Today was spent mostly on the road.

Jen and I met up with Lisa this morning, to head up to Solvang with her and her dog, Jamie, to drop the dog off with her mom.

Quick note: Solvang is way up the 101, and has a whole lot of windmills, cows, and grass. Very pretty, but in an "oh my god there's nothing out here" sort of way. Yup, that's me, your friendly neighborhood city guy. Give me pavement, dammit.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Solvang.

So, we all pile into Lisa's car this morning, and I get to be the lucky one to sit in the back seat with Jamie the entire way up there. About an hour and a half to two hours. Which means that for an hour and a half to two hours, I'm being licked, being slobbered upon, reaching forward to make sure the dog doesn't crawl onto Lisa's lap (you know, because she's driving and all), and having various parts of my nether regions ground into paste by the enthusiastic stomping of a certain not-very-light canine.

But, I survived. *whew*

We met up with Lisa's mom and aunt for lunch at a nice place on a golf course, then parted ways and the three of us (without groin-stomping dog this time) started back down to Los Angeles.

Did we make it? Hell no.

Our car was inexplicably drawn towards the Camarillo Outlet Stores, where various shops apparently called out to the car, luring it into their parking lot and forcing some of its occupants to shop. Yes, including me. Got a new belt, Jen got me a few new shirts, and I picked up a couple of things for the kitchen and the living room (including a rather large goldfish statue at Pier 1 Imports... hey, we've apparently got a fish motif going here).

Then, it was off to Souplantation for food. Good stuff, like a Hometown Buffet for healthy people, but I think I overdid it on the salad and didn't leave enough room for the other stuff. Following that, we came home.

More about the homecoming present we received in another posting. Blech.

But, that was my day, up until we got back to the apartment. Right now, I'm getting ready for the next posting about the homecoming, and then it's off to bed for me. Had a five-day weekend, and I get to go back to work tomorrow.

Yay.