Helloooo Southern US! We are arriving!

In October, my freshman year formal date, lake walking buddy, and former college roomie Beth is getting married. (The first of all our college friends!) In Arkansas! My pal and fellow LA dweller, Kimi, and I thought what a great excuse not only to see old friends, but to also take a trip to somewhere in the U.S that we have never been. I have done a lot of traveling across the seas, but I definitely want to see more of the United States. We figured since we are going to be out there anyway, maybe there are some different cities and states we could tack on to the trip, turning it into a wild raging adventure. After minimal research we found that low and behold New Orleans is only 600 miles-ish from where the wedding is! Perfection.

We have been discussing the possibility of a road trip from Louisiana to Arkansas for a few months now, and I was always skeptical about it really happening. I always knew we'd make it to the wedding, but I wasn't sure if we would get ourselves together quick enough to organize the rest of the week long trip. Well yesterday we decided to make it happen and officially booked our plane tickets. So watch out land of deep fried everything! The glu-tards are coming for you!

We both couldn't be more excited. Not only have we not seen Beth in what will probably be a year or so (wow, really? Is that true....fact checker please!) but I have never been to most of the places we plan to head on this adventure. So far nothing is really set, all we know is that we're landing in New Orleans on October 4th, renting a car, and then flying out of Tulsa on October 10th. The middle part is still up in the air. (well actually on land, since that's the part of the venture we'll be road tripping) Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done, and any advice or suggestions are greatly welcomed!!

According to our AAA trip tick we are going to be driving through Jackson, Memphis, and Little Rock, with the possibility in staying overnight in any of those cities, so please help us out with any suggestions of places that need to be stayed in or things that need to be seen!

This is my first real big trip without adult supervision. Haha. Well, other than Kimi and I supervising ourselves. I guess I unfortunately have to admit that I'm at least a little bit adult nowadays. It's sure to be an extraordinary journey, and I cannot wait to finish it off with seeing one of my favorite people beautifully glide down the aisle. (And I mean beautifully, so I hope you're practicing that saunter Beth!)

And seriously people don't hold back on the suggestions...we're gonna need them. I don't want to risk missing the biggest ball of twine or something! That would be an EPIC fail in Kodak opportunities.

Best Friend Adventures

Life is always an adventure when it comes to my biffle Cori. I think she is probably my oldest friend, and one of the only people I still talk to from those dreaded middle school/ high school years. That alone should say how pretty freaking awesome she is. After high school we traveled our separate ways to college, and it has been five years since we have been in the same town together, so it's obvious that some real craziness needs to happen. Apparently we have been making up for those lost years, because since I have been back we have been hanging out ALOT, and when Cori is involved, good times are sure to ensue. So far she has made my move to LA feel like the right decision, and the fun has only just begun.

Yesterday, feeling fun and adventurous, we decided to ride our bikes around Balboa Lake. The fact that I am not the most practiced bicycle rider should probably have been my first red flag. Let's just say for the safety of the cars on the road, it is much better that I ride my bike on the sidewalk. You would think that as a twenty three year old, I should be able to ride my bike pretty steadily, but in my case we can just say the "wobbling" is part of my charm. Despite this important factor, I decided to be spontaneous and power through. I borrowed my Dad's truck and I got ready to go pick up Cori and her bike. When I arrived at Cori's house, I realized that we both had very different ideas of what this bike ride was going to be like, let's go ahead break it down:

Lauren: thinking this was going to be an exercising opportunity, I put on running shorts, a tank top and my running shoes. What else would you go bike riding in? I threw my wet hair into a single french braid, for obvious practicality: staying out of my face, but not interfering with safety of wearing a helmet. I also put together a bag with a bottle of water, sunscreen, chaptstick, and the other essentials like phone, keys, etc. I threw my purple mountain bike in the bed of the truck and zoomed off to pick Cori up. I find her on the corner of her block as follows:

Cori: Standing there with her electric blue beach cruiser, my dear friend has on a slinky black summer dress, rainbow sandals, curly voluptuous hair, and a little side purse. And no helmet. WHAT!? (can we just reiterate for one moment that my hair is in a single french freaking braid.) Did I miss the memo, is there some sort of hot guy biking convention happening, was I supposed to dress to impress? Not to mention as we get later into the ride, we find out that in her side purse she has lip gloss and breath mints, all the practical items for a bike ride. I think she may have had a minor lapse in clear judgement, and forgot that we actually don't live in a cute beach town like Venice. I don't think the Balboa Lake crowd is really an appropriate pool to fish for men. But hey, that's just my opinion. I have been wrong before. (it's rare, but possible.)

Although my little bag was packed with a girl scout's "always be prepared" mentality, one thing I did forget to put in what Cori so fondly called my "man satchel," was an extra tube for my tire. I think on normal bike excursions this precaution is not usually necessary, except when your tire pops less than halfway through the five mile journey. Which mine did. Obviously. It's okay though, we weren't really looking forward to bike riding, what we really wanted to do was to go bike walking. I mean Cori was so appropriately dressed for that sort of activity. And thank god for those breath mints, they really kept us going.

And so went my walk of shame, with my butch braid and man satchel, pushing my flat tired bike all the way back to the car.

Lesson Learned: get a full bike tune up ASAP. Dress cuter when "working out" with my best friend. But none the less, even when things don't go according to plan they can still be hysterically fun. As long as you're in good company.

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old adventures in Tuscon