Cruising Along With Chloe!

We search far and wide to see beautiful scenery. We aren’t the type to take the usual quick route. So, we added hours to our already long drive, so that we could drive up the coast and see the redwoods.

As much as I love road trips, I absolutely hate to drive. My entire family chauffeurs me around. I can drive, I do drive and I’m a good driver, I just prefer not to. There must be some deep rooted fear that I haven’t quite identified hidden in my subconscious. I was in several minor car accidents as a passenger when I was a little kid, but I have never caused an accident and I’ve only been lightly rear -ended once when I was driving. And, I have only gotten 1 ticket in my life. So, I’m not sure what my deal is. Anyway…I hate to drive, so, Chloe does most of the driving.

Chloe and I have great conversations while driving and we also