Sunday morning, we packed up the rental car, crossed the threshold for the last time, took a deep breath, and slid the key under the door. We were on the road at 11, heading towards Los Angeles to meet up with Stephanie’s Uncle Peter and his partner Steve.

I-5 was not new ground for us, so we motored through it, getting to their place in “the Valley” by 5:30. I’d only been as far south as Santa Clarita before, so Peter and Steve took us on a personal driving tour of LA, covering NoHo, Universal Studios, the Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood Boulevard, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, and UCLA.

They were getting ready to take Sunset all the way to the beach, but after touring around for nearly an hour and a half, we were getting hungry, so we went back to their place for dinner. Stephanie and Peter caught each other up on various bits of family news, and Steve wowed us with tales of their favorite places around the world (they’re accomplished travelers). We didn’t get to bed until midnight.

We slipped out around 9 on Monday morning to meet up with some friends at Leona and Phil’s new loft downtown. Marcia was in town, working on the photography for her upcoming book, as was another Glitter Pony-alum, Chris Salvano and his girlfriend Ashley, both recent graduates of UCLA’s Library Science program, so they joined in the fun as well. As a bonus, the loft had direct roof access, so we threw together a little picnic-brunch up there with a stunning view of the downtown LA skyline.

Around noon everyone had things to go do so we said our goodbyes and hit the road again, heading west on I-10 towards Phoenix (and eventually Tucson).