This week I got to travel for work. OH ...right...I'm an auditor, I "travel" a lot for work. But REALLLLLLY this week I actually traveled in a cool kind of way instead of driving to small town USA town in Ohio. This week I got to travel to CALIFORNIA. Yes traveling for work does entail working, but i was able to fit a couple of few things in and an even more amount of work in.
Since my husband has been working for about 100 days in a row without a break (ok ok, that might be a little exaggerated, he has worked like 16 days in a row without a day off) i decided that I could leave a little bit early to go on my work trip. So on Sunday morning I drove myself to the long-term parking at the Columbus airport and headed out west! Ok well first I made a stop in Chicago to change planes and then head on our to San Jose. Never once have I worked on a plane before but on this flight i ended up working for 2 1/2 hours which definitely helped to pass the time quickly. It's amazing how much work you can get done when you literally cannot move anywhere (aka being trapped in the window seat) and having no internet access or people to talk to (60 year old woman next to me fell asleep while reading for like half the flight).
Once I arrived in San Jose I wasn't quite to my destination. I had to drive to Paso Robles, CA! That was about 2 1/2-3 hours away. However my awesome friend Eric and Danielle from California had kinda mentioned things for me to do. But i was soooo hungry I just got on the 101 (the boring highway) to find food, it took me like 30 minutes to find one, ya know since you can't use you cell phones while driving. boo. I stopped at In n' out. I had never been there before and the burger was delish! The fries and milkshake I got were meh, slightly disappointing. PS I felt so cool eating by myself while everyone else was sitting with friends and family like a normal person would on a Saturday.
So since I had already messed up my sight seeing plans I called up Eric and Danielle again and told them where I was. I really only wanted to see the ocean for a little bit, I missed it. So they told me the best plan for my time was to head on down the 101 and drive about 40 minutes passed my final destination to Pismo Beach.
I was off! The drive was pretty boring. Flat areas with big brown hills in the distance and tons and tons of farms with fresh produce. OH and people in this part of California drive S-L-O-W! I felt like a speed demon at 80 mphs!
Once I arrive at Pismo beach I was so excited to go to the beach I grabbed my camera, purse and sweatshirt and headed to the beach. I had wanted to at least change into shorts or maybe my bathing suit but my excitement over took me and I could only focus on the beach!
Once I got to the beach I wasn't really sure what to do. What does one do when they are at the beach alone? I had definitely never been to the beach alone before. So I just started walking up the shore towards the gorgeous white rock wall (these walks were super chalky!). Since I still had my travel clothes on I had jean capris on and they definitely got soaked from walking in the water, plus I was holding all of this junk that I decided was necessary for me to carry. At one point I had dropped my sweatshirt and didn't even realize it for a few minutes and had to walk back and rescue it from the surf!
It really was peaceful being there on my own though. Especially with low cell phone battery, I had nothing to distract me and I enjoyed myself and took pictures.
After my walk I just plopped down on the beach and watched all the surfers that were magically coming out of the woodwork, it was around 5:30 or 6 at this point.
After realizing it would be getting dark soon and I wasn't sure where the hotel was I headed on back to Paso Robles.
Paso Robles is a super cute little city. It is a wine country city with vineyards surrounding on the country. It is basically precious.
Most days we worked until 6 and would go eat some seriously wonderful food. If you know auditing life, or at least mine, you would know that normally the food we have during audits is a chain food restaurant or mediocre mexican restaurant, as these are the only options. In Paso Robles the only options are places that menus mainly consist of steak and fresh fish. HEAVEN for someone that likes to eat like me!
After work on Wednesday, my coworkers decided they needed to do some work in the hotel so I took it upon myself to be brave and go to the Paso Wine Centre (which was recommended by my amazing friend Charlie!). They have over 48 wines to taste and it is a self serve style. I purchased a $10 sampling card and was able to taste 7 different wines while enjoying a large cheese plate with crackers and almonds. I had some great conversation with the lady that worked there for about half an hour, seeing that I was the only one in the Centre (it is not the towns busy time of the year). I ended up buying 2 bottles of wine; a red and a white and i hope i'm able to get them back to Ohio without breaking. OH I also happened to somehow lose my credit card in this process. Luckily no strange purchases!
Tonight we had another fancy dinner. Do you know that I had steak TWICE this week. Hanger steak monday and Filet Mignon tonight. I NEVER ORDER STEAK. not cause I don't want to spend the money or anything I just never crave it, but since I knew the quality would be exceptional I guess my body knew that I had to have it, and my body was soooo right both steak experiences were exceptional!
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| So many great local wines! |
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| delicious and fancy sushi everywhere too! |
Now I need to pack so that I can make my very LONG trek back east. Flight leaves tomorrow at 7:40pm which means a super early arrival into Ohio at 5:50 AM....ick....hopefully some sleeping happens on the plane as I do have amazing plans to look forward to this weekend. WICKED in Louisville with Kara Saturday afternoon and then throwing a baby shower with my friend Liz for Catherine on Sunday!!
(the only downside to returning is that Michael will not be there!...sad face, we will go over a whole week without seeing each other and barely even talking considering by the time I'm done working Michael has normally fallen asleep).
That sounds like a fun trip! I have a friend who went on vacation on her own, and she said it was so interesting to do stuff you normally do with others alone. I hope you get some quality time with Michael soon.
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