The bestest part of my weekend on the central coast, of course, was hanging out with Michelle.
Michelle and I have been friends for 16 years, since back in the day when we both had aspirations in the entertainment industry. I was working at the time at a below-the-line talent agency, and Michelle had just moved to the US from England to be married to her first husband. She was living in the OC, but was interning with us. Back then, I was one of those LA people who packed extra water, camping supplies and flares in my car whenever I had to cross the Orange Curtain. I'm only slightly kidding.
There are a lot of things I like about Michelle, such as her brains, her determination, her talent, her loyalty and her integrity, just to name a few, but there are some things about her that stand out for me. For one thing, Michelle finds humor is just about any situation - I mean, life is serious enough as it is, right?
I admire her greatly for setting up her photography business. Not just for doing it, because anyone can pick up a camera and "be a photographer." But not everyone does it right - Michelle is constantly working on her craft, learning, and challenging herself.
Michelle is a strong, opinionated person who can and does consider other people's perspectives and in some cases changes her mind and even her ways.That takes real intelligence. So anyway, you get the idea. We're friends, she's awesome, and you wish you were her. She's also beautiful.
Yes, this is the gorgeous Michelle. And before you go all googly about what a great picture I took, I will tell you that it's only because I follow directions. We were walking along a cute little creek near the Mission in San Luis Obispo and Michelle marched out into the fabulous light with the fall colors behind, turned and said, "Take a picture of me here." So I did. I may have mentioned a few times that Michelle is a photographer. You can see her photos on her website, Memories by Michelle, and I recommend you do. If you click on the Blog tab, you can see her posts about this trip, with photos.
Michelle always takes great pictures of me, so I tried to take some decent ones of her.
I really like this one, too, you can see the sultry side of her. She is likely to point out the imperfections in her face, but I think her face is perfect just the way it is.
Michelle has the travel bug. Pretty soon, she will be traipsing around the world taking photographs, husband Joss and daughter Daisy in tow. Daisy is the cutest, smartest little girl, and boy is she high energy. The thing that cracks me up the most about her is that she will run in circles around and around and around for much longer than anyone thinks possible. I don't know about you, but I don't remember having so much energy, even as a kid, that I had to just run and run and run and run. I did wonder where the circles came from, and this weekend I got my answer. This happened on the beach while we were standing around waiting for the light to go down.
Michelle and I make a good team. We inspire each other with our cameras, and the really awesome thing about traveling with a photographer is that she doesn't get annoyed when I take 20 minutes to get a shot. Usually I can't take photographs and be social at the same time, but with Michelle the two things are one. Bliss! We like to play on the internet, so more than once we found ourselves sitting together in the living room with our feet up in nap socks, laptops on our lap, editing photos and Facebooking, and tagging each other in our FB posts. Bliss!
Out photo trips were slow meanders punctuated by breathers, cups of tea, lemonades, and chats. Bliss!
Here we're chilling out at Hearst Castle, Neptune's Pool. It was chilly but the sun was lovely and warm and the little couches were too tempting.
I took a few more pics of Michelle, which you can see here. Mayhap you will prefer different photos of her than the ones I chose.
We stayed in Cambria, in a rental two bedroom cottage, only a hop skip and a jump from Harmony, Pop. 18. Brilliant idea. Very restful. Here's our little cottage, though I didn't take many photos of it. If you go to Michelle's blog post, Day One, you can see some lovely photos of it inside and out.
Here's our quiet little street, followed by some berries and some trees. Just because.
One evening we went into downtown Cambria and Michelle did a wine tasting for me so I could pick up some wine for a friend who had asked. What a trooper she is! During the wine tasting I believe I got hit on by a firefighter from Ventura - at last, you might think, what she's always wanted! Only, well, said firefighter was a woman. Close, but no cigar.
At the wine tasting we also chatted with a woman who said she teaches at a university training terrorists, and I thought, mmh, that seems unlikely. As it turns out, she trains therapists. Glad I asked before I ran out and called the FBI and caused everyone (me) a lot of embarrassment. No one wants to be put on the FBI's Most Annoying list (less notorious that their Most Wanted list, but it's the kiss of death if you're trying to be even a tiny bit cool, which is of course one of my goals in life).
Next up: Hearst Castle. Stay tuned for tedious tales of port-a-potties and imaginary bugs on my lens.
