Wide Open Spaces

Guess what?!?!?

(I learned that little punctuation trick from my 13 year old sister, whose text messages usually contain 4x the amount of normally used punctuation.)

I MADE it to La La Land!

Er, well I made it close.  After a grueling 20 hours in the car with my Daddio, a pit stop and money-making venture in Vegas, and a final 5 hour stretch by myself, I rolled into Huntington Beach, where I will be residing with my incredibly generous and hospitable Uncle and Aunt until the big move to the city in about a month.

I guess I am a Californian now... weird.

(Every time I hear or say the word "Californian," it always comes out with Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent.  Again, weird.)

But let's start at the very beginning.  And pretend like I don't abandon this poor bloggie baby for weeks at a time.

My dad and I embarked on our adventure bright and early Wednesday morning, car packed to the brim and headed west.  We intended to stop in Flagstaff, Arizona, but alas, we didn't plan ahead and Flagstaff hotel rooms were a hot commodity on Wednesday.  So we carried on until 1 a.m. to Kingman, AZ.

We were tired.  17 hours and a little over 1000 miles is a lot of road to cover.

Sometime in those hours, the song "Wide Open Spaces" by the Dixie Chicks came on the radio.  Now, I clearly remember the album cover photo for this CD, because either all or some of the Chicks had tattoos on their toes.  And I remember thinking this was scandalous and awesome.  Anyway, I don't think I'd ever listened to the lyrics.  In many ways, it's me right now.  Heading west, needing to find her own place, make her own mistakes (can I skip this one, I wonder?) etc.  And I guess I had much more literal wide open space before, but I'm going to go with that anyway.

Also, we were in the middle of stinking wide open spaces.  For like, forever.

Next stop: VEGAS! My dad had the bright idea to swing by Vegas on the way, seeing as how I'd never seen this gem of a city and we are basically card sharks.

And I have to say, wow! Vegas! Look at you go!  This is a fun place folks.  We started with a quick tour of some hotels, which is entertainment in itself.

And the flowers in the Bellagio... swoon.

We dined well, saw some pretty incredible acrobatics, and hit the tables.

Now, like I said, we're pretty darn good gamblers.  We made a total of $125 playing Blackjack.  Super duper high rollers, as you can tell.

And then everything came crashing down.  The water and my tears.

Let me explain... The Bellagio has this fabulous water/light show every 15 minutes every night, and it is just plain gorgeous.  Who knew that water could be so captivating.  So we kept missing the start of the show, seeing the very end of "Your Song" once and the end of "One" from A Chorus Line the next time, until we finally got in prime viewing position for the last song of the evening.

The song was "Time to Say Goodbye." Possibly the most heartbreakingly beautifully haunting piece of music ever composed.

I love this song.  I listen to it when I'm feeling nostalgic and wanting to cry for no good reason.  I also want to walk down the aisle some day to a string quartet version of it.  (Staking my claim here and now, so don't even think about it friends.)

Here is a snippet...

Like, really, Bellagio? Time to freakin' say goodbye?

Ah, me.  So that was beautiful and tragic and amazing.

And now I've made it... to the land with absolutely zero wide open spaces.

And jobs looming on the horizon... translation: Monday.

Stay tuned...