In 2004, my sister and I went to Europe. We had a flight into London and a flight out of London 70 days later. We had a reservation in a London hostel for our first night. We had 60 lb backpacks and we had the cash we had been saving for five years. Beyond that, it was all up in the air. In the 70 days we went to so many amazing places and met so many amazing people. Our journeys included: London, Leicester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Manchester, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Trieste, Venice, Brindisi, Corfu, Naples, Rome, Sorrento, Cinque Terre, Nice, Lyon, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and some more I can’t remember without getting out my journal. When we were in high school, she and I started the “old maid” fund. We are hard to get along with. We assumed we would be naggy, old ladies who lived together some day in the distant future. We contribute to it each month. That is what we used to go to Europe. That is also what we used to go to La Jolla! I went to Vegas with my girls last year. My sister went to Austin to visit in-laws. Beyond that, neither of us have taken a vacation since 2004. What is wrong with us? We obviously need to re-prioritize.
We knew we wanted a beach. We knew we wanted sun. We had a budget and we just made it happen. La Jolla was a fantastic trip and it was worth every penny. You may be asking, why are you putting your beach vacation on your hiking blog? Because, it’s my blog. You’re not the boss of me! We didn’t hike. We had every intention of hiking. There are great hikes in the Torrey Pines State Park. That park is 7 miles away. On our low budget trip to Europe we learned a lot of things and we apply them in our travel today. Never pay for a ride when you can walk. Never pay for a restaurant when you can cook. Never take a guided tour when you can do it yourself for free. We could have walked to the State Park, but it just seemed silly to walk so far for a hike.
We did walk. We took the stairs to our fourth floor room every time. The pool was two flights up. The continental breakfast was one floor up. The beach was all the way across the street and down a hill. We went to the grocery store a mile away at least once a day. We also walked to a gluten free Italian restaurant that was all the way on another beach, 1.5 miles away, and back. See, we exercised. I’d guess we walked about 5 miles each day. We also ate as much food as I normally eat in a month, but who cares? We were on vacation!
Our daily schedule was this: sleep until we wake up, get breakfast, go to the beach (swim, lay around, read, people watch), go to lunch, go to the pool, drink beverages on our balcony, go to dinner, go to bed around 9:30pm because we are so tired from laying around all day. It was a hectic schedule. I’m not really sure how we maintained it for four days.
On our last day, the wonderful Billy Pallotto came to see us. He drove down from Garden Grove and met us at our hotel. We went to get pizza, a gluten free place that Billy found because he’s my hero, and then drank the day away in the Gaslamp Quarter while watching World Cup games. It was glorious. Billy also offered to take us to the airport which was the coolest thing ever. Get your butt back to Oregon, Mr. Pallotto. We miss you too much. Plus, we have cookies.
We spent a lot of time talking about our baby money. It’s something that has been on our minds a lot recently. In H.A.M. JayZ, while mocking one of his many pathetic fellow rappers says, “Really half a billi? Really? You got baby money.” After some discussion, we decided that we would be more than happy with baby money despite JayZ’s obvious disapproval of it. We are constantly scheming about how to get our hands on some baby money. After lots of resting and thinking, we definitely have some new ideas.
My sister and I enjoy simplicity in our vacations: sleep, sun, swimming, walks, sunset, people watching, conversation, soooo much reading, laughter, a delicious alcoholic beverage on a parched palate. It was a lovely four days. Upon our return, a Franz Ferdinand lyric comes to mind, “It’s always better on holiday/So much better on holiday/That’s why we only work when/We need the money.”
For information about La Jolla click here.
52hikesin52weeks 