Luck, if you’ve ever been a lady to begin with…

My sister and I spent three days last week in Las Vegas.  We did all the things people do in Las Vegas: Food-shoveling.  Penny-slotting.  Cirque du Soleil-gasping.  Pool-sleeping/sunburning.

I think my favorite bits of the trip, though, were the bits where we spent 2+ hours sitting at brunch chatting about life, long after we’d grabbed our last spoonful of scrambled eggs.  I loved the parts where we stayed up late watching old Friends clips on my Kindle, laughing over episodes we hadn’t seen in years.  At one point I took off my wedding ring at the pool to apply sunscreen and then forgot to put it back on.  My sister, ever the calm, cool, and collected, helped me find it after I noticed it was missing, some 20 minutes later laying under my lounge chair.  I told her I’d never tell Mike and she looked me in the eye and said “Yes you will. You can’t keep a secret from him.”  I broke down and sent him a text 5 minutes later.  Sometimes she knows me better than I know myself.

I’m convinced that we would have had a great time together no matter where we went, but I admit that Las Vegas was an inspired choice for a sisters’ vacation.  I don’t know that I’d go back for longer than 2-3 days sans an unlimited spa budget (my travel tastes run far more toward trees and the kind of stars you see in the sky), but I’m so glad we did this.  My sister is pretty great.

The Venetian, our landing pad for three sleeps.

I didn’t quite know when to hold ‘em, nor when to fold ‘em.

Gelato break.

My sister needs a bigger boat.

3…2…1…

…lift off!

The Palazzo’s pool is a fancy place.

NY, NY, Vegas-style.

Us.

Ka’s incredible set at the MGM Grand.  We landed great seats.

Paris.

For Mike.

For more like this, check out:

• The one in which I gush about my sister…
• The line to see Santa stretched all the way back to Terre Haute.
• Gifts that keep on giving.
• Sisters are doing it for themselves.

On tenderloin sandwiches bigger than your head.

A funny little trophy-shaped icon at the top of my WordPress page on Saturday explained to me that I was celebrating my second anniversary as a blogger.  I thought about baking myself a cake and then realized that I already had three kinds of ice cream in the freezer.  They would do nicely.

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I almost named this post “On tenderloin sandwiches as big as your head,” but that didn’t provide an apt enough description of the behemoth we encountered over the weekend in San Diego.

Mike and I had driven down on Friday afternoon/evening to visit Laurie, who was once again with the band.  We woke up in our hotel room on Saturday morning and, naturally, started watching Spongebob, and then a show on cross-species animal friendships on PBS, and then Harry Potter 4.  Those hotel beds were just too comfy to vacate at a decent hour.

When we couldn’t convince Mike’s growling stomach to wait out our laziness a moment longer, we made our way to brunch at a place called Hash House A Go Go. This turned out to be a wise decision.

Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about missing my home state of Indiana? Imagine our surprise when we read that Hash House specializes in “twisted” Indiana food.  It took us a quick beat to get over our initial shock that a) people outside of Indiana might know what Indiana cuisine is when we, ourselves, aren’t 100% sure (um, corn and sugar cream pie?) and b) that people outside of Indiana might actually want to eat Indiana cuisine in the first place.

And yet the line was out the door for Indiana food.  We waited for close to an hour to get in.

“Twisted farm food”

Do you see the description for “O’Hare of the Dog?”

Mike knows he’s getting the tenderloin sandwich.

There she is. A “hand-hammered in Indiana” thing of beauty.

My pancake with blueberries and pecans arrives on a plate the size of a Big Rig’s steering wheel.

And there’s the tenderloin sandwich. Behold its glory. Mike’s super annoyed that we made him wait 10 seconds so we could take pictures.

The sandwich genius. Note that to eat this the real Hoosier way it should be with pickles and mustard.  Nothing else required.

Foodscape, complete with a slice of watermelon on the bare table.

After we packed up 3/4 of our meals into to-go boxes, we sat there in a food coma, staring at a guy at a nearby table who’d been served a burger the size of my blueberry-pecan pancake.  We just HAD to see how he’d go about eating it.  Turns out it can be done, but only if you cut it into slices like a pizza.

And then we were off to Coronado Beach.  The sand was covered in gold flecks and, even though Mike stepped in BBQ sauce (which I thought was blood), we agreed that full bellies and the beach were the stuff of life.

Coronado hotel.

Coronado Beach

For more like this, check out:

• We spared no expense.
• Grabbing Los Angeles by the fork, pt. 1
• Missing things.

When the words don’t come.

“All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know.” – Ernest Hemingway

I may have wanted to write this year, as I did last year, about my mother.  Something uplifting or celebratory (at least to me), or even something gut-twisting and soul-baring (insofar as I’m capable of).  This year the words just didn’t come.  In their place is a numbness and, as always, this idea that there might have been two versions of my life – one in which she lived and one in which she died – with the first version being so far away that it becomes difficult to even imagine it.  But maybe that’s for the best.

