Moving to Seattle | Day 1 | Los Angeles to Carmel-by-the-Sea

So... we moved to Seattle! Well, it's actually not as simple as that... there was a lot of packing/ getting rid of stuff/ giving stuff away/ crying while I was packing because we were leaving our friends/ excitement about all the new things to come/ anger about why we have so much stuff/ fitting a lot of stuff into my very tiny car/ wrangling our dog on a 1400 mile road trip/ driving down terrifyingly-winding mountain roads through murder-y redwood forests in the dead of night. BUT! We made it and it was quite the beautiful journey.

Day 1: Los Angeles to Carmel-by-the-Sea

Fun Fact: If you're planning to move, and you're lucky enough to have movers, give them ALL YOUR STUFF.  EVERYTHING. Or, at least be a bit more discerning about what you deem irreplaceable (we were directed by the moving company to bring everything of great sentimental value with us in the car), because we apparently think a lot (read: basically all) of our things are irreplaceable (see tiny car below). These were horrible instructions to give very organized, very sentimental pack rats like both of us tend to be. Jason did an A+ job of packing Baby Yaris--- he should compete in the professional car-Tetris circuit for sure. But Baby Yaris is a pro, since she has made another such journey in her lifetime, when my brother, Michael, helped me move cross-country from Savannah to L.A. Also, special thanks to our friends Gavin & Anthony for helping us pack the car in the ridiculous heat right before we left.

We headed out in the late morning, driving through downtown L.A. to say goodbye to the weird, hot, sometimes charming city that eventually grew on us over the past 5 years. We made some of the best, loveliest friends during our time there, and for that we are forever grateful (and still a bit emotional).

But fear not, the fabled city of Los Angeles would not allow us to make a swift exit, so we proceeded to sit in 3 hours of traffic on the 101.

Fun Fact: Do NOT move over Labor Day weekend.

We eventually crawled out of the city and through Oxnard, and by then it was just blue skies and fields and mountains.

We made a quick stop to stretch our legs and get some food and coffee in San Luis Obispo, which is a lovely place, and I'm a little sad we didn't get to spend much time there.

We stopped to eat some dinner on a picnic bench in San Simeon at what I would then deem the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. However, since every beach we saw from that point on was the most beautiful beach I had ever seen, I started to realize how lucky we were to be making the drive up the California coast.

Milo wasn't all that impressed by the beach, since sand is gross and itchy and the waves are big monsters that will surely swallow him whole, but he humored us every time we stopped.

We continued our drive north and approached Big Sur right before sunset. 

We were impressed by our timing and couldn't believe we had made it that far, let alone during sunset. You can see Baby Yaris for scale, with the winding roads we would soon get to know so well.

Big Sur was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. The road was curvy and a bit busy, but there was always the gorgeous expanse of the Pacific ocean at sunset waiting to greet us around each bend.

Until there was no sunset and it was night and it was terrifying.

Fun Fact: Maybe don't plan to drive the majority of the trip through Big Sur in complete darkness, unless you enjoy the thrill of cars racing toward you, the constant threat of wildlife running in front of your car, the incessant yelling of expletives that will accompany you on the rest of your journey, or the near-certainty that you will throw up in the car/ on the poor, terrified dog who is clinging to your arms and who could also quite possibly throw up.

It was pretty late when we finally made it to Carmel, and I couldn't believe it when we were finally there. We stayed at the lovely Carmel Lodge, which was a great find by Jason's mom (thanks, Nancy!). This was also Milo's first hotel experience, so there was a lot of anxiety about the way in which he would choose to deface our hotel room in the dark of night while we were asleep, but he was pretty good for the most part. We were planning on spending most of the next day wandering the streets of Carmel, a place I had heard a lot about, as Jason had spent a lot of time there as a kid. Despite how exhausted we were, we took a night walk down the street to the beach.

I hadn't seen so many stars in a very long time--- all three of us just sat on a bench, looking up at the sky.