There are times I wish I had a job where I had a few weeks paid vacation, some sick time and maybe a few personal days, but that’s not the case.
Vacations come few and far between, and I’m always afraid of burn out.
The last time I had a vacation was 2015 when I visited friends in California. It was my first time there and I was so impressed with the seven days of blue skies without a single cloud to be found.
I remember thinking, “This is my kind of weather!”
I even asked my hosts friends, who really treat me like family, if the weather is like this all the time. The answer was, pretty much.
There have been many songs written about sunny California and the little rain they get.
Last weekend, I trekked back to Cali and being in the dead of winter here in the northeast, I was looking forward to getting some sun.
The one thing I forgot was the long, long plane ride to the west coast. When you’re cramped in a seat in tight quarters can be torturous. Luckily for me, I had an aisle seat and the middle seat was empty, a rare luxury for sure.
The reason for my trip was to attend a wedding so I left on a Wednesday and came back on a Wednesday taking the dreaded red eye home.
I chose to take the red eye because it left at 11:55 p.m. PST landing at Newark, NJ at 7:30 a.m. EST and I would get a full day in for my last day.
The first four days flew by and I was happy to see those sunny blue skies I missed so much from the last trip. Temperatures were not really as warm as I hoped in the low to mid-60s, but it sure beat all the rain we heard and read about on TV and in the newspapers.
Even though my hosts were “freezing” at 60 degrees, I was standing outside in their courtyard without a jacket just basking in the sun as it kissed my face.
The wedding weather was perfect and I was happy for the bride and groom, but the next day came the dreary rain and mist and temps in the 50s.
I didn’t have to travel 3,000 to experience that type of weather, although with what we had this past Friday night and Saturday, I’ll gladly take 50s again.
It seemed my biological clock was pretty messed up with the time change. We often went out for dinner with reservations at 8 p.m. or even 9 p.m. meaning I was eating a full meal on an east coast stomach at 11 p.m. or midnight.
I would also wake up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. as if it were 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. at home.
I don’t understand, for example, how professional tennis players on tour can play in different time zones so easily. One week they are playing in Europe and the next they may travel to China. How do they get their rest?
I was able to take a lovely car ride deep into the Angeles National Forest, which was magnificent.
Along our drive we stopped at an overlook that looked down into a deep ravine that held a dam and reservoir. We met a young man that was driving all over the country where he would teach Karate to help fight depression. He said it was a way he copes with his own depression.
He had a little old fashion Volkswagen bus that was filled to the brim that included a solar panel, a tiny toilet and a few other amenities so he could live out of his bus. If I’m not mistaken, the New Jersey man was on the road for over 1,440 days.
After the wedding day, there was a few days to decompress, and I said I wouldn’t mind visiting one of the many cemeteries were celebrities have been entombed or buried.
One such cemetery is the Westwood Village Mortuary, the final resting place of one of the world’s most famous gravesites of Marilyn Monroe.
I’ve seen, we’ve all seen photos of her vault over the decades since she passed away in 1962. It’s crazy to think in three-years she would have turned 100-years-old.
Next to her, side-by-side, is Hugh Hefner of the Playboy empire fame. I had heard he paid $75,000 for his vault to be next to Marilyn.
There is a guy in a vault that lists his name, birth date, death date and a little note saying, “Marilyn is around the corner.” I guess he had a sense of humor even in death.
The cemetery is in an odd place sort of in a business district in LA. Even though the GPS took us right to the spot, we didn’t believe it.
Other notable celebrities at Westwood are: Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, Farah Fawcett, Peter Falk, Dean Martin, Tim Conway, Truman Capote, Jackie Collins, Roy Orbison, Don Knotts, Merv Griffin, Rodney Dangerfield, Kirk Douglas, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Eva Gabor, Natalie Wood, Bettie Page, Frank Zappa, Carroll O’Connor, Donna Reed, Richard Dawson, Robert Stack, Burt Lancaster, Florence Henderson, Jim Backus, and many more.
Westwood is just two and a half acres big so if you get to LA, make sure you stop and see Marilyn.
Quote of the week
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill
Thought of the week
“In any given moment, we have two options; to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” – Abraham Maslow
Bumper stick
“One day or day one, you decide.” – Unknown
