(cleaning out old blog post drafts and I am wondering why I never posted this one??? The photograph speaks for itself!)

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an old 2015 photo from Corona del Mar, CA

In February, my mom came out to Utah whence we roadtripped to southern California for President's Day/Lauren's birthday weekend for the purpose of Lauren's visiting some film graduate schools in LA. I came along for the ride and to spend time with my mom and California relatives. I had hoped to escape the cold and with it, the stressors of my life in Provo, but alas, I didn't feel quite myself during our trip. But it was beyond wonderful to get a break from the dreary winter weather and enjoy the sun in California. It is always really special to be able to spend time with my mom in the area where she grew up; even though it has changed so much from when she was a little girl, and even from when I was little, it is a place that holds so much history for me and for my family. I know the names and geography of the southern California beach towns as well as I know those of the Delaware & Jersey shore, and it is always feels like home to be there.

southern California essentials, pictured and a few unpictured:

• Balboa Island beach house and plenty of bougainvillea, naturally

• classic chocolate-dipped frozen bananas and hippo cookies from Dad's & pigeon- and dog-watching from the stroller with baby cousin-nieces

• rubbing in the perfect weather while everyone else was stuck in wintry locales (sorrynotsorry)

• dinner at tender greens with my dear friend Brooke <3

• ice cream at Carmela's in LA (recommendation from my friend James, who also gave me some of their ice cream recipes back in the day!!) (pictured: cara cara [orange] sorbet and mint chip—both of them, amazing)

• the cutest little library in LA

• sockerbit—all the Scandinavian berry & licorice candies you could possibly imagine

• LACMA landmarks & my favorite monumental Matisse mosaic

• my dearest Layne & baby Heidi! (Arguably the happiest, most darling child I've ever met)

• a quick stop at the ocean to dip my toes in the sea foam and take away the smell of the ocean infused in my hair

• Souplantation with our cousins, lots of laughter, and sharing of family stories both familiar and new

Welcome to another installment of Backlogged Travelogues by Liz! That's what I'd say if this were a television show as opposed to a blog (cue eyeroll). For context, this Morocco post includes a little map with our route marked therein.

We arrived in Tangier in the morning, following a ten-hour ride on an overnight train—a new experience for me and not necessarily my favorite, but we slept surprisingly soundly and came out unscathed. As far as efficiency in travel, this accomplished just what we'd hoped it would.

I was particularly interested in visiting Tangier, as it was the favorite Moroccan city of the writer Paul Bowles, whose non-fiction travel writing I've read and loved. Tangier is poised on the northern tip of Morocco, just across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. A ferry service runs between the two countries, so there is a noticeable influx of tourists in Tangier compared to some of the other cities we visited. The European influences are also evident in the architecture there. Tangier reminded me so much of Venice, with its bright white (and the occasional colored) plastered buildings, sea air, and winding alleyways.

When we arrived, we distanced ourselves from the train station and the proximally inflated taxi rates, then hired a driver to take us to Cap Spartel and Hercules' Grotto. Cap Spartel is the northwestern-most point in Morocco, and home to a lighthouse (above—isn't it beautiful? I love the resemblance to a minaret) which sits ashore where the Atlantic and Mediterranean meet. You can actually see the two bodies of water merging; the color difference is noticeable and really lovely. It was sooo windy but we walked out to the lighthouse and enjoyed the views before our eyes were burning from the wind and couldn't take any more. Hercules' Grotto is a national park of Morocco and inside the caves, a natural opening shaped like the African continent allows in sunlight and crashing waves from the ocean. It was surreal.

Back in Tangier (Tanger is the French spelling; all along I've used both interchangeably), we explored the city—tasting our way through the produce markets (where we bought the most amazing tangerines I have ever had) and climbing to the top of the kasbah, or highest point in the city. The bottom photo in one of the alleys shows two little girls who were walking hand in hand home from school and chasing each other through the winding passages. Their delighted laughter when they found one of their neighbors cats was contagious. I love the traditional metal lantern hanging above one of the doorways, too.

Marrakesh was our home base of sorts on our trip, and rightly so—Marrakesh is quintessentially Moroccan and combines all of the mental pictures you'd entertain of Morocco: bustling bazaars, lanterns twinkling in the dark, tile inlaid on every possible surface, piles of bougainvillea spilling over garden walls, and beautiful architecture tucked in a hidden corner at the end of a dusty street.

On our first afternoon, we visited the Bahia Palace, built in the late 1800s. The characteristics of Moroccan architecture are perfectly suited to the arid, desert setting: long shaded arcades, high ceilings with narrow skylights, thick plaster walls, tiles or stones for a floor, courtyard gardens (see top photo) and fountains. The craftsmanship of each architectural detail is incredible.

Before leaving for Tangier on the overnight train, we ate dinner on a rooftop balcony overlooking the Place Jeema el-Fna. This was one of my favorite spots in Marrakesh: an open square bordering the edges of the medina. It was busy during the day, but after dark was when it came alive. Above the sounds of the crowd, you'd hear tribal music and loud drums and the traffic moving through the city. We also timed it perfectly to watch a beautiful sunset, reds deepening into blues.

The moon was larger than life in Morocco—it lent an other-worldly aspect to the trip, with moonrises over the desert hills and over the Place Jeema el-Fna.

These last two sets of photos illustrate more of Morocco's contrasts—above, the Jardin Majorelle, and below, the Badi Palace. Jardin Majorelle (originally a haven of a French painter, then later owned by Yves St. Laurent) is lush and blooming, with bright blue buildings and fountains. The Badi Palace echoes Morocco's desert landscape—battered, crumbling brick walls, murky reflecting pools, and orderly rows of orange trees.

The sights and sounds of Marrakesh are not easily forgotten; looking through these photos and writing about our time in that city, I remember the rustling of storks nesting in the ruins of the Badi Palace, the bright sunlight warming us once we left the walled shadows, taxis honking and zipping through intersections, and wafting smells of citrus and spices in the marketplace. Morocco.

This photo has nothing to do with anything except #bougainvilleaforever and the fact that I came across it again in my photo library (from the train station in Riomaggiore).

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I just spent a week and a half in Morocco (and in transit to and from Morocco). It was an incredible trip and I loved so many things about it. I posted some photos along the way; after collecting my thoughts and sorting through all the photos I'm sure there will be more coming in this space soon.

I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to travel and to experience other places and the kinds of lives people lead there. In these moments away from my life in America I have learned more about myself and been reminded, too, of why I love my life in America; I am reminded once again how blessed we are in our free country with innumerable modern conveniences, forward-thinking cultural climes, and autonomy. It is easy for me to forget these things when it is dark and cold outside and I am weary of winter and dreary days, longing for sunshine and faraway places.

For my birthday, my dear friend Emily gave me a copy of Antoine de Saint Exupéry's memoir "Wind, Sand and Stars." He was a pilot in the early days of what is now Air France, making mail deliveries to rural and remote outposts in the Sahara and northern Africa. As a proponent of all things Anne Fadiman, I brought this for my trip reading, what Anne (I can be on a first name basis with her, right?) calls, "You-are-there reading." How apropos, too, that during our trip we saw a screening of Le petit prince, authored also by Saint-Exupéry (ah! so beautiful). I keep thinking of the quote below:

"Inside the narrow skull of the miner pinned beneath the fallen timber, there lives a world. Parents, friends, a home, the hot soup of evening, songs sung on feast days, loving kindness and anger, perhaps even a social consciousness and a great universal love, inhabit that skull. By what are we to measure the value of a man? His ancestor once drew a reindeer on the wall of a cave; and two hundred thousand years later that gesture still radiates. It stirs us, prolongs itself in us. Man's gestures are an eternal spring. Though we die for it, we shall bring up that miner from his shaft. Solitary he may be; universal he surely is." -Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, p. 204

Various experiences remind me how we are all connected to one another, despite countries and borders and barriers of language and culture. During my trip, I was terribly carsick on a bus in the middle of the Rif Mountains. I felt so miserable and wished I was home, but alas I still had three more hours of winding roads before I had even a riad bed to my name. The Moroccan woman sitting with her boyfriend in the row in front of me turned around, put her hand reassuringly on my knee, and said, "Relax," the only English word I heard her say throughout the bus ride, beyond our brief communication in French and her conversations with her boyfriend in Arabic. Our world has many problems and struggles, but these moments of compassion and understanding between strangers give me hope.

I had a grand time, and am jumping right back into real life and responsibilities. My jet lag is catching up to me and I can't stop yawning. What a lovely thing to be able to fall asleep, happily and quite content to be in my own bed in this life that I love.

en route to California

Since the Yosemite trip occurred earlier and arose from spontaneity, versus this trip which was in the works from the very moment of the January catalyst, I got many quizzical, "But wait, weren't you just in California?"s and responded with, "Yes, yes I was."

Oak Ridge Trail, Coto de Caza

Brooke picked me up from the airport and we went to dinner (YUM) and immediately afterwards to several bookstores to track me down a copy of "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christiansen, because she said it was the perfect timing to read this (it was). During the day while she was at work, I visited some of my favorite places (Balboa Island, Corona del Mar) and explored others on her list of recommendations (Oak Ridge Trail, San Juan Capistrano). I'd pick her up in the evening and we went home and made delicious dinners, played with Kako, went on froyo runs, went to the Newport Beach Temple, and climbed out onto the roof outside her window (a gently sloping terra cotta roof bordered by a pergola on all sides, mind you ;) to watch the sunset and talk late into the evening, covering just about everything in our heart-to-hearts.

Because my mom grew up in Orange County, I know the area fairly well for an east-coaster, but I loved getting to see Brooke's home and hometown, an area of OC I had not visited before. One of my favorite things was the morning I spent hiking on the Oak Ridge Trail—it was a quiet, beautiful morning and I had the oak grove to myself to sit and read and think. The gnarled oak trees, birds chirping above, and early morning light were straight out of a storybook, I tell you.

The Getty Villa, Malibu, CA

Brooke took a day off and we headed to Malibu to visit the Getty Villa. We loved eavesdropping on all the groups of school kids there on field trips and wandered around the gardens and all over the museum for much of the day. My last morning, Brooke took me to San Juan Capistrano, where we stopped in at the train depot for me to confirm my travel details, then wandered around Old Town SJC. Earlier that week I'd visited the Mission and loved learning more of the history of the area and admiring the beautiful gardens and Monarch butterflies.

the Mission at San Juan Capistrano

Corona del Mar

allontanarsi dalla linea gialla - San Juan Capistrano train depot

In San Juan Capistrano, while I waited for my train, I met up with another friend, Michelle, for brunch. I loved catching up and hearing about life since moving to California. Michelle told me what had been her three phases of unemployment (1. Vacation, 2. Desperation, 3. Complacency; ha) and we commiserated/laughed about my situation and current status in the vacation phase. After brunch, I made it to the train station which held an uncanny familiarity to those I traveled through many times in Italy. I loved that my train ride was bookended by visits with two of my friends whose friendships really grew during our time together in Italy.

I took a train along the coast to San Diego and the azure water, not surprisingly, also reminded me of Italy. Layne met me at the other end and my last days in California were spent in the best possible ways. We went to beautiful Coronado with a Trader Joe's picnic and walked around the neighborhoods along the beach admiring all of the beautiful houses. We tried to track down our favorite pear nectar from Italy, but settled instead for new flavors of San Pellegrino—arancia e melagrana (orange and pomegranate) and clementine. We went on lots of walks, read books, made lasagna from scratch, and made some great ice cream discoveries (Häagen-Dazs brigadeiro is forever our favorite).

I loved getting to know Layne's husband, Jesse, better during my visit. We visited him at work and in the evenings watched Jimmy Fallon clips, the Bachelor (his commentary was the greatest—"I want a pet monkey!" "How about a pet baby?"), and the Oscars (Lady Gaga's Sound of Music performance blew us away and Jesse laughed at our reactions from the other room).

One night as we sat talking in the living room, we each kept going back to the DI gumball machine for more sour Skittles. At one point it got jammed and Layne tried to take the lid off to clear the chute...instead the top came off and the candy skittered all over the floor. We were all laughing so hard and had tears streaming down our faces as we picked up all of Skittles from remote corners of the room and from between sofa cushions—it was one of those great, "I love life" moments.

Layne took me to the Mexican border outlet mall (hello, Twilight Zone), we visited Jesse at work, and I helped her/assisted in wrangling four- and five-year-olds in Primary as we laughed about their antics and the funny things that they said. We savored the most delicious meal at Tender Greens after attending the beautiful San Diego temple and basically had one giant heart-to-heart that threaded throughout the duration of my visit.

San Diego

This trip to California was so wonderful and it was just what I needed—it was so healing and so good for my soul. It was a bittersweet ride with Layne to the airport when it came time for me to go back to real life, but this visit just established many more to happen in our future (next time to meet sweet Heidi)! It is amazing the changes in oneself that can be wrought by a change of scenery. This trip to southern California and my trip to Yosemite will always hold a special place in my heart, for the moments of sunshine they provided in a brief but dark time of life. I will always be so grateful for that as well as for these dear friends. xo.

P.S. Adrienne and Jess had me on their podcast Fledgling for the episode "Wanderlust." I mentioned this trip in the interview so thought I would mention the episode here. The previous episodes are also great and I recommend listening to them all!

P.P.S. here is another photo from Layne's recent visit to Utah, just because.