I made a new friend at the Malibu beach the other day!
We were just laying out basking in the sun when an older man came over with his pet alpaca and two dogs. She was very sweet and kept making a purring type noise when I pet her, so hopefully that was a happy noise! The owner wasn't quite sure what her various noises meant yet because he hasn't had her very long.
Miss Alpaca was so sweet and adorable, and I'm just now realizing I never asked her name. Oops! Anyway, just a silly unexpected experience on a beach in Malibu!
Guess who totally forgot she had a blog? This girl!
I mean, it's 2019, nobody really reads blogs anymore anyway, but I really enjoyed documenting life through here.
Birthday week is upon us! I'll be 27 this Thursday and that's so crazy to me! No matter how much I don't want to, I just keep getting older and I really don't know how time is flying by so fast! Didn't I just turn 26 like 3 months ago? Wasn't I just 22 last year?
This year I'm going to Disneyland for my birthday because I'm truly still an 8 year old at heart. An 8 year old with a credit card! :)
I'm excited! I love Disneyland and although I was just there in the Spring, I'm excited to go back! It will already be decorated for Halloween and I've never been there while it's decorated for a holiday so I'm excited for that!
So here's to my last few days being 26! It was a really good year and I'm extremely grateful for it and the adventures I had!
Here's to making 27 even better than all the others combined!
My wandering heart has been aching to go out on a road trip again. I've been really reminiscing about the road trip I went on in the fall and it's making me want to head back out again. I didn't get to explore pretty much any of the South so I think it would be fun to do a Southern U.S. trip this time around!
I would love to see Florida, New Orleans, Georgia, the Carolinas, and those swampy mossy style trees! I'm absolutely terrified of alligators but it would be kind of neat to see those too from the complete safety of a tour. :)
On my last trip, I pretty much just went as far south as Virginia Beach and then I cut back across the U.S, stopping to see my dear friends in Nashville, and then my brother's family in Oklahoma.
And as crazy as this may seem to some of you, I kind of really miss sleeping in my car. I know that sounds insane, but it was just so oddly comforting! I never thought I could ever sleep so comfortably and peacefully in my car, in the middle of some random city, in a parking lot, but oh man was it just so cozy! Don't get me wrong, I love my queen size bed too, but there's just something about the adventure of it all that my heart has been longing for lately!
A little Spring road trip may be just what I need... :)
This is the second year that I've picked a focus word for the year. My dear friend Phillip introduced me to the idea last New Year's Day that instead of writing a typical New Year's Resolutions list, to choose one word that you want to be the center focus for that upcoming year. I really love that sentiment, so together at brunch, we all picked our words.
Last year my word was DELIBERATE. I wanted to really focus on being intentional with my time and just how I spent it, and to really focus on being present in each moment.
This year I chose the word COURAGEOUS.
I feel like there are just so many things I want to do in life but fear sometimes stops me from attempting those things. I want to focus on being more courageous in life, and realize that it really is okay to fail. It's okay to take chances. It's okay to try new things and be bad at it the first time around. It's okay to be apprehensive about life changes, but I never want that apprehension to stop me from doing the things I want to pursue in life.
So, 2019 will be a year of courage, a year to try new things, a year to live my life fully! As cliche as that may sound. I never want to look back on my life as a "what could have been". I want to take chances, and make changes, and be courageous.
The east coast is so wild. In the past two days I've been in 10 states with hardly any driving! Maine. New Hampshire. Connecticut. Massachusetts. New York. New Jersey. Pennsylvania. Delaware. Maryland. Virginia.
I've also paid waaay too much in tolls to get across all those states! $19 in total yesterday and $24 in total today. I don't understand the point of toll roads. Isn't that what taxes are for?
Anyway, it seems nuts that in just a few hours of driving you can be in so many different states!
Goodnight from Virginia Beach!
Day 1 of my trip started off so great! I went to Devil's Tower, Wyoming which is truly kind of spectacular!
I walked around the entire rock formation, which really isn't that far of a distance but it seems like it will take such a long time to walk around when you're initially looking at the size of it! It's misleading, I suppose. I asked a cute couple at the beginning of the trail how long it took and the husband said "Oh about 15-20 minutes!" It definitely did NOT take me 15-20 minutes but I also did stop a lot for photos and videos. It probably took me closer to an hour and 20 minutes to get around it after all my side exploring off the main trail. Homeboy either lied, or that cute old couple just booked it around the tower!
It was such a beautiful walk, and so incredibly quiet in the trees. I love those purely peaceful moments when it feels like it's just you and the trees. There's just some particular moments in life that stick out as being truly peaceful and completely content with life. This walk was one of those moments for me.
