Cali Blog Tour - Pasadena Part I

Greetings, everyone!

I thought I'd break our road trip photos into a few different posts over the next week while Doug and I move and settle into our new digs. Here's the first of the series...

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Carrie and I left my house in Arizona at 5:30 a.m. on a Friday morning headed to California. Neither of us had ever been to Pasadena before - other than driving through on the freeway without venturing into town. Quite honestly, venturing off the freeway never appealed to me as it isn't the most beautiful part of the drive to my mom's house...but I digress. Turns out, Pasadena is absolutely beautiful! Huge trees and beautiful lush landscaping every where you look. I loved the canopy of trees on every street and kept ooohing and ahhhing at every turn!

After a 6-hour drive from home to Pasadena, we had a little time to kill before our lunch date. We had directions to get to Old Town Pasadena but took a wrong turn and ended up on a street with plenty of antique shops to browse - right up our alley!

We happened upon this lovely shop where the clerk was a bit wacky and very chatty! Nice thing is that he was very knowledgeable and we talked at length about these amazing Victorian Hall candle lamps. Ah!!! They were so stunning!

Cool plants along the way...

When we found out that Mel would be in Pasadena during her visit to the states, I remembered that my blog friend Margaret lived near by and sent her an email about meeting up. She agreed, and suggested we go to a place called "Pie 'n Burger." Great call on her part as the food was very yummy!!! We were so busy chatting that I didn't even take my camera out during our meal!

Let me tell you about my friend, Margaret. I found her blog in the very beginning of my blogging venture - about two and a half years ago. Yes, it was in the beginning, before I had a million other blogs to follow and I was actually poking around looking for something to read. I used to always check the "Blogs of Note" tab on my Blogger Dashboard and one day it happened to be "Finnegan Begin Again." I clicked over and was immediately drawn to Margaret's witty writing style.

I left a comment on Margaret's blog, and the next thing I knew she was commenting on mine. Fast forward a couple of years and here we are, meeting in person and enjoying each other's company at a funky place called "Pie 'n Burger." :o)

Margaret's knack for taking ancient legends and putting a modern-day-California-girl twist to them is just so entertaining! Here's what she does: You have a life challenge and you call upon Margaret to give you a Goddess that relates to your little situation. She does just that, throws in some sage advice and you walk away feeling like there is hope - mixed in with some tongue-in-cheek humor. I highly recommend her blog and her Goddess gifts to each and every one of you! ♥

So, back to Pasadena and the beautiful trees - some in full bloom - absolutely stunning!!!

After lunch with Margaret we headed over to The Huntington Library for the next leg of our trip. Again, more beautiful mature trees lining our path...a little argument about where to park...walking and searching the crowd for our next blog friend meet up...