Santa Barbara, CA

I woke up extremely early this morning; obviously I had too much on my mind to get a proper night's sleep. After a restless night I got up at 5:00 AM to complete my packing and straighten up the house. I was able to leave the house nice and tidy and hopped into the taxi at 7:50. I had arranged a 7:30 AM pick up but the taxi driver arrived at the right house number but the wrong street. When I called the company to report the taxi late the dispatcher informed me that the driver was in my driveway! After some back and forth the driver finally made it to my house. John and I arrived at the airport around the same time. He was carrying a backpack and a small carry on duffel and I was weighted down like an eighteen year old heading off to her freshman year of college! He was able to get me in the first-class line because he has elite status so getting through the security line was a breeze. We made our flight in plenty of time but the flight was delayed by an hour and 30 minutes due to an aircraft change, catering problems (what catering) and de-icing! I was in row 19 and John was in row 15. I had two seatmates but didn't interact with either of them. The young woman sitting in the middle was armed with morse code detecting headphones and the woman in the aisle seat read and slept. I went to sleep while we were on the runway and slept for about an hour before we were even airborne. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep much during the nearly 4 hour flight and developed a migraine or at least a very bad headache about an hour into the flight. By the time we arrived into LAX I was absolutely miserable sensitive to light,smell, sound and horribly nauseous. We picked up the rental car but the smell of it made me more nauseous not to mention it was a Chevrolet HHR (hideous piece of junk) John exchanged it for another car before we left the lot. Finally we were on our way to Santa Barbara about a two hour drive from LAX. The ride was pure agony because I could feel every bump and the roar of engine was torture. I felt awful but I really couldn't even bear the thought of talking so we made the drive was in almost complete silence. As soon as we got to the hotel I took a warm shower because I was freezing (chills) and got under the covers. John went out to get some exercise and to meet up with his brother who is renting a house here in Santa Barbara for six weeks. John had given me an Imatrex (sp) at the airport and 2 acetaminophen and 2 ibuprofen when we got to the hotel. I pulled the covers over my head and slept for at least two hours. I woke up feeling much better so the three of us went to dinner at one of Julia Child's favorite restaurants, Super Rica, an old Mexican restaurant near downtown Santa Barbara. It was good and because the weather is cool and rainy here there was no line or waiting as is typically at this restaurant. The food was pretty good or maybe it was excellent but I was still in a headache fog so I'm not exactly sure. Now we're back at the hotel watching the Australian Open tennis tournament. I didn't take any photos today so some will be added later this week. I can't seem to access Word on John's laptop so I'm having to write this in email form and copy and paste it into the blog so I'm sure there are plenty of typos and errors so apologies followers. I think I'm really going to miss my Macbook for the next three weeks.