I bought some little souvenir treasures from the gift shop, and then continued on to Deadwood, South Dakota and then Rapid City, South Dakota. Deadwood is a really cool old gold mining town in the mountains. Maybe it's because I was raised going to all the gold mining towns in the California foothills, but I've always really loved gold mining towns! They will always have a sentimental place in my heart, and this one was no different! Deadwood is cute!
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| Deadwood, South Dakota |
My grandparents (Schultz side) are both from Rapid City so it was kind of lovely to see where they grew up and met. I drove by the house my dad lived in for the first few months of his life before they moved to California.
I went to Dinosaur Park which has a really fun view over the city! Not to mention some cool dinosaurs! ;)
On this trip, I sleep most nights in my car but if a place is particularly cold that night I get a hotel. In Rapid City, I got a hotel and met 3 girls in the lobby who were about my age from Australia doing the same thing as me! They flew into the east coast and were road tripping across the United States until they got to San Francisco. It's just really fun to meet others doing the same sort of thing!
Even when you're alone on the road, there's always familiar feeling people to share moments with, and I think that's beautiful.
I'm currently on my cross country U.S. road trip! I'm finally doing it and it's so beautiful! I couldn't have picked a better time of year to do this trip. The autumn colors have been so incredible everywhere I've been! I'm really in love with this season.
I left on Monday, October 15th so it's been about 2 and a half weeks that I've been out on the road and it feels a lot shorter than that while simultaneously feeling so much longer!
I've had a blast so far and this trip is exactly what my heart and soul needed. I needed to be wild, to explore new places, to get out of my comfort zone, to experience new things, to truly live my life. And I've been doing all of that!
So far, I've essentially done the whole northern half on the United States and a little bit of Canada too! I want to do separate blog posts to go into more depth about each beautiful place I've explored so those will be coming soon!
I'm just overwhelmingly happy. It's hard for me to put into words, but it truly just feels so freeing for my soul. There's something so therapeutic about traveling down little unknown roads in states I've never been. About meeting new people who are also on the road by themselves with the sheer intention to just explore. About seeing other walks of life. About approaching kind strangers every step of the way to ask them to take a photo of me. About learning to be truly content with myself.
This trip is something I knew I wanted to do for a long time, but I guess I didn't realize just how much I needed it.
Until next time.
Goodnight from Portland, Maine!
I went down to Nephi with Jeremy to visit his family and have a lake/boating day at Mona Reservoir!
Our boating trip got off to a silly start because after we had just launched out into the reservoir, we noticed there was water at the bottom of the boat. After his dad reassured us he had just checked and made sure he put the plug back in before we took off, we noticed the water was rising. We drove back to the shore and pulled the boat back on to the trailer, and sure enough, the boat didn't have the plug in it! We were essentially sinking in the middle of the reservoir but telling ourselves we weren't! It was funny.
I just laid out and relaxed in the front of the boat, but the others rode on the wake board, and water skis and things. I just felt like being lazy. :)
We had a picnic back on shore of sandwiches, cantaloupe, chips, and oreos (which I don't really care for normally, but they were soooo good that day!)
It was such a fun, relaxing day on the water under the sun. I love a good boat day!
I just love summer. :)
You guys! Summer vacation is officially here! I had my last day of work last Friday and now it's easy breezy fun summer vacation ahead! I'm seriously so happy about it!
It's so funny that as soon as I stopped working I quickly reverted back to my teenage years. I instantly started staying up late again and feeling how I felt when I was a teenager! Just a few months ago, I was totally falling asleep on the couch while watching TV at 9:00 p.m. and Jeremy would have to wake me up and help me to bed. Now I'm just reverting back to my old night owl ways again, but I secretly really love it! I feel like a creative part of my brain gets turned on at night, and I really like that side of myself!
I think I just love the idea of having a summer vacation again! I haven't had a summer vacation for a few years so it's been a blast so far! I finally get to work on the creative side of my life more. I get to blog more, start up my vlogs again, schedule more photoshoots, and work on all the things I've been meaning to be better at.
I'm also so excited to be able to work on my garden more, travel around the country in my Fit, have more time for people, and just focus on the things that really matter to me.
It's so easy to get stuck in the routine of life and a full-time job, especially when it's one that isn't really fulfilling your dream, so it's nice to have that moment to re-evaluate your life and what's important to you. I'm re-assessing how I spend my free time, and what I truly want out of my life and it really is so refreshing and invigorating!
I've only been unemployed a few days, but I already feel so much happier and lighter! I know it won't last forever so I'm definitely soaking it all in while I can!
Yay for summer! And yay for refreshing life re-evaluations!
