LA with Marti Reis

Today's puzzling post is about a lot. We have been busy the past 6 days.  First we packed up the car to drive down to Marti's for the next few days.  This was a hoot.  I could only see out of the side mirrors.  We had the car packed so tightly that we simply couldn't fit another thing in there.  When I looked in the rear view mirror all I saw was black.  When we arrived at Marti's she and her girlfriend got a good laugh as we unloaded.  They were waiting for the clowns to come out.  

We arrived at out hotel which was 2 blocks from Disney.  Why you ask? Because they have a big Lego store there and I wanted to go. We arrived around 5 and unpacked what we needed for the next 2 days.  We had dinner at a nice sushi place near by and lay down to sleep around 8:30.  Guess what? Fireworks.  I swear they were in our back yard.  They were loud.  But not nearly as loud as the excited children watching them from right outside our window. We finally fell into a deep sleep.  

The next day I had a series of tasks I wanted to accomplish.  I visited 3 Daiso's to get a bunch of petite blocks, I went to Downtown Disney to go to the lego store and to buy a few twisty puzzles they have.  

I  hit a grocery store for some milk and OJ, and finally to get some lunch for us.  George was feeling a bit under the weather so he stayed in and rested.  I returned around 1, we had lunch and I spent the afternoon putting together blocks.  

Sunday was check out and I played with blocks until 11, then we repacked the car and headed over to Marti's.  We went for lunch shortly after arriving and visited a toy store downtown and another Daiso for more blocks.  I got a few puzzles I didn't have, and at Daiso Marti got a few puzzles and I picked  up some sea creature blocks.  We returned to her house and I made a few of those sea creatures for her along with a couple of crystal puzzles. Dinner was leftover BBQ from lunch!  The portions were so big. Her home is amazing!  Please forgive all the photos here and be sure to scroll down for more of this post.

The next morning Walter Hoppe and Jerry and Allan Slocum came to Marti's for a small puzzle party.  

We all spent the best part of the morning catching up. Lunch was from Marti's favorite Mexican place, and after that we all did a bit of puzzling and had some more good conversation. 

As before, we managed to get a few videos of Jerry and Walt discussing their early puzzling memories.

Sadly, the day ended all too early as Walter had to return to San Diego.  Shortly after Jerry and Allan returned home again as well.  

Marti's home and her hospitality are unbelievable.  We got to sleep in one of the best bedrooms ever.

She had a wonderful extension made that is just filled with wonderful puzzles.  We had a great time going through them all.  You see, our entire roadtrip was designed around being able to pick up the R. Gee collection that Marti so kindly donated to us.  On Tuesday morning around 7 I got up and began packing.  I was finished in 2 hours.  Now this may sound trivial, but it was a massive task.  By the time all was said and done, we had packed up 58 boxes of puzzles!  

We were trying to get a 26' moving truck but thankfully, all were out of stock.  Instead we got a cargo van and surprisingly everything fit! Tuesday evening I cooked a nice simple dinner for us and we chatted into the evening. 

I'm a good organizer so Marti and I spent all afternoon and Wednesday organizing her puzzles.  

She ended up with so much more room after.  I love doing that and was glad to be able to help a friend.  Wednesday morning we picked up the truck and her son came over and helped George load it.  How we will empty it is another story.  After we had everything packed up we returned to the house to have another long talk. I finished up a giant isopod blocks for Marti and dinner was leftovers from the night before.  

Sadly, on Thursday morning we had to leave, but boy am I glad we did looking back at the weather reports. It looks like we got out in the nick of time. We did run into snow just outside Palm Springs!  It started out as rain and I was giggling to see the change to snow. The drive was uneventful after that.  Although the beauty of the country still astounds me.  

I write this 3 hours away from Tanner's home in Texas.  For the past 2 days I've driven 12 hours each.  But we will be there for his party today!  I can't wait to see our next friend and his wonderful family. 

I have unblocked all of the videos we've taken so far.  They can all be seen under the USA RoadTrip playlist on my youtube channel.