So long, Stinktown!

OK, for those of you that are confused by the post title, it's from the Simpsons. An episode called "You Only Move Twice", which is one of my favorites. Look up the clip and you'll understand why I shouted this out my car window as I turned off the 110 for the last time.

This is a great day for the Weaver clan, as we are finally out of Los Angeles. There was plenty to do, and a lot to see, but there was this problem. Actually, about 12 million problems: people. We're just not people people, it turns out. There are no empty spaces in LA. My feelings about LA are well-captured in a song I've known for my whole life and listened to today as we escaped as fast as we could: LA Freeway by Jerry Jeff Walker. Don't feel bad if you don't know either the song or the artist. My family has...different taste is music.If you'd like to live a more complete life, you may listen to the song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2zE9cot3jY&noredirect=1. I suggest you do so, and then imagine me belting out "If I could just get off of that LA freeway without getting killed or caught!" in the car with Romeo, who was fairly annoyed by the interruption to his nap.

It's been a hectic couple of days. The packers came on Wednesday and boxed up all our earthly possessions, the loaders came on Thursday and moved everything onto a huge moving truck, and on Friday I checked out of base and Sid checked us out of the house. Clearly, we need some downtime. Especially Romeo, who in between fretting about the movers, spent the last three days doing this:

It's tough being a pug.

This morning we took it easy, walked Romeo along a nice woodchip path in Manhattan Beach, and went to our favorite restaurant to get a drink and some food before we left town. Apparently, they are going to miss us too, because they brought us this fabulous collection of desserts on the house as a going away gift:

So after drinks, a pile of fries, and more sugar than you can shake a stick at, we took off for Temecula. Temecula is lovely and full of wine, and driving here rather than spending another night in LA allowed us to have dinner at a very nice winery, overlooking vineyards, and smelling desert rain.

This is pretty much the view we had with dinner. Just imagine an outdoor patio restaurant behind me.



We head to Las Vegas tomorrow, where Kamiah will join us for the second epic Weaver migration. Better get a good night's sleep! (Romeo has already started.) Tomorrow we officially start across the country.