Book Club Trip - LA and Sacramento

  Starting this post off the right way - with food! So I had a fun CA trip last February. I have an online book club which is awesome. The ladies are so much fun and prior to this trip I had only talked with most of them online. Well, last year the one lady posted as an FYI that she would be in Sacramento for an author event with two other authors that most of the ladies in book club love. So if you are in the area you should stop by. This lead to everyone starting to make plans to be in Sacramento at this time to meet up. Of course I really wanted to go, but Sacramento is a long way to fly for a weekend. Plus Raymond wouldn't want to go so it would just be a trip for me and I just figured I would miss out. 
Raymond came home from work that night and we were talking about our days and I mentioned how book club was talking about meeting up in Sacramento in Feb. His immediate reply? You should go! You would have fun. He really is the best. I was still hesitant because as I said it is a long way (even if I did really want to go), but he kept bugging me about it and coming up with other fun things I could do (like see if Jacalen and Patricia wanted to meet up somewhere) so then the plans were set in motion. I started writing everyone to see if I could make it work, a longer trip than just the weekend, and somehow it all worked out perfectly! 
  First, before the book club meetup, I flew into LA to visit with Phillip, Dana and Nadia. Oh my goodness Nadia is adorable! Seriously she is like the cutest kid ever. She was asleep when I got in, but I woke up early the next morning, still tired, and just read/tried to sleep a bit more in my room when Nadia woke up. Dana was in her room with her and she was a bit grumpy, crying and not really ready to be awake. Dana said "Are you the saddest girl in the world?" and she replied, while crying, "Yes!" She was so adorable!! If I could be gauranteed to have a kid like her I might actually consider having kids. 
So then I just hung out with them for a few days. I was pretty jet lagged and such, but it was really nice to see them again. I didn't take many photos though as well...sometimes I am not very good at remembering to take them. The first day I was there it was just me, Dana, and Nadia until Phillip got off work. We went to the library for the kid's book time thing, which was fun. Dana also likes scary things so while Nadia was napping we watched, or tried to watch, some scary movies/TV shows. We also went to the aquarium which was fun, but Nadia only wanted to go outside and play with the water. They did have a big touch tank with baby sharks and such in that you could touch. I was spying while Nadia was playing. When the baby shark came around by me the lady who works there was just like Go ahead! You can pet the shark! I was all no thanks...I'm just looking. She gave me a really strange look, like what is wrong with me. I don't want to touch things...I can't be the only one right? I still like looking. 
  The next day Phillip had off so we could go have fun adventures, but I didn't really have anything in particular I wanted to do. I really was happy with anything. It was just nice to see them again. Though he mentioned the La Brea Tar Pits and since I had never been we decided to check them out. They were kind of cool, but I thought there would be more fun things like the photo two up. More fake animals trapped in the tar and stuff. Really it was just a big park with some open pits (and a museum, but we arrived too late for that and eh). The photo above is where they are currently going through the tar looking for bones and such. Sounds like a job I wouldn't want to do. 

And some ground sloths (and only photo of Phillip, Dana, and Nadia I took. Yep, I am great at taking people pics...)
  This is a big rock that you can walk down and under. An art instillation. I don't really know why it is there, but Phillip was saying it took forever to try and get it in place and work out the logistics of getting this giant rock through the city to here.  
  Fun plastic string things to play in outside LACMA. You can see some kids playing in there. 

