Lalig and I went to Abalone Cove in Palos Verdes yesterday.  It is an area along the Souther California coast with beautiful views and a great place to explore.  At low tide you can check out the tide pools which are full of life, including crabs, snails, urchins and starfish.  It is a bit of a hike to get down to the beach.  There’s a parking lot which charges $5 and you can then hike down the long trail to the main area of Abalone Cove.  Once we got down there, we wanted to explore the area more and ended up doing some more hiking to get to the other side of Portuguese Point and found that side to be much cooler.  We also figured out what to do next time to reduce the up & down steep hikes we took the first time around.  Basically, from the parking lot, you walk back to the road and take a right and follow the road until you get to a trail which will be identified by the large pipes which run down towards the beach.  Follow that trail all the way down and you’ll come to the beach area.  The hike was a bit of work, so don’t bring too much stuff and be prepared to explore.  Just check the tide charts because at high tide there isn’t much beach to be found.

Here is some of what we saw:

So Lalig and I made it back to Boston for the first time since we left in December….it was a great trip and good to be back home.

 What were the highlights you ask?

• Stella’s Pizza - pepperoni fresh out of the oven (good pizza places in LA are few and far between)
• Watching Melanie spend a lot of time blowing up Big Blue Island at the beach and floating on it with her on a windy day with choppy seas.
• Relaxing at the beach in Dennisport for many days (which is all I really wanted to do after studying for most of the past 7 months)
• Hanging with the various peeps at the Cape and in Boston
• A stomach bulging meal at The Village Smokehouse with the boys
• A great meal at The Ocean House (I had the Niman Ranch Pork Chop and it was delicious!)
• Several visits to Sundae School for some delicious, homemade ice cream

Overall it was a great time.  The only downside was that I didn’t get to see my nieces and nephews as much as I would have liked, but we’ll make up for that in the fall.

….studying for the exam.

Coming so close to passing last time only makes me more upset as the exam gets closer.  Had the graders been more generous with their scoring of my essays, just ever so slightly, then I would be enjoying myself right now doing something fun instead of stressing out, trying to cram more info into my head and worrying about having to do this again if it doesn’t go my way this time. (ok…I guess I need to take some responsibility as well and I can’t put all the blame on the graders - but right now I hope you’ll indulge my need to vent!)

I figure that whoever graded my essays is probably enjoying the summer weather right now…maybe sitting on the beach somewhere.  I hope they get a rash in an uncomfortable place which lasts for several days.

It’s the weekend…after a long week of work and studying I think I’ll study some more.  In fact, I’ll just spend the whole weekend studying.  And when I take a break from studying, I can stress out about the fact that I’m not studying.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

2 weeks to go.  Life still sucks.  I’m sick of studying and sick of not being able to do anything fun.

On the plus side, I did have In-N-Out for dinner last night.  A Double-Double Animal Style really can (and did) hit the spot!!

It’s been a while since I updated the blog.  I have a lot to say and not much to say all at the same time.  So here goes.

The CA bar exam sucks.  Studying for it sucks, stressing about it sucks, worrying about it sucks, paying for it sucks, giving up all my free time so I can study sucks, having to rearrange life around it sucks, talking about it sucks, being consumed by it sucks, the incredibly low average pass rates suck, taking it the first time and coming ever so short of a passing score really, really sucks.  Basically, it completely sucks.  But it is what it is, I’m not the only one to have gone through it, and it will be over soon…..hopefully over forever, but regardless of the result, it’ll at least be temporarily over at the end of July.

And with that, before I get back to my sucky time studying while everyone else is out enjoying themselves, I leave you a quote from the late Coach Wooden which serves as my motto and mantra for the next 4 weeks: “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”

• Today is Monday and is the last night of our road trip.  We started the day in Santa Fe, New Mexico, checked out of the hotel and went to the historic downtown area to see a few more sights and grab a bite before heading Westward to Arizona.  We could have driven straight to LA, but didn’t really want to drive 13+ hours.  The plan was to head to Flagstaff, AZ for the night and finish the trek, but Lalig came up with a good plan of heading to Sedona, AZ for the night instead of Flagstaff.  We stopped for dinner in Flagstaff at a place called Collin’s, an Irish pub.  We felt it appropriate to eat there since Kieran had called us from overseas that morning!  After dinner, we drove about 30 miles to Sedona through a very cool and very winding road through the mountains, arriving here around 11:30pm.  We checked in to the hotel and then went out to take some pictures of the night sky.  The sky is unbelieveable here - with countless stars.  We saw several shooting stars but weren’t able to capture any of them on film.
• Items of Note for today:
  • Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the US and is the highest state capital in terms of elevation.
  • We stopped at a scenic overlook off of Route 40 near Laguna, NM that overlooked a town that had an old Spanish Mission Church - we think it was called the San Gabriel Mission - but I’ll have to do some more research to find out exactly what it was.
  • We crossed through the Navajo and Hopi Reservations in NM.
  • Once again, no one we meet is from around here.  We met a woman who worked at an Indian Trading Post store along the highway and it turns out she is from Ipswich, MA.  She didn’t seem to want to tell us how she ended up in NM, but she said she misses the seafood the most.
  • We passed the town of Continental Divide, NM, which runs along the Continental Divide of North America.  The Continental Divide is the name given to the line that separates water that flows to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
  • We drove through Winslow, Arizona - which made me think of the Eagles song “Take It Easy”
  • Flagstaff, AZ has a very cool and funky historic area that was filled with shops and restaurants.  We were surprised when we found it and it seemed like a good place to check out sometime in the future.
  • That’s all for now.  Goodnight from Sedona, Arizona!

