California Dreamin’

So I planned on leaving on Tuesday the 13th after packing my car up. My little brother, Alex, and his girlfriend, KK, were visiting from Boston for the weekend, and would be working up the coast of California to San Francisco, leaving that same day. Well, by the time my car was loaded, it was way to late to leave.

Soooo, I got to spent one more night at home in my bed ๐Ÿ˜ด. The next morning, after the work rush, I loaded up the last few things into my car and was getting ready to leave….

**** SIDE NOTE ****

If you don’t already know this, I have always had an obsession with butterflies, more specifically Monarch butterflies. Last spring/summer I had my dad buy Milkweed (Monarch caterpillar food) to plant in our front yard. We found so many of their eggs and caterpillars. We got to watch them grow and we even found where some of them created their chrysalises, but we never saw any new butterflies.

So, when I was getting in my car, I look down on the ground….. and guess what I saw ๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜. A BRAND NEW MONARCH, who had fallen out and hadn’t yet flown.

The butterfly was in the path of my car, so I was going to try and move it a little, when I got down, the butterly climbed onto my finger!!!!! I moved it over to the brick and realized it probably was hungry and needed nectar so I moved it onto the Milkweed flowers.

So this wasn’t only a special moment because I’ve never had anything like this happen, but all the symbolism!!!!! I am like that new butterfly. As a caterpillar ๐Ÿ›ย  you can only see your small world ๐ŸŒŽย  that is around you. You go through your days learning and living with all these changes through the beginning parts of your life. Eventually you become the beautiful butterfly ๐Ÿฆ‹ย  you are meant to be, but when you first complete the metamorphosis you are just starting to learn to fly and experience the whole large world. So as cliche as this is, I’m learning how to fly and getting to see my whole world!

**** END SIDE NOTE ****

Back to leaving….. I’m not going to share every single thing I do every second. So I ended up leaving to the Bay Area that Wednesday and stayed in that area until Friday night.

While I was up there I got to see a few friends from SLO. Thank you Grace, Mike, Grant, Eric, and AJ for spending time with me, hosting me, feeding me, or just saying hi to me. It was a pleasure to see you all and I hope you pick a place to visit me along the way!!

Friday before leaving I spent the day in the city withย Alex, KK, and David. We started at Presidio, which is the area surrounding the south side of Golden Gate Bridge. I plan on coming back to do all of CA at the end of my trip, so I didn’t go by the Welcome Center for my passport cancellation. We saw the cemetery, Cristy Field, the Warming Hut, and a great view of downtown.

Saturday was my big sister, (from AOII) Charlotte and David’s wedding. It was absolutely beautiful in Arnold, CA surrounded by trees, family, friends, and love. Ps. I made that snap chat filter ๐Ÿ˜

You can see all my pictures for Part 1, byย clicking here.

It really was a California dream. See you around.