We haven't been on a road trip this summer. We've both been busy with work and other things. Couple weekends ago our plans were canceled so we decided to take a small spontaneous road trip. I just came off of two weeks of daily intense testing with a specialist and was looking for a break from the city.

For some time now I've been on a frustrating search for a diagnosis unrelated to my GNEM (HIBM) condition. I received results a couple weekends ago and it seems like it's going to be another long search for another mystery diagnosis - no real answers have surfaced. It's been a frustrating couple plus years and it's reminded me of the tumultuous and endless search I endured for my HIBM diagnosis. 

We started our short road trip near Mojave desert area to visit "The Cat House". The Cat House is a non-profit breeding, conservation and research facility and home to over 70 of the world's most endangered felines such as the Amur Leopard where only 30 are left in wild East Asia. I'd recommend not going in the summer (because it's hot) and attend their biannual twilight tour where they bring out more of their cats that are hidden in their compound.

Behind The Cat House is an old abandoned mining town. 

Then we journeyed down to Vazquez Rocks.

Vasquez Rocks are formations sculpted by 25 million years of earthquake activity along the Elkhorn fault, an offshoot of the San Andreas Fault. Erosion gradually stripped away soil from around the rocks, leaving these ancient creations. 

Vasquez rocks was named after Tiburcio Vasquez, a notorious bandit who hid from sheriffs in these rocks and caves in mid-1800s. Vasquez sided with Californios in battle between US and Mexico over California. He was executed in San Quentin prison. 

Since, it's been used as backdrop for films like Star Trek, Flintstones, Planet of the Apes, Dracula, Lone Ranger and Zorro which was inspired by Tiburcio.

We continued west & emptied out into Carpinteria, Summerland & PCH. Stopped in charming Summerland; a mix of country ranch farm style & summer beach house overlooking Pacific Ocean. There's a tiny street full of antique stores, bougey bed & breakfast, chapel & Anne of Green Gable type farm houses mixed with beach city cottages.

On our way out we ran into church-led 53rd annual fair and fundraiser with Tejano music playing in the background and congregation members bringing tamales & sheets of homemade pineapple upside down cake. We didn't have much time to stay but stopped to look around.

Flanked by nurseries, olive farmland and oceanside Amtrak railway is Carpinteria; a small and older oceanside surf town. Carpinteria is where the California's first branch library resides and where the annual avocado festival happens. Since it is an older town it naturally has a retro vibe; a mix of surf and local culture and old school barber shops, soda pop candy shop, tamale Deli shops, snow cones, burger/shake stands, banana trees and antique shops with Hawaiian tiki vibe and 50s radio playing in the background. There is a popular campground right next to the beach that I would recommend.

We pretty much drove around PCH including through Santa Barbara, and if something caught our eye then we stopped. All in all a very low key and simple road trip. I've been bummed we haven't had as much time to explore this summer, I'm sure we'll make it up come autumn. Can anyone believe it's already August?

Traveling is becoming more and more of a strain. Every trip seems like I need a longer recovery period than the last. I returned home to more than a week full of achy pain and fatigue, and this was considered a very small venture compared to others. My body felt like it had been punched and bruised from head to toe. Fighting chronic and ever-increasing fatigue and pain has become a challenge, no doubt, but I refuse to give in. Sometimes I wished I didn't have so much drive and curiosity, it's very frustrating. Becoming disabled sucks for anyone and everyone but it's even harder when it happens to those who have natural drive to live, experience and led by their curiosities. It's a greater mountain to climb but the point is to keep climbing.