Happy Spainiversary!

Tomorrow, my sister and I are headed down to Oakhurst, CA to visit one of my very best friends, Tori, for a celebration we call "Compostella Day." January 28th, 2007 I completed a 500 mile pilgrimage with these two women in Spain: the Camino de Santiago. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I'm going to spend the next two days reminiscing about it. If I haven't ever told you about it (which is unlikely) please ask! I love sharing the stories. For now, Buen Camino a todos!

This day last year...

On this day last year, I was on my way with two of my best friends, Tori and Rachel, to Spain. That was so good. What a way to start a year-- a pilgrimage, a soul search, adventures with friends. Every year should start off like that. Of course, I don't have the money or the time to do it this year. But what about a mini-pilgrimage? What can I do? Climb Half Dome? Probably not. Any ideas?

"Firebaugh, You Might Just Get Stuck Here!"

Alright, here's an adventure story for everbody! If you have read Rachel's Blog recently you will have read a little bit about the "Santa Barbara" trip that occurred this past weekend. I put that in quotations because we made it as far as Firebaugh (or just south of a truck stop losely related to Firebaugh proper) and ended up on the side of the road for a few hours and over night in the lovely Best Western, Apricot Inn sharing a king bed. The next day we had ourselves a tour of 2 out of the 4 gas stations, the park, the market, the cotton fields and the historic van before being picked up by Heather's dad and grandpa. Come to find out (via the visitors' binder in our hotel room that looked like it had been written by a 6th grader) Firebaugh has a history of things getting stuck there, like us, the historical van, and a river boat in the early 20th century. No adventure is complete without photo documentation so here are some of the best moments from our weekend on the outskirts of hell.

Here's Rachel with the bleeding van.

Just one example of how we entertained ourselves.

You've heard of picture in picture, well here is broken down van in broken down van.

Just look at our sweet ride!