Rekindling Old Ties

Sunday for our second day of the trip Orion and I got to meet Loren's sister Becky for the first time.  She had flown down to be with us for a part of this trip.  It was most momentous as Orion had spoken on the phone but never met his Aunt Becky.  She lives in New York and so arranging a meeting easily was not realistically doable.  At breakfast he wanted to sit next to Grandma and Aunt Becky.  He was very affectionate and seemed taken with his Aunt Becky.

Later we went to visit Loren's Aunt and cousins.  They live up a canyon about 45 minutes outside of Anaheim.  We had quite the adventure trying to get to their house.  I told Loren parts of it felt like a cross between Park City and rural France.  It only lacked the stones walls topped with broken glass to keep the vagrants/vandals out.

It was a nice visit.  Loren's cousin Gara was a nice hostess and had quite a large lunch prepared for us.  He husband is a fix-in guy and loves to haunt flea markets, garage sales and estate sales.   The property was decorated with many of of his finds and treasures.  They even had two chandeliers that a client had him switch out which he had arranged under a trellis/a-framed arched gateway.  It was very charming the way they had things arranged.  He regaled us with stories of how his grandfather acquired the property for $500 then the house in two pieces each for $25.

Orion was very taken with a hot-rod tricycle he found.  They had it tricked out with many of the same accents of a red corvette convertible from the 1950's.  It had the bullet-style lights, chrome and fenders reminiscent of the cars from that era.

A New Adventure

In the last year much has happened and changed in my life.  It has been an emotional roller coaster and I have learned a lot about the kind of person I am.  After being divorced I have been thrown back into the single pool.

I am dating a kind and patient man with a little boy.  We recently left on a trip to California together with his family.  Anyone who has driven with a six-year-old understands the challenges of bathroom breaks and boredom.  We had a good time listening to imaginary games and talking about going to California and seeing the Pacific Ocean.

It is amazing how a child's concept of space and time is so different from that of an adult.  We used a map to try to explain where we were going and how long it would take.  Unfortunately it was still not enough to allay the eventual question: "How much longer?"

Our planned destination and the highlight of our trip was kept a secret from Orion.  However I made efforts to be as subtly festive as possible.

As we drove across the mountains in Nevada we saw amazing rock formations, the beautiful layering of hills and mountains.  We even took time to stop for fifteen minutes and enjoy the magnitude of the stars in sky and show Orion the Milky Way and his own constellation.  We saw an incredible rainbow sunset.

In my many years of car trips I have learned to sleep and rest and enjoy the ride.  Orion surprisingly however did not fall asleep until we specifically told him to rest his eyes after we crossed the Californian border.

With the government shutdown last week the checkpoint was eerily unmanned.  I expected to have our bananas confiscated for sure.  We finally got into Anaheim around 10:30 PM Pacific time.  It was nice to settle in after a long 12 hour long drive.