• Today is Sunday - we’ve been on the road a week and a day.  This morning, we left Truth or Consequences, NM and drove north on I-25 to Santa Fe, NM.  Santa Fe is pretty developed - we are staying at a Fairfield Inn and are surrounded by strip malls and big-box retail stores.  But the the historic downtown area is really nice, filled with galleries, shops selling all sorts of southwestern stuff, and several restaurants.  We walked around a bit, then came back to the hotel, chilled out for a bit, then headed out to a few of the Indian casinos in the area.  We didn’t do as well as we had hoped!
• Things of Note for today:
  • Everything in NM has some sort of chili on it - usually green chili’s.
  • There are a ton of shops in the area, many of them selling the same type of stuff.
  • We went to Sonic for the first time, ordered at the drive up & park window and got our food delivered by a dude on rollers skates.  We both try to avoid fast food as much as possible, but we made an exception just to try it out and experience the Sonic scene.
  • Once again, we are finding that most of the people we meet aren’t originally from around here.
  • From the time we left Boston, until today in Santa Fe, we only saw 2 Toyota FJ Cruisers on the road.  Lots of folks down south and along the way here tend to look at my truck as if they have never seen it before.  We saw a couple here in Santa Fe and a Toyota dealership.
  • On the way to Truth or Consequences from Las Cruces, we took a rock to the windshield and it put a small circular crack in it.  I was watching it today to see if it is going to start to develop crack lines in the glass - it was raining outside and cold, so we had the heat on and I had to put it on defrost so the frost on the windshield would go away - so far so good.
  • The plants are holding up well.  In case you didn’t know, we are traveling with a bin with 3 plants that were my grandmothers.  I’ve been bringing them into the hotels each night so they won’t be out in the freezing weather.  The Christmas Cactus actually has one bud on it and it looks like it’s going to flower right after we get to L.A.  People look at me funny when I walk into the hotel with a tray of plants - and I’ve had to mention that we are driving cross country with them.  The plants should be happy and very “zen-like” today because last night I left them in the bath house room at the spa resort we stayed at.  There was some moisture in the air, it was fairly warm and there was New Age music playing all night long while the plants slept.  I expect them to grow by leaps and bounds now that they had their own spa vacation and mingled with the other spa plants!
  • We hoped for snow this evening so we could see the historic area with fresh snowfall, but all we got was rain.
  • When we go to the downtown area, there was an event going on in the park.  I thought it was a Christmas performance, but it turns out that it was a Hanukah event hosted by the Jewish Community of Santa Fe.
  • We saw several shooting stars here - and they looked big and close.  We aren’t exactly sure why there were so many and why they seemed so low.  The Google will help clear things up for us.
  • Tomorrow we’ll head back to the downtown area to do a bit of shopping, then head out of Santa Fe and begin the trek to LA.  We’ll stop and visit some old Pueblos and do a bit more sightseeing as we go through Arizona.  We hope to be in LA sometime on Tuesday.
  • Nice to see the Pats won.  I heard it wasn’t a pretty win, but a win is a win regardless.
  • That’s all for now…….check back tomorrow.

