Travel Broadens Your Horizons and diminishes Your Bank Account- by Valerie Halla
I recently started out on an overly ambitious road trip with my trusty companion, Nincompoop, my bags overstuffed with clothes and a grocery bag stocked with unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks and my new SUV gas tank full. I was ready to drive and listen to lots of 60’s and 70’s and 80’s music. I was going to visit friends and family in Southern California.
I headed out in the late afternoon a few days before Valentines Day, ready to spend one night out on the road before arriving in Palm Springs to spend three nights with my friend I had known for three decades and taught with at our kids local school. Of course my friend had been asking me for 7 years to visit her and her husband at their lovely home in a gated community. It was finally happening. I was excited to drive there the next day and made it out to the desert and their country club estates house by early afternoon.
As I drove the freeway seeing beautiful CA mountains and giant energy generating fans, I drove on the Sonny Bono Memorial Highway and exited where GPS guided me going past Gerald Ford Street and seeing signs for the Betty Ford Center and Bob Hope Road. It was like going back in time to the 1970’s.
I finally got to my friend’s community and got through security making all the right moves. All the houses looked the same. I passed lovely lawns, tennis courts, the clubhouse and greens and fountains. My friends waved at me from their front yard and helped me unload my luggage and carefully get Ninny settled in their house with dog pads in key locations around in the kitchen and my private guest bedroom and bathroom.Their house was gorgeous.
We started talking immediately. Her husband mostly just listened. We had so much fun gabbing and laughing. In the past, we had taught third grade at our local school together for years, and we both had gone through personal issues and trauma in our lives. It was a blast catching up and seeing their house and patio right on the golf course. After cleaning up, we went to the clubhouse for drinks like her husband suggested. I had a weak moment and ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, not really knowing that it contained 5 liquors and should be called Long Island Punch because it packed a punch and then some. I only drank half of my cocktail and felt like the walking dead. I’d better check my pulse when I get back. They both ordered itsy bitsy drinks so they were sober. They knew what appetizers to get which helped me since I was hungry. Actually I was more like drunk and dippy which means I was out of it. I tried to concentrate on what they were saying but my brain was misfiring— badly. I’d better check my brain when I get back.
The food helped and guzzling water eased the problem, so we went outside onto the clubhouse patio and chatted with other people who were enjoying the torch lights bordering the big patio. My short circuit of a brain started to perk up as I got into a disagreement about Canada with some older bolder guy sitting there. It was time to leave. I was drunkgry- sorta drunk and sorta angry.
Back at their house we had a great three days watching the Winter Olympics and sitting on the patio drinking coffee and tea each morning talking. Nincompoop had managed to poop on their carpet in the master bedroom and she also peed on their white tile while we were gone so I helped clean that up, apologizing profusely.
Also we two ladies went to Zumba at their gym and walked around their lovely neighborhood. We went out to their favorite restaurant one night and while her husband dog sat, we went to lunch at a Belgian restaurant for valentines day then shopping. What a fun time. Ninny started to use the pee pads thankfully.
It was hard to leave come early Sunday morning.
I said my goodbyes and put my LA hotel address into GPS and headed for my hotel to visit my son for three nights.
In LA I checked into my hotel in Korea Town, and waited for my son to pick me up. We were going to open houses for some pretty old and relatively cheap fixer upper’s. What a day! After seeing 4 dilapidated houses we went for food and then to my son’s girlfriend’s house where her Dad fixed us a sumptuous Lunar New Year Dinner and his gf gave us brownies she had baked for dessert. Her brother, wife and daughter also were there and we enjoyed getting to know them.
It was such an honor to be invited to a special dinner like that with homemade Korean dishes.
Matt drove me to my hotel, where I went to bed exhausted from the long day. The next day I drove myself and my dog about 90 minutes south on the freeways and in rain to my High School friend’s house in Mission Viejo. My friend made us a hot cup of tea and she had salmon salad sandwiches for us which were very elegant. Her table was still set beautifully from a luncheon she had that weekend for her Bible Study group. It was all done in pink with napkins folded in rose shapes. She gave me a pink cloth napkin and showed me step by step how to fold them into a rose. It was pretty easy. I forgot how to do it about five minutes later.
Then I gave her two pink candles as a gift. Perfect!
Our other high school friend came next and we sat and talked a long time then decided to call another old friend in Texas! What a flashback in our memories did that bring on. Old stories were flying like bats in a cave fire. We decided to meet up with her sometime if she ever got to California again.
My trip was great and it was tough saying goodbye to my son the next day. He took me out for breakfast and we did a couple errands together. I felt blessed to have such a good son and special friends in my life. Being 70ish can be a challenge but it’s real, much fun at times and it’s a privilege.
Those 70ish Girls 