I write a lot about restaurants and trips and birds, and those things are important because they’re real to me.  I really am someone who enjoys food and gardening and books and family and talking about my husband because I’m damned proud of him.   I’ve worked really hard to make this space an honest one, to rid it of anything contrived.

I withhold some things because that’s my right, but at the end of the day I feel good that I don’t force myself to write if it doesn’t ring true or if I can’t write it in my voice.

That’s all I can do.

The mountains are calling and I must go. – John Muir

We’ve gone and done it.

We’ve booked our 8th anniversary camping trip to Yosemite, and you’ll be happy to know that we even managed to once again snag our dream campsite at Crane Flat, site 550.

We’re going a bit earlier this time around, as we have friends getting married in Michigan the weekend of our actual anniversary.  And it’s not like I blame them.  The end of August IS the perfect time to get hitched, if I do say so myself.

I can’t think of a better way, or a more perfect place, in which to spend time with Mike celebrating our commitment to one another. I can just about smell the pine in the air and hear the birds chattering away in the treetops. Excitement doesn’t begin to cover it.

The countdown has commenced, and August 16th can’t get here fast enough for my tastes.

For more like this, check out:

• There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
• Anniversary in Yosemite, pt. 1
• Anniversary in Yosemite, pt. 2

My husband flies drones.

How’s that for a provocative comma au courant blog title?

But it’s true. He actually does fly drones.  And he builds them, too.

I’ve been trying to convince Mike to start a blog about his research for months and months now.  A lot of it is selfishness on my part.  I think what he does is really interesting and I field a lot of questions from folks who are looking for updates on his work. Some of my friends and colleagues refer to him as “Indiana Mike.” After all, he’s an archaeologist from Indiana, a ginger, and is horribly afraid of snakes.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a link to his blog for those who are interested/curious. I’m really proud of him and look forward to a lifetime of travel and adventure ahead of us.  I don’t so much look forward to always having a dirt-caked trowel in the trunk of the car, but that comes with the territory, too.

The Drone and I.

Missing things.

“Didn’t I say I’d always be your same stars? If you get to missing me, just look up.” - Anne Rivers Siddons

I’m riding a wave of nostalgia lately, and I’m not sure why.  We’ve been living in Los Angeles for nearly three years (wow), but lately I find myself missing my HOME home.

Indiana. The Midwest.  Sprawling cornfields.  Cloudy skies. Thunderstorms.  Sticky heat and lightning bugs.  Tenderloin sandwiches and Steak n’ Shake.

Funny thing is, I absolutely love L.A. In so many ways it’s a far better “fit” for me.  I’m a City Mouse and I always will be.  And I don’t know that Mike and I would ever choose to live in Indiana again. There are parts of that state that I find simply maddening.  And yet I miss it all the same.

But there are other things I miss.  I miss England and garlic chips.  I miss my mom.  I miss travel. I miss college and I miss my friends.  I miss Yosemite.  I miss driving too fast down back roads with the windows down and the radio turned up, the sound of gravel crunching under my tires.  I miss jumping out of a canoe and swimming in the middle of a lake.  I miss laziness and being a kid. I miss not having it figured out yet, and feeling like a whole world of professional options were open to me (lately I’ve been really interested in becoming a Bereavement/Grief Counselor, but then I learned that you have to go to school for a whole slew of years to do that).

I pretty much miss it all.

For more like this, check out:

• The day of 43 times.
• These are a few of my favorite things.
• Chicken two ways and a reflection.
• Feeling a little all over the place.

The animal hits.

Has it really been more than two weeks since my last post? It feels like it’s been two days.  I apologize, and vow to keep at it at my usual pace from here on out.  Hold me to it!

I recently changed my FB profile picture to this one…:

…and people were really into it.  Or, rather, were really into this baby sloth.  Naturally.  Is there anything more ridiculously adorable than a smiling baby sloth?  We met her at a nature preserve in Costa Rica, where animals are rehabilitated and then, if all goes well, released.  We learned while there that, as with many other animals, sloths are in danger from things like deforestation, traffic, and predation. The preserve doesn’t advertise itself as a place to visit, but the owners of the B&B we stayed at in Puerto Viejo knew the folks who run the preserve and arranged for us to have a special visit.  It will forevermore go down in my Big Book of Awesome as one of the more amazing things I’ve ever done, travel or otherwise.

And so this photo inspired me to share some of my other favorite animal shots with you.

Sea otter at Elkhorn Slough, just outside Monterey Bay, CA.

Squirrely friend pillaging our loot on Catalina Island.

Mule deer at Yosemite National Park.

Feeding ostriches in Solvang, CA. Birding!

At an alligator farm in Gulf Shores, AL.

Another sloth shot. Melts my heart every time.

Baby Howler!

This is Willa, the bananas black lab we looked after for 48 hours.

At a Falconry event in Jarrow, Northern England.

Also in Jarrow, UK.

And, just as Picasso had his Blue Period, these are from my “Camelid Period:”

Mike and I llama trek in Northern California for his 24th birthday.

At the Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita, CA.

Machu Picchu, Peru, seconds after this guy raided the picnic area.

And two more for good measure: