Emily and Mitchell in the USA

 This weekend was so much fun!  We were up bright and early (although this was a surprise to Mitchell when my alarm went off at 6am) to pack up the car and head out on our journey. We made one stop at a Starbucks for breakfast and to swap drivers, and another to top up on fuel, but made it to our campsite at about 1pm, just in time for lunch.  We didn't want to waste any sunlight, so instead of setting up camp, we immediately set out on a hike. Our campsite had a trail directly from it to a place called Tokopah Falls, which followed the river to a waterfall. It was only a couple of miles long, but it went through trees, a small meadow, and a rocky patch. We stopped for lunch along the way, on a small shady rock at the side of the river.  The waterfall itself wasn't very impressive, late summer is really the worst time for waterfalls, as they've all dried up for the year after the winter rains, but there was some water flowing over the rocks and a small pool at the bo...

This Saturday we went on a train for the first time! The options are not great around here, there were only two trains in the morning and two in the afternoon to choose from. Luckily, they went the direction we wanted, as when I say two trains in the morning, I mean there were only two trains going to San Clemente that day and they were both in the morning.  We chose the 9am train (rather than the 7am one) and settled in. It was pretty busy with families going for beach days, but we were able to get seats together on the right hand side of the train which would give us great coastal views as we travelled. The train was also three stories high and we went straight to the top!  The train took just under two hours, which isn't bad when you think that it would take us at least an hour and a half to drive there and we didn't have to worry about parking. We passed through some other towns in Riverside County and Orange County on our way, including one that looked very cute. It was t...

  On Tuesday I picked up some pizza from work and some people from Mitchell's lab came over for game night. We played the pandemic board game and then a few rounds of Mario Kart.  On Wednesday, Mitchell was late home from work, so I went to the new tea shop to try the bubble tea. I had the lavender milk tea and it was tasty. That was it for during the week, other than my yoga class.  On Saturday we drove over to Orange for the county fair. There was animal breeding contests, so there were several barns with sheep in which were all very friendly and not like those at petting zoos who get poked all day long and hide in the corners.  Next door there was a paddock with so many miniature donkeys and a paddock where later on they held donkey time trials. Some were cooperative, but most had to be pulled around the course by their owners! We walked through the fair, looking at all of the food stalls. There were a lot of BBQ stands and fried food. Mitchell got a huge pile of ...