2/15/2021 southern cali & a visit from my sister 🌶

after exploring the desert for a while, we headed to the coast to get ahead on some weekend homework before we picked up my sister gabby from the airport of san diego thursday.

spent tuesday night in dana point with our good old friend mia from indiana🧞‍♀️ so lovely to see a familiar face and be in a familiar place after being on the road for so long. went back my favorite southern cali places, laguna beach, to get some amazing mushroom&tofu tacos and jump into the winter ocean🍄 did some homework by mia’s neighborhood pool ( so so nice ), then mia joined us to sleep in the parking lot to see what the car life is all about 😎 the next morning i went for a beautiful run to the nearest beach... being near the ocean is always the best feeling ever, and i got to facetime my lovely nana on the run, so it was quite an amazing run 🐸 hung out by the pool working on some more homework before heading to a local farm to get some free produce !! so thankful for miss mia

after leaving dana point on wednesday, we made our way down to san diego, where we did our chem lab at sunset cliffs. school with a view baby❤️ met some maui surfer dude who offered to give us surf lessons.. may have convinced us to move to hawaii 🥺 after leaving sunset beach ( without seeing a green flash, but still seeing an epic sunset) we randomly stumbled upon a crazy setting in ocean beach. wednesday drum circle / farmers market / fire spinning / many other things. we wandered around the town, listened to some live music, hopped into the drum circle and danced like crazy, got some free vegan pozole & some other munchies from local vendors, and ended the night watching a local band go crazy outside of a restaurant. this town was such a beautiful scene. the hippies from the drum circle and the homeless were right alongside the college kids and the parents who were hitting the bars as we all listened to some beautiful music. dancing and singing brought everyone together in a super wholesome moment. the energy at this place was so great, everyone was one with each other in the most lovely way. so refreshing to see so much love and trust in a world where people are so often skeptical of each other. not even to mention the crazy talent of everyone there.

slept the mission bay area and headed to the beach in the morning. such an insane feeling to be so free out here. anywhere where we want to be our home is our home. ran along the beach again before doing some yoga and chilling and doing school work. free beach showers are our new best friend 😘

after the beach, we headed to the airport to pick up gabby !! so stoked to have her out here to join on this adventure 🌈 got some lunch in and explored a new beach and tide pools in san diego before heading out to the desert!!

spent the night on the same blm land outside of joshua tree that we did last week where natalia left her hiking shoe... luckily it was still there 👽 woke up in the morning for classes before a crazy amount of wind hit us. drove into joshua tree after class to hike around a bit. so cool to explore this unique type of desert, surrounded by bright green joshua trees while the sun beat down on us through the mountains. ended up on the summit of mount ryan for sunset, whatta dream 🌄

stayed late in the park to stargaze a bit before finding a campground south of the park to spend the night. found a singular tree in the desert to hang up my hammock using the car :) made a lovely fire and soup and salad dinner before falling asleep.

the next day, we spent time running, doing yoga, and chilling before making some amazing oatmeal with all the goodies that gabby brought us (thanks to our amazing families). journeyed back into the park to do another hike that led to a palm tree oasis in the middle of the desert 🧚 such crazy plants out here. pink cacti, some huge spiky plants that look like they belong on another planet, palms that were as tall as the canyon. after our hike, we headed back to the coast for the night.

woke up monday morning and went to a farmers market, where we stumbled upon a box of food scraps that ended containing tons of near perfect fruit and veggies. after lots of digging and organizing and cleaning of produce, we ended up with fruits and veggies to feed us for a week 🥝🍓 super yummy food and a great way to cut back on food waste.

after the farmers market, we headed to the beach to surf and take in some more sun before gabby had to return to the frigid state of illinois 🌈 made a FIRE salad with all of our goodies, then went to laguna beach to explore some sea caves that i’ve been dying to see for years but the tide was always too high :,) met up with my lovely aunt for dinner at a spot right off the PCH that we used to go to when i’d visit with my family. drove down to san diego after dinner, where we found out that gabby’s 11 am flight was cancelled due to snow storms, so we had to take her to the airport at 5 am instead🐸 after about 4 hours of sleep, we went to the airport and dropped her off 🥲 miss her already