• Today was a fun, relaxing day which didn’t involve too much driving.  We stayed last night at the Riverbend Hot Springs and had a reservation for a 9am soak in the private bath “Rio”, which was very hot!  The sun was up and the view was nice, but the water was almost too hot and we cut short the soak and moved over to the public pool, which was a bit cooler and allowed us to sit and soak for a bit longer.  Afterwards, we checked out and decided that since it was too early to check in to the next place, that we’d do some exploring.  It ended up being quite a fun day as we drove about 40 miles or so to a “ghost town” called Chloride.   It was an at times windy road that took us up and around some mountains.  Lots of really beautiful scenery, horses and cattle along the drive.  We checked out the town, came back and checked in to the next spa, La Paloma Hot Springs.  It’s nice - this place has indoor tubs, unlike Riverbend which let you soak and look up at the stars.  But the tubs are nice and we’ve already had a soak - with one more tonight and maybe one in the morning.
• THINGS OF NOTE FOR THE DAY:
  • On the way to Chloride we stopped in at Elephant Butte Lake State Park, which is a lake formed when they built a dam on the Rio Grande.  Lots of boats and water activities.  We didn’t really drive around the park since we wanted to check out the ghost town.
  • We got to Chloride by taking NM Route 52, which basically ended in Chloride.  At the end of the road was a museum, called The Pioneer Store Museum.  It was really an oasis in the desert for us - the museum consisted of an old store that was closed up in 1927, and remained closed with all the inventory still in it until a family bought it in 1995.  95% of the items in the place today were there when the store closed.  The family that owned it from 1927 to 1995 maintained the roof of the building, but didn’t do anything else to the place.  It was really wild to see all that stuff in there and to know that it sat there for 70 years.  The woman who owned the place said her parents bought it when they discovered the town in the early 90’s and have spent their time and money fixing up the old historic buildings in the town.
  • Other things to note in Chloride - there are 10 people living there now - there was once between 2000 and 3000 at the heyday of the silver rush, but when the price of silver plummeted overnight back in the early 1900’s, the town was deserted almost overnight.  The two women we spoke with (one who ran the artist co-op store and the other who ran the museum) both said the traveled to Truth or Consequences either once a week or once a month, and spent the rest of their time in Chloride.  How amazing it must be to live like that - it was really remote!
  • We saw some cool old cars on the side of the road coming and going to Chloride.  We also saw what we thought was a speed trap in one of the small towns along the way - and it turned out to be an old police car with 2 dummies in it holding a hairdryer made to look like a radar gun.  I guess they don’t want people speeding through the town.
  • We at at Cafe Bellaluca and had a great meal.  Lalig had a veggie pasta dish with white beans and swiss chard - I had brick oven pizza flavored with green chile’s, carmelized onion and mushrooms.  It was expensive for Truth or Consequences and is sort of an “upscale” place - the bill (with 2 beers and a salad) came to $50.
  • One more soak for the night and we’ll call it a day.  Tomorrow we head to Santa Fe for the night and then begin the trek to LA on Monday, most likely getting to Hollywood on Tuesday evening.
  • Until then………

• Today was once again all about New Mexico.  We woke up in Las Cruces and only drove 75 miles to Truth or Consequences, NM - our destination for the next 2 days.  We planned on staying here for a couple of nights because the entire town is built around hot springs from an underground aquifer.  It was well worth the drive to get here.  We already had 2 “soaks” in the hot springs today - one in the public bath and the other in one of the private baths here at Riverbend Hot Springs (we used the “Tiara” pool today - the “Rio” is reserved for tomorrow morning at 9am!)
• Some Items of Note:
  • We ate breakfast in Las Cruces at a place called “The Shed/Old Mesilla Pastry Cafe“, which was very good - I had Huevos Rancheros and Lalig had Chorizo Scrambled Eggs;
  • On the road to Truth or Consequences (ToC), we stopped at a Border Patrol Checkpoint - we confirmed we were US citizens and that we had no one else in the car, and that we were traveling from Boston to Los Angeles and were waved on through;
  • The speed limit on most New Mexico roads is 75 ;
  • We checked in to the hotel (we are sleeping in a converted modular home) and decided to go off-roading for a bit - we followed a dirt road for a bit, and then crossed the Rio Grande in the truck (the water was just below the doors) and proceeded to go down some trails for a little while - the FJ was happy to be off the pavement (as was I!) and we encountered a couple of steep inclines, which was fun going both up and down!;
  • We had a couple of nice “soaks” in the hot springs, which are loaded with minerals including lithium, silver, gold, arsenic, boron, barium, bromine, calcium, cromium, copper, etc. etc. - the pools are fed from underground springs and the temperatures of the various pools ranges from 103 to 109;
  • Today in ToC was the Christmas tree lighting and festival of lights, which consisted of a blocked off  main street with music, food and people walking around.  It wasn’t much of an event from our perspective, but the locals seemed to be enjoying it;
  • We had a beer at a restaurant called “Cafe BellaLuca“, which seemed a bit out of place for the area, but the food smelled great and we are going there for dinner tomorrow;
  • We made fast friends with “Big John”, who is a guy from San Diego that comes here for 5 weeks in November.  He works for lodging and “free soaks” - he paints for 6 hours a day for 3 days, and has 3 days off.  In exchange he is given a place to stay and all the “soaks” he wants!  He was friendly and gave us some good advice - “go eat at BellaLuca” and when I asked him about bars to have a drink, he said “are you bringing your wife?  and if so, do you have a gun?”  He informed us that the local bars are probably not the place we wanted to go!;
  • There are a million stars out here - Lalig and I both saw shooting stars.  Tomorrow we’ll take the camera out at night with the tripod and try to get some good shots;
  • There are a number of stores on Main Street in ToC that make me wonder just how the heck they stay in business.  I’ve never seen more crap in my life!;
  • Everyone is extremely friendly here - there’s always a nod or “howdy” or “how’s it going” to be had;
  • We had a nice lunch at the “Happy Belly Deli”;
  • It seems that most people here in ToC are not from here - many came here from elsewhere;
  • While we were off-roading, we had a roadrunner cross right in front of us.  I was looking for Wile E. Coyote in hot pursuit, but he didn’t show!;
  • A soak in a tub under the stars in New Mexico is an excellent thing!
• That should do it for now…….until tomorrow - happy soaking!