Home is where the furniture lives

I've been home from my extended Christmas/January (hey why not) holidays for three weeks now. Joel is still working in LA with no clear end to that period in sight. Despite the easy three day a week school schedule, and having my friend Jessica here to help out, it's been a chaotic time. Joel and I have flown or driven back and forth every weekend. He flies up every weekend he can and I drive or fly down for the ones he can't. Often this means I spend four days in LA and then three up here and then go back again. I've hardly spent any time in either place, I'm always just unpacking when I have to pack up again. 

Weekend in LA

I flew down to LA for the weekend to celebrate an early Valentine's day with Joel. We had dinner together overlooking the water at a great restaurant called Cafe del Rey.

I also visited the Getty Museum where I mostly took in the Graciela Iturbide photography exhibit. I'm starting a black & white film project this Wednesday so it's a great point to pause and take in some amazing work. 

Sunday walk

We took a walk along the ridge behind the house today. What a beautiful day!

DMV adventures

Some of you may know that you have to take a written test and a road test when you move to California from Canada. It's a slow process, four week waiting list for a written test then another four week wait for a road test and then 2-6 weeks for the actual thing to show up in the mail. All the while I have to carry my passport and BC driver's license around because every time I'm asked for ID people accuse me of carrying fake ID. I can't buy a bottle of wine without my passport. Word.
So naturally I was eager to have my full license and took the road test early this morning. I passed with NO demerits! Unlike another member of the household of the opposite sex... not that I'm keeping track. One does have to take into account that Joel had the Dwight Schrute of examiner's doing his test. I still am keeping my test on the fridge for added 'nah nah nah nah nah'.

Lazy Friday

Jessica and I went to Stinson beach today to shoot some film and frolic in the very cold waves.

Day two commute

We tried out the Larkspur ferry option for the school commute today. A pretty nice option though it's not really a time saver.

Day one at school

I had my first day at school today beginning with Sketching for Communication and ending with Photography for Graphic Designers. I'm pretty stoked about the sketching class, I really like the teacher and I feel like I'm getting back to my roots with that. The photography one will be pretty cool I think but the teacher is a bit less organized and motivational. But hey, who knows, it was the first day. I'm not the oldest student in any of my classes nor am I the only married one so that's a bit of a relief. I think I'm probably the only one who was wishing the school had a valet... but that's just a little thought I kept to myself. 

The drive home

Day one on the road we got as far as Portland, OR. The heavy rain and snow on the i5 was making it hard to see the road so we thought we'd call it a night. We stayed at the Marriot downtown which was pleasant and reasonably priced. We had dinner at Jake Crawfish nearby which was also something I'd do again.

The following day we set out again toward Eugene planning to visit King Estates vineyards. Unfortunately the amount on snow on the roads in town made us rethink a foyer onto smaller back roads and we instead made our way out to Florence on the 128 highway. We thought the weather would be milder closer to the water. It was true, though we had no idea that we had a mountain pass covered in snow and ice between us and the ocean. Once in Florence our "mild weather" was actually a hail storm. We moved from that into intermittent blizzards which meant we had horizontal snow and limited visibility most of the way to Eureka. Jessica took over the snow driving which I was very glad of since she's a snow-driving pro (she prefers to be referred to as a super star actually). We could have called it a night at Eureka at 9:30pm but we were temped to just givver and finish the night in our own beds so we just drove all the way here. We again found ourselves in a blizzard in Redwood National Park and were seeing blowing snow all the way to Sonoma County. Not the California I remember driving from before Christmas!

Now that we're here in Fairfax again, it's sunny and about 12 degrees in the day time and 8 at night - cold! But spring is starting and the hills are green. It's good to be back.

Farewell Victoria

I'm packed up, the car is sporting a new radiator hose (don't ask) and my friend Jessica and I are ready to conquer the great 101 back down to California. It looks like I'll be narrowly dodging the snow bullet the whole way. We'll update as we go along!

Back to school friend

I just bought all my art supplies for school online including my bendy guy. Who says you can't be productive from bed?

Looking forward to playing with all my new pencils next week.