The Innocents Abroad

Maybe not abroad.
I'll start at the beginning. After finals, I had two weeks to kill before my friend Ambrea's wedding. About half of that time I spent alone in my sister's abandoned apartment. For the most part, I was proud of my ability to function by myself, but there were a few times my bravery faltered. There was a particularly terrifying experience involving the spider that would not die (seriously. I stabbed it with a knife, and nothing. Eventually I trapped it under a pepper mill). There were multiple times I was scared to enter the bathroom because I thought a murderer would pop out of the shower, but I figured that if a murderer was hiding in there he would've killed me hours earlier. And then there would be a moment of self-pity when I realized what a pathetic thought that was. It was a long week.
The next portion of my time was spent on a road trip with my friends Katie and Kristin, also waiting for the wedding. Our parents (or in my case, entire extended family) doubted our capability to drive from Utah to California, but we pulled it off with the greatest of ease...

The car ride

Our first day of driving (Provo - Sacramento) was a long one. Most of the time I was in a state of silent panic. Eventually I relaxed, though. We set up some rules for the trip in advance that could be created or vetoed with a 2/3 vote. They included: no smelly feet, no loud snacks, grumps and sasses go on the roof, no excessive pining, no shrieking, all tension must be hugged out (hand hugs sometimes acceptable), and a 10 minute accumulative accent limit. We broke almost every condition at least once.

1. The license plate game: Kristin was our most enthusiastic license plate spotter. She wrote a list of all the states and we checked them off as we spotted them - she may have misspelled Florida, but she did spot it. And now we use "Flordia" as a sort of pet name for the state.
2. Sometimes road trip snackin' is neither good nor good for you. Katie was pretty excited about this chunk of flavor blasted goldfish that didn't get cut into fish form.
3. We invented a little game called the Jelly Belly game, where Katie closes her eyes and sticks out her tongue and I select the grossest flavor of Jelly Belly I can find to drop in there. It was fun until I ran out of anything but the purple ones that taste like laundry, which seemed to anger Katie. I don't know why.

Quotes:

Katie: "Please don't run over me, kind sir."

Kristin: "Let's play more Josh Groban so I can sing more riffs."

Katie: (jokingly) "It's only speeding if you're going faster than the cars around you."
Anne: "WE BELIEVE IN BEING SUBJECT TO KINGS, PRESIDENTS, RULERS, AND MAGISTRATES AND IN OBEYING, HONORING, AND SUSTAINING THE LAW."(12th Article of Faith)

San Francisco

We were lucky enough to spend a whole day in San Francisco with Katie's siblings! The pictures basically speak for themselves. We had kind of an episode trying to get on a trolley, which ended up just being a bus. Oops. We named it a scareventure. It turned out to be kind of a funventure, though. My favorite part of the day was going to this pretty beach with a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was such a contrast to the bustling city.

SoCal

SoCal might have been my favorite part of the trip. We stayed with a friend we met at college for a couple nights, and got a full day at the beach.
1. Sometimes when you have a game night you get too competitive and have to draw unicorns to calm yourself down so as not to get all up in others' grills. A pretty good unicorn for a first try, eh?
2. What's that lump being attacked by seagulls, you might ask? Why, it's me and Katie hiding under a blanket. It was overcast on beach day, so we laid under a blanket while kristin and the boys played frisbee. But then they got the bright idea to throw flavor blasted goldfish at us to attract tons of birds to our safe-haven. I'm usually not afraid of birds, but when their wings start hitting you and they torpedo towards your face, it gets real.
3. This was after we got up the courage to flee our blankety warmth being dive-bombed by seagulls. Not cool, Kris.
4. I guess I smile when I'm terrified? Maybe I was putting on a brave face so the seagulls wouldn't sense my fear.
After that incident, we had a nice bonfire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and whatnot. I could get used to beach life. Even on overcast days.
(sidenote: if I'm in the picture, it's Kristin's. If not, it's mine)

Quotes:

Katie: "It's in point eight miles."
Kristin: "No! It's in zero point eight miles!"

Anne: "Do you think we see mirages of temples because we want to get married so bad?"

#califunventure