My First Day in California!

[New state, new blog look! Like the ocean colors? I tried yellow for the sunny-ness of California but it was too bright, and then tan for the sand of the beaches, but it was too blah...]

I'm sitting in my new apartment in Long Beach! Today was a beautiful day, the windows were open, a cool ocean breeze was blowing in the trees, and when I wasn't unpacking I was looking out the window at all the greenery around! While I loved all my time in Arizona and will really miss being around my friends there, I have to admit I'm happy to trade in the desert for green stuff again!

On Thursday night I ended up feeling wide awake all night so I kept packing away until all of a sudden, it was 5:30 am and sunny out! I decided it would be much cooler to pack my car early that AM before the temps reached the predicted high of 101 degrees. It turned out to be a good plan! I got my car all packed up (and even had a little space left over -coulda brought the kitchen sink!), decided to sleep for a couple of hours, met up with Kathy and Lisa and little Taylor for lunch, then took off for California! I spent pretty much the whole drive talking with friends, so it really flew by! I got to Jim and Marilyn's, visited for a bit, then slept REALLY well!

This morning Jim and Marilyn were gracious enough to come with me to help unload my car. Getting my keys took 3x the normal amount of time, but unloading the car took 3x less than normal! Thanks for coming along! It was so nice to only climb the stairs a third of the time!

I often take pictures right when I walk in the door, so that if there's stuff all around later on, I still have something to show you. Well, I forgot to do that today, and while I'm mostly settled, I'm not all the way done, so you'll have to wait just a bit... Sorry about that! Just so you know, "we" have a nice apartment!

I headed out this evening to check out the neighborhood. I have a good friend who's been known to call Starbucks "Mecca" and while I don't think she'll be able to visit me this summer, I want her to know that Mecca is less than one block away.

For the rest of you, this just means that you can visit me and still get your morning cup of coffee, since I don't have anything here to offer you!

[I consider this:Mecca, but I haven't seen one yet. Hopefully soon...]

I'm happy to report that Target is only 1.6 miles away. That's a good thing for this girl! I picked up a few essentials then headed out to do the thing I was most looking forward to... going to the ocean!

I timed it so that I could sit at the beach, eat the dinner I grabbed, and watch the sunset. I wasn't 100% sure where to go, but I just went in the direction of the ocean, in the shortest distance possible. I ended up right where I planned, and found Bluff Park there. It had the perfect little bench to enjoy my dinner, but the view wasn't quite what I expected. I hadn't thought about the fact that Long Beach is slightly in a bay and the beach faces south, not west. So, I watched the ocean, but not the sunset.

This picture is looking west.
This is looking southwest, and you can see the Long Beach harbor/marina. There were also tons of ships out at sea, and the islands you see are actually oil rigs that are made to look a little nicer than normal oil rigs (this info was courtesy of the older Spanish man who stopped to ask if I was enjoying the view and excited to hear that I just moved to the area today and already sought out the beach. He said it's the best place to take an evening walk and gave me a few other hints about the area.)


This is looking southeast from the beach, and when I remember to bring my jacket (it started to feel really cold in my t-shirt and shorts!) I'll head out on the pier next.


After driving west a bit, and still not finding the "west" coast of CA, but a really fun area of Long Beach instead, I realized that I needed to get back home and since it was getting dark, I'd try again tomorrow.

I stopped at the grocery store quick to get the essentials in life: milk, bread, yogurt, bananas, and Oreos.

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to going to Calvary for church (where Uncle Jim is the pastor) and I'll also head to my new hospital to make sure I know where I'm going bright and early on Monday morning. I hope to post some apartment pictures as well!