Yep - that was our dinner.  And breakfast the next day!

Vacation-on-the-fly doesn't suck!  More to come.......