  And more photos around the museum
  We had dinner at Real Food Daily which was super yum! All vegan, we had ordered nachos as an appetizer on the happy hour menu I believe, but then came late and I forgot to take a photo. I had the nut loaf and mashed potatoes and gravy and greens. Super tasty, but so much food!
   And then the next afternoon it was time for me to depart! One meal at a Thai place, with drumsticks that were pretty tasty, and I was off to Sacramento. It was really nice seeing Phillip and Dana again. And Nadia was so adorable. I loved her. I only wish I would have been able to see my friend Bob who lives in LA as well. Unfortunately he was working out of town while I was there, but maybe next time. We might have to go back for Halloween one year and go to Disneyland! Cause that sounds like something I would love. Plus I have never been to Disneyland so it would be the perfect time to go. 
  Ack! Sacramento! Book club meet up! It was sooo much fun! I am so so glad I was able to go as these ladies are amazing! This is all of us, and oh I miss them! They are meeting up again this week! If only I still lived in the states and could go :( Hopefully next time I can be in on the fun adventures again!
  I again didn't take many photos in Sacramento. Why? I don't know! I just forget, especially when I am having so much fun! Luckily the other ladies did, so some of these are stolen from them (thank again for letting me use them!). I arrive Friday late afternoon, met up with everyone just before heading out for dinner. Dinner was nice, but our waiter? No. He...no. I had written the restaurant prior to make sure one of the vegetarian options could be made vegan and whatnot, and they were very nice with their reply. So when it was time to order I asked for the one thing, but made vegan and then that was it. It felt like every flippin time the waiter came back he made some comment about being vegan. About how hard it is to date a vegan. He told me this lame story about how he dated a vegan once, but it was so hard. She made him dinner one night for his birthday, tofu pasta (not sure what that meant. Pasta with a tofu sauce? Either way she made him dinner). He just kept going on and on about it. Like that is what she made him, him!, for HIS birthday. At one point he asked me if I had a hard time dating non-vegans. I told him I never had an issue. I wanted to say no, I didn't date assholes like you, but I refrained. He was the worst! We were all trying to chat as this was the first time we were all together, and he seemed to be offended that we didn't want to chat with him and listen to his stupid stories. He was bad. But dinner was with the ladies was fun. And I forgot to take a photo...
  Then on Saturday we went to the Love and Fifty author event. April White is the lady in book club who set this whole meet up in motion. She has a series of awesome time travel romance books and she is amazing. 
   Here is the two us. I actually felt short next to here! You all should check out her books if you haven't already. I wandered around all morning talking to the authors, but it was kind of odd. Like most of them weren't that talkative. I didn't know most of them, so I was asking about their books and such, but a lot didn't give me a reason to go check them out in the future. Plus one lady asked what I liked to read, and I said pretty much anything, except I do not like motorcycle club books and she goes oh! Well here are my motorcycle club books and proceeds to go on and on about them. Um...I said I don't like them...Oh, and there were a few authors set up in a hallway and I went by to talk to them. The one lady was not having the best day. I asked her how it was going and she was grumbling about being in the hallway. Then she opened up a bottle of bubbly, asked if I wanted some (it was maybe 11am), I passed, she was saying how she needed this to get through the day, on and on, then she accidentally knocked the bubbly over where it proceeded to spill all over her purse and I just slinked away while she was distracted. She was not having a good day. 
But there were some really sweet people there. April got us into the lunch with the authors event, so we could all have lunch together, and it was like I was part of the cool crowd. We were the cool kids table ; ) 

There were a couple baskets of books and such that got raffled off. You got a ticket when you entered, then I think you could buy more maybe (?), but we left before the winners were drawn so we left our contact info in case we won. We went back to our room and Amanda (above) had purchased a bunch of books and was concerned about how she would fit them all in her bag/get them home. So she messed around with her stuff and managed to get everything to fit perfectly into her bag so it was perfect. We went to spy on the drawings to see if anyone won and...Amanda won one! It was just like of course she did. She was the one that didn't have any more room in her bags, that was already worried about getting everything home, and now she has a ton more books to try and find room for! Oh it was fun. I miss these ladies!

  The one fun store in old timey Sacramento. 
Old timey Sacramento was a couple of blocks that had wooden sidewalks and old timey signs for the stores and everything. I liked it, but again I didn't take any photos. Why would I?
More photos from near our hotel/the author event. 
  On Sunday people started flying off home, but my train to San Francisco wasn't until the early afternoon. All of us who were left, Amanda, Heather and Nicole, packed our stuff and they walked with me to get some lunch to go (Thai food! I ate all the Thai food while I was in the states cause rice noodles = amazing), then to the train station. Outside of the old timey area Sacramento was dead. Probably because it was a Sunday, but still. The main road was pretty, it was beautiful outside, but nothing too exciting. Here are some photos from the walk

  The capitol building/Museum apparently


 
  In the courtyard in front of the courthouse by the train station there were tons of these little statues. They remind me of the little green guys on Westerns campus, and so I looked it up and they are made by the same guy. 


  There were lots of them

That was it for the first part of my trip. A few days in LA, a few in Sacramento, and I was off to San Francisco. The train ride to San Fran was beautiful, but San Fran is for next time. I am so glad I was able to go meet up with everyone on this trip. I got to see most of my friends in the states and had such a great time.