Dreams, Moments, Travels
A bunch of us went over to Rinku’s apartment tonight with a little surprise.
Not only did we bring cake, but we also brought tears. Rinku has been in the States for almost a year now, and it has been amazing watching the cultural transition of her stepping out from being incredibly shy to being wonderfully funny and playful. Happy Birthday, Rinku.
So what should we do this Sunday morning? I know; let’s go to Six Flags Magic Mountain and see how truly exhausted we can become. So that’s what we did.
While I didn’t show you this yesterday, it is, in fact, the way Queen Rinku is moved around. She can walk without issue, but in her village, she is royalty, so Jay and Krupesh are trying to help her adjust to living in America.
All of us except Krupesh somehow took a bath on this last ride, and it being February, we are quite cold.
Knowing that we don’t have a lot of time here, we are trying to get to some of the more iconic rides, such as the kind of roller coasters Caroline loathes.
Like a wolf howling at the moon, this is how Rinku talks about her life with her friends back in India….”Just let me tell you about Tapuuuuuuuu and Seemaaaaaaa.”
Nobody can ever know how much we laughed over these two days, and it’s not over yet.
It’s getting late when we arrive in Little India for some dinner at Rasraj and some CDs from Ziba Music. It was agreed that even though this detour to Artesia would guarantee that we wouldn’t be home until about 3:00, everyone would work with me to stay awake for the long drive back to Phoenix. We sang, froze with the windows open, screamed as loud as we could, got out and walked around, danced in our seats to Bollywood favorites at full volume, and laughed; all the way home.
We stayed the night across the street at the Stardust Motel because that’s always where Caroline and I wanted to stay. The car is safe over there during the day, and as we are staying there again tonight, we don’t have to move it in the afternoon. So the convenience and money saved just add to the ease of simply walking across the street and across the massive parking area to get in line early and enter Disneyland before the crowds arrive.
For Rinku, her brother Krupesh, and our friend Jay, this was their first time visiting the park.
Getting the rides that will be difficult to get on due to long lines out of the way first has us already on the Matterhorn Bobsleds.
Taking Rinku with us was like taking a seven-year to Disneyland for the first time. She just couldn’t help but show how much fun she was having.
I suppose the same goes for my wife, too. If Jay flies a plane like he does a rocket ship, we might be in trouble.
I’m not sure, but I think Jay is trying to figure out what went wrong back there on the rocket and why he couldn’t break out of going around in circles. The TSRK on Rinku’s shirt is a shout-out to her gang back in her village in India. Rinku was telling us how much Disneyland feels like those days when she and her friends would ride the ox-cart around the village when they were growing up.
Hey, Caroline, look, you have a carbuncle on your shoulder. Stinku doesn’t know what a carbuncle is; probably better that way.
When Rinku first met me, she thought that I looked like a “Galgota” or marigold; here we are, turning her into one.
Jay being a lot taller it was more difficult to get enough hands around his face to turn him into a Galgota.
We stayed until the main park was closed and then slowly meandered down Main Street, visiting the gift stores and grazing on sweets along the way. This was yet another great 16-hour visit to the Happiest Place on Earth.
With Renu, Krupesh, Jay, and Rinku in our rental van, the six of us are on our way to Los Angeles for the weekend.
Caroline and I were invited to an engagement today that is not your average affair. Friends, family, aunties, uncles, and a beautiful splash of color, ceremony, and prayers are all part of a traditional Gujarati engagement.
This is Niraj and Kavitha, who, as of today, are engaged to be married. It was an honor to be witness to the formal beginning of their life-long commitment to each other.
We are leaving our motel before 6:00 a.m. and taking advantage of the invitation to show up early at the Old Monterey Cafe. Barely light out, we are on the road and foregoing a return visit to Pacific Grove to look at the butterflies as we’ve decided to take the long way down while hoping that we won’t be so distracted that it will take all day to get home. You can see the ocean is a bit angry this morning as it leaps out of the sea and tries to attack our rental car. You might wonder why we had a rental car when we bought a new car not too long ago. It’s all about the math. If we are going on a trip of over 1,500 miles and you consider maintenance and depreciation costs of about $0.50 per mile, then this trip would have cost us about $750 in depreciation and extra maintenance costs. Instead, we rent this car for about $100 for the long weekend and don’t have all the wear and tear on the new one. Simple economics.
The heavy clouds have lifted, and the fog is burning off as we ask ourselves, “How’d it take two hours to drive only 65 miles so far?”
While we might need to make time, there’s always an extra moment to sit a minute and offer extra appreciation to Neptune for keeping his seas so beautiful for our enjoyment. Should you recognize that this isn’t the Big Sur Bakery, it was still closed as we passed, so our pitstop was in Gorda.
Sleeping next to mom and cozy in the sun. We just had to stop once more at the elephant seal colony to see the babies. But you can tell from the dearth of photos that we’ve not been stopping every 500 feet to ooh and aah.
The guardian male protects his harem by bellowing out his roar of dominance. Caroline can tell you that I make similar sounds as I bellow my dominance at home; I only wish I had his proboscis that would give me the deep resonance he’s able to effect.
It’s hard to say goodbye to the ocean.
Wow, these hills are most often brown. Pretty cool to see them in green.
Did I say something about saying bye to the ocean? Well, that was way up north near San Simeon; now that we are down here, south of Santa Barbara and not quite in Ventura yet, we could see that it was low tide, and at moments like this, we have to ask ourselves, “What’s more important, getting home at a reasonable time or checking out the tide pools?” Start the tide pool photos.
Because one can never have enough anemone photos, I present you with two more. One submerged.
And the other mostly out of the water but kept wet from the surf pulsing ashore.
My opinion is that Caroline looks beautiful walking in the shallow surf. Someday, I’m almost certain she’ll be able to walk on the surf.
We might want to stay for sunset, but that’s not in the cards. We still have about eight hours of driving left before we get home. No matter, though, as we agree that this 10th anniversary was probably the best 10th anniversary Caroline and I will ever experience.