Saturday, March 19, 2022

The End of My California Journal

Hi everyone. Happy start of the weekend to you.

It's going to be (or so the weather people say) rainy and wet Saturday here in New Hampshire, but yesterday we had some gorgeous weather. Spring is hopefully getting the upper hand over winter.  It' Maple Weekend here in New Hampshire. I'm off to my daughter's future in-laws home today to help process some maple sap into maple syrup, which should be fun.

I want to wrap up this week's posts with the rest of the pages from my California journal. I finally finished it off (it took me awhile to get back to it). I had hoped to finish it before I packed up my workspace, but that didn't happen, so one day while I was waiting for everything else I was working on to dry, I decided to finish it.

I'm not quite sure if I've posted any of these pages before; I think maybe just this first one was in an older post.


We're wrapping up the trip at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In the top page I did a bit of stenciling and cut these otters off a card I bought specifically to make this page. Funny, when I saw it at the aquarium's gift shop, I knew what I wanted to do with it.

And below, I cut up the info on the free map they give you and also added this sticker, plus some tapes, metallic trim and doodling.


It even has a little flip up part.


I used this scrap of paper from an earlier page and added the free little seafood watch folder.  


My next page describes the last hotel we stayed at. We had a 6 AM flight Friday morning, so we needed to stay near the airport. This hotel was maybe 8 -10 minutes away from the airport, and it had good reviews. Plus it was a bit cheaper than the chain motels, and since we'd need to leave our room in the middle of the night to do all those end of trip airport things you need to do (return the rental car, check  suitcases, get through security), I figured if I could save some money, I would.  I booked the room online before we even left on the trip.


If you are ever flying out of San Francisco airport, I wouldn't recommend you stay at this hotel. The hotel itself wasn't horrible, but it was right on the main drag. Our room was right on the road so it was loud. Thankfully running the AC somewhat helped with that. Our room was clean but rather dark and cluttered with big pieces of furniture so there wasn't anyplace to put our suitcases except on the floor in the corners. There was also this sketchy teenager selling little plastic wrapped packages out of a  Dunkin Donuts shopping sized bag in the back parking lot and out in front of the building.  We ran into him twice in the elevator too. I can only suspect what he was doing.

 The hotel didn't work for me, and I was glad to head to the airport just after 3 AM. 

At the airport, "things" went  off without any hitches, and we got on our flight and were headed back east.


Here I used some old travel stickers in my stash and this postcard also in my stash. I could flip it open and write about the flight home.


On this next page I used one of the 2 boarding passes for the 2 flights home, the back of a playing card, some stickers and some travel items I cut out of a magazine.


And finally, here's the end of the book.  On the left I used all the luggage tag stickers as paper, as well as some washi tape as a border. I put a bit of gesso over the luggage tags, used an old photo of Maddie and Pete, a New Hampshire sticker, some letter stickers, as well as my tea stirrer from the flight.


And on the right I added a small paper bag (the otter card came in it) so put in a few other items I wanted to save but that were either too hard to add to the book or didn't fit.


Voila. There's my journal my this trip. I'm trying to talk my husband into taking some time off in May or early June for another little journey, but so far he keeps telling me he's too busy at work. It might be too late to get cheap airfare, but we could do a small driving adventure, if gas isn't too pricey by then. I guess I'll have to keep mentioning it to him a bit more.  Ha ha ha ha.

I hope you do something fun this weekend.  And as always, thanks for visiting my blog.




12 comments:

Mae Travels said...

The Seafood Watch effort of the Monterey Aquarium is very important: it studies survivability of various species of seafood, especially fish, and reports which ones are so endangered that it’s irresponsible to buy/consume them. Alas, there are many endangered fish in the sea.

best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com

DVArtist said...

It's wonderful how you put everything together from you trip. Have a very nice day.

CJ Kennedy said...

Fabulous journal. The flip up and pockets are fun. Your hotel stay sounds like the Red Roof Inn (formerly EconoLodge) on 146 near my house. The hotel is always in the weekly police report in the paper. Have fun making maple syrup

kathyinozarks said...

Good morning Saturday-I so enjoyed seeing your California trip journal. Good memories for you that you can look back on. Happy weekend and Happy Springs hugs Kathy

Valerie-Jael said...

Your travel journal is a treasure, I love the last pages you have showed today. You really put a lot of work into it. Sorry that hotel was so strange! Have a great weekend, I'm looking forward to hearing about your baking course! Hugs, Valerie

David M. Gascoigne, said...

Good afternoon, Erika: I may have said before that I have visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and it remains one of the very best of its kind in my limited experience of such facilities. Very well done. If people are interested in the state of the oceans, and their ability to provide food, a couple of books I recommend are "Four Fish" by Paul Greenberg and "Cod" by Mark Kurlansky. I echo Mae's comments above. Once again I am gobsmacked and flabbergasted that you are able to take so many mundane objects, most of which the vast majority of people would throw away, and convert them to interesting pieces to feature in the various challenges in which you participate. I may never look at my boarding pass in the same way again! Hugs, David

LA Paylor said...

that's a cool way to keep memories! A sign of your creativity. Love the boarding passes cut into triangles, and oy to the hotel description! crikey... bad if you want to leave the safety of a room to mingle with hundreds of people in an airport! I love Monterey Bay area... miss traveling

craftytrog said...

Lovely pages Erika! I'd love to have a holiday this year, but I don't think it's going to happen again.

Divers and Sundry said...

I continue to be impressed by what a wonderful remembrance of the trip a book like this would be.

Aimeslee Winans said...

Love your trip journal pages, Erika. I'm with you on donut boy! And now, you can't even call the cops on them, no one comes. I would have complained about having to put my luggage on the floor, tho. Oh well, it was convenient and that is worth a lot with a 6 am flight. Maybe you need a girlfriend trip and leave hubby at home! heeheehee xoxo

Jeanie said...

This is such a wonderful memory book, Erika. I admire your work and dedication on it!

Birgit said...

Glad you left that hotel. That kid was probably peddling something. You have a great journal of your travels and I love that you used the stir stick from the airplane. These pages are delightful.