Where we've been

We just got to Mesa, AZ. And have an internet connection! I'll post some more pics soon. I'll catch you up with what we've done. After leaving Berkeley, we arrived in Pasadena to visit our friends Joey and Danny. Turns out it was Joey's birthday as well as his friend Darcy's birthday, so we crashed a bday bbq. It was fun to meet some of Joey's Cali friends. Spent Friday night with them, then up early and off to Los Angeles to see my brother.

Jared is a great tour guide. He took us all over the area. After passing by his office building, which he calls the Death Star, we went to Beverly Hills. We found some rock star parking and cruised the high end stores. After that we went up to West Hollywood. We saw Jared's old apartment and saw the Grauman Chinese Theater. We had lunch in this crazy mall and then hopped in the car and off to Santa Monica. Strolled along the 3rd Avenue Promenade and the Santa Monica State Beach Park. Then off to Venice and its canals and beautiful houses. Check out our pictures of all the cool houses. We walked along Venice Beach and saw the following: Muscle Beach, guys playing paddle ball, tshirt stores, crazy looking people and sunshine. We ended the tour with coffee a block from Jared's apartment. Ariel met us there as well.

We fouhgt our way through LA traffic and made it to Redlands and Erin Beaver. She is a college friend (and the person who introduced Staci and I). We spent Saturday night at her amazing condo, then went with her to the Amethyst Bible Church. They currently are meeting in a school while the new building is being built. Erin took us by the new building which she helped design. She also took us by her grandpa's orange orchard which he is unfortunately selling. I can vouch for the tastyness of those oranges.

After church on Sunday Staci and I traveled to Joshua Tree National Park and spent the rest of Sunday there. It was amazingly huge and beautiful. The rock formations, valleys, mountains and vast stretches of cactus were a lot to take in. It was a beautiful day, though incredibly windy. I took a video of Staci talking into the wind so you can have idea of how windy it really was. I'll post pictures of JTNP and the video of Staci soon.

Sunday night we spent in Palm Springs with Staci's high school friend Danielle. She was at work so we didn't see her until this morning when we went to Sherman's for breakfast. She and Staci had a blast reminiscing about old times. On the way out of town we stopped by two houses that Staci used to live in. She took a few pictures of the most recent one.

Now you're caught up with us. We're heading out of Mesa tomorrow on our way to New Mexico.