California Love Day 1

Hi gang!

I’m back from California and oh my goodness so much to share! Again, this will be broken into days because there are so many things I want to tell you guys about. You guys know my vacation posts are super picture heavy, so just a warning 😉

My day started with a pre airport selfie, of course! It’s just my little tradition for every trip.

Coach came to pick me up at 6:15am to take me to the airport. I’m so grateful for him. Luckily we do not live that far apart and also we are both pretty close to the airport so it was super convenient. I probably haven’t mentioned this, but coach is a police officer. So he was in full uniform, going to work and we went in his cop car (unmarked).

The downside? He wouldn’t let me play with the siren. I really wanted to push those buttons. He pressed it for a nano second and I barely heard it, no fun!

Can we talk about how airports are an absolute nightmare? Luckily, BWI isn’t too bad here, but I learned LAX pretty much is terrible and extremely unorganized and crowded. I also say terrible because I’m sitting on the floor right now typing this waiting to go home and some guy just got an attitude with me for sitting here near an outlet. Really sir, I’m not even in your way. Let’s pretend I wasn’t a jerk back so you still think highly of me, okay? 😉

ANYWAY…

The flight to Cali wasn’t too bad, I kept myself busy with my oats and protein waffle and even slept a little.I did get strange looks for busting out a waffle, but I don’t care.

I had one layover in Kansas City (wow that’s an interesting airport), and before I knew it I was in LA! It was my first time so I was pretty excited.

Yes I tried to find the Big Brother house.. don’t judge!

My roommate, Sarah– a new blogger over at Sweet Blonde’s Fit Life, and I were texting back and forth. She’s from Seattle and we both landed around the same time (not planned!). We even ended up getting on the same shuttle to the hotel an hour away. The second I got in she was sitting there and we started talking like we were best friends already.

Let me start this off by saying I DO NOT SHARE SPACE, so getting a roommate for this trip, especially a stranger, was pretty much an enormous deal for me. Everything was sold out, so I had to do it. I’m a person that believes things happen for a reason and boy did it. Sarah and I clicked right away, and my vacation would not have been half as fun without her!

After a long day of travel, I knew I had to get in my lift. Before I left home I picked up a travel pass for Golds Gym. There was one about 15 minutes from the hotel so I figured I would cab it. I went around 5pm West coast time so technically 8pm my time. I was beat, but I got it in. I did UBER (a car service that is a lot less sketchy than a cab and it works through paypal and an app on your phone), but little did I know my ride back and forth was going to cost me $56 bucks! I was already there so what was I going to do.

The Golds was pretty nice, definitely not like mine at home, I realized how spoiled I am. Our gym rocks and it’s huge. I got in a good shoulder day, cardio, and posing.

Right before cardio ended? My phone was on about 10% and then….

RED LINES!

Yes, my phone broke again and I panicked. It happened once before a few weeks back and I hadn’t had problems since so I figured it was fine. Of course it happened again when I’m out of state, have no idea how to get in touch with Sarah, and have no idea where I am. So what happened? I sat in the street and cried. Yep….

I could see the screen JUST ENOUGH with enough battery life left to hit the uber icon to pick me up. I did cry a little the way back to the hotel because I was tired, I was hungry (living off of frozen protein waffles I packed), and now my phone was dunzo. How was I going to get in contact with anyone? How could I document this trip? It sounds silly, but I’m attached to my phone at all times so I felt like a piece of me was gone.

I got back to the hotel and plugged my phone in, hoped for the best and laid down. Sarah asked if I wanted to go to dinner and then the store to get a few groceries. Did I mention we had a fridge? It was glorious! Not the best fridge considering it froze EVERYTHING (fail), but at least stuff was cold. I bailed on going back out because I was so upset, so I asked her to pick me up some paper plates, romaine, and spinach.

I laid in the bed for a while crying a bit (I think I was just super tired), ate two quest bars for dinner after grabbing a salad earlier that I specifically said NO DRESSING, yet I got it back and it was smothered in it (in the trash it went), and decided I was going to hop on the next plane I could get in the morning to go home. I said okay let me sleep on it before I make any crazy decisions because it took a lot for me to get here, and then I passed out from exhaustion.

So not the best first day obviously. I DID STAY! And I’m SO happy I did. I ended up having once in a lifetime opportunities and experiences, made a friend for life, and got in some great workouts with people I aspire to be one day.

And also, I saw my first palm trees 😀

Please come back tomorrow when I start sharing these amazing experiences with you. It’s about to get SO MUCH BETTER!

XOXO With a Cherry On Top,

-Minnie