USA Road Trip Day 11

Today we slept in, relaxed by the pool, Nick helped with yard work and we hung out with our family. Wynne took us out to lunch at a place called BEX. We all three had amazing salads and breadsticks (Daddy, you would LOVE the salads). There were only a few salads to choose from, but they are as good as the ones at Starfire in Florence! After lunch, we rode around town, stopping at places like Trader Jo's and the Mexican grocery store. The Mexican grocery store was like stepping back in time to Bolivia. Everything was bright colors, stuffed teddy bears, huge piñatas, fake plants and flowers and tall palm trees all throughout the store, every kind of meat from every kind of animal, salsa music and corny love songs playing in the background and the most colorful cakes you have ever seen. I felt very at home there!!! I was glad that it was inside, though, since in Bolivia we would go to the cancha. This was an outside market over five square miles and you could smell the meat section before you even got to it. They would lay out all of the meat on tables and counters, covered in blood that would drip onto the ground. Flies would be having a party on the tongues and other body parts that were slopped out for shoppers, like us! It was so gross, I would always feel faint when we passed by that area of the cancha! This is one of the reasons that Nick and I don't eat meat at home...I can't stand the site or smell and I hate to touch it! When we go back to the May's house, we were wiped out from the sun...the air is dry here, but the sun will drain every ounce of energy that you have because of the intensity. Carrie (the cousin who is my twin) cooked us all dinner and Will (the cousin who shares my birthday) came home from college for two nights. Unfortunately, Emily (the cousin who shares my name...duh) is at college in Georgia, so we won't be able to see her! We are having a great time staying here at Herbie and Wynne's house and they are spoiling us rotten! They have a house in the front if their yard and we are staying behind it in a little guest house by the pool. We have our own bedroom, bathroom, den and kitchen...it is so nice! Obviously I have watched too many movies...I thought that California would be huge and fancy everywhere and that famous people and celebrities would be out around town walking their dogs and avoiding the paparazzi! But, we actually are out in the dessert in what seems like the middle of no where and we haven't seen anyone famous! It makes it hard to believe that we are all the way in California since the houses, yards, stores, highways, towns and people here are normal! Traveling always cracks me up because of how we stereo-type people and places, without even realizing it!