There is a direct flight from Chicago to San Diego. But we didn’t take it. We flew overnight to Las Vegas, then connected at 6am to San Francisco where we flew to San Diego. In this part of the trip we managed to sleep for 3 hours in a motel (with a big sign that said “Girls to your room in 20 minutes”. I hid Sanderson’s credit card), Sanderson temporarily lost his phone and his lap top and I started to feel really ill. All those plane rides may not do good for the old Carbon Foot Print, but they also don’t do so well for the average germ count.
We got to San Diego and the lovely Dan and his girlfriend, Suzanne, picked us up and took us to the Corvette diner where our arteries finally gave way.
San Diego – Three things
1. CAKE! Three cakes in fact, with Sunday Assembly mottos on them. It was delicious and delightful. Debbie organised the whole day brilliantly – What a lot of work!
2. Zoe – 11 years old and such a wise head! Her reading and introduction to her love of maths was inspiring.
3. Kids Corner was fabulous – children were colouring and playing. Makes such a difference when kids feel welcome!
We rounded the day off with a margarita and some nachos before Dan and Suzanne took us to fly to LA. Which is not very far down the road. But we flew. Because we love Carbon.
LA
Arriving dead on our feet, David Beadle and his family took us in and let us crash. 12 hours of sleep later – we were back to being bright-eyed and bushy tailed.
Three things about LA
1. What a team. I have never seen so many volunteers! There must have been 20 or 30 people helping out at the beginning. Setting chairs, giving name labels, heating coffee.
2. Big queue. LA had a lot of sign up on Eventbrite. Around 400 people showed up. On their first Assembly. This is amazing! Meant they had to hit the ground running, though. And they did!
3. LA is very different to London. And this was mainly shown by the fact that the refreshments could be left outside in the open air for the whole morning without fear of rain.
It was here that Sanderson and I parted ways. He went off to Silicon Valley and I went to Boston to fly home. After 7 Assemblies in 7 days, I was definitely pleased to get back to London to make sure that Sunday Assembly Towers was not falling apart.
Sanderson continues on – he is now in Australia. We decided that it made sense for just one of us to do the majority of the tour. It’s hard to keep up with all the admin side when both of us are running around like headless chickens. And financially, two tickets to Australia would have just been a bit too much.
We shall keep you updated with our progress! The 40 Dates continues…
