California (Part I)

There are two things that I'm addicted to and it's traveling and coffee. Those two things make my world go round. I recently went to Alabama (here and here) to work for two weeks and that was my first time on a plane since 4th grade and my first time ever flying alone and being away from home for more than five nights. I know that's surprising since I'm technically an adult (blah, blah, blah) but that's just the truth. That was eight months ago. Since then, I have been doing everything I can to see more of the world. I don't know HOW I've been so lucky to have gotten the opportunities that I have this year because I certainly thought Alabama would be the only place I'd get to go this year. But God had cooler plans. I'm someone who finds beauty and excitement in the smallest things so getting to go to so many new states since January has been a dream come true.

I came home from Alabama and felt alive. My urge to travel pushed me to make things happen. If you only knew how many nights I spent looking at flights and watching the prices and scouring Airbnb homes and figuring out if I could rent a car and asking people to go with me places and deciding what I'd do... I was especially dreaming about the west coast. And crazy enough, a trip fell together to California when Hannah said she'd love to go and was free the week I was free. I had only met Hannah once but lately I've just trusted God to work out the details. :) After I booked the flights I still couldn't believe I was traveling across the country for a week. There were a million things I needed to do. It was a TON of planning which was stressful at times but so worth it! Hannah and I are both under 21 and we can say we ~~successfully~~ traveled across the country for a week all alone and had the best week of our lives.

We experienced SO much and boy do we have some stories! I have so many photos that I want to do a few parts to this little Cali blog series! That way I can share more about our adventures without bombarding you with thousands of words and photos all at the same time... Although I'm still gonna do that so get ready! Here begins the story of our adventure...

After we got off our flight in San Diego, we took a bus over to Hertz to rent the car. I had been stressed about this the most so I was just hoping it all worked out. Well, Hertz just put in these little kiosk-looking things where you have a Skype call with an agent and you don't actually talk to someone in the store. It's obnoxious. So here I am on the phone with this random lady... I swipe my debit card and show her my license and then she proceeds to tell me I need two forms of identification because I'm paying with a debit card. WHAT? I called Hertz about seven times before this trip because I was so terrified this would happen. I asked them what I needed and they didn't tell me this. So then we try to pay with Hannah's credit card but it didn't work because it was her dad's name on the card, not hers. So then we're fed up and we demand to speak to a human being in the store. A BIG REQUEST, I KNOW RIGHT?! So finally we talk to this lady and she says we don't need two forms of identification.... Yep. After all that... So after the fiasco, we FINALLY got our car and our first stop was In-N-Out!

Then we went straight to Coronado Island! We found free parking and were feeling so great! :) I had heard the best things about Coronado and honestly, I didn't know what to expect but it ended up being one of my favorite places of the whole trip!! So quaint!

All photos of me were taken by Hannah and everything else was taken by me. :)

The houses in Coronado are incredible.

Day 2 we went to La Jolla with Melo and Sean! I devoted the majority of this day to photographing Melo and Sean but we stopped at La Jolla and drove the Pacific Coast Highway there! It was phenomenal!! I can't imagine getting to take that road whenever I wanted!

We went in the cave!!! So fun!

And then it was off to Coronado for my shoot with Melo and Sean!!

And finally, we went to Beacon's Beach for the proposal!! :)

Day 3 we went to the Botanical Gardens and it was about 2,000 degrees out. After walking six miles without water, we started to go insane. We didn't last long but managed to get some fun portraits!

Hannah begged me to share this photo. I seriously cry from laughing every single time I look at it. Hannah is a photographer too and she took my camera and said she had a "vision." Let's just say her vision ended up making me look naked and creepy. We joked that Hannah needed to become a boudoir photographer. This is our favorite photo from the whole trip.

Then we went to Balboa Park and walked for miles looking for a building we never ended up finding. Yay. The theme of our trip was walking, eating, and taking photos.

Isn't this place AWESOME?! I was SO excited about this floor!

We went to Slater's 50/50 where the burgers are half meat, half bacon. Hannah got the 50/50 with bacon, bacon flavored cheese, bacon flavored dressing, and more bacon. Did I mention she got bacon on it?

That night after dinner we went into downtown San Diego to find some cute shops. It was 10 PM, we were trying to find free street parking, there were homeless people, and we were basically terrified everywhere we went. Someone said to us, "Can you spare a little change so I can buy some marijuana?" Long story short, we did not end up finding cute shops. But we did eat ice cream! Hannah and I together is probably the worst combo. Here I am like, "Let's go down this dark alley and take photos." And Hannah's like, "I forgot my mace." LOL. The photo of Hannah and I in black and white was taken right before I screamed and ran away because there was a man sitting on a step but I could only see his feet because of the tall bushes so I immediately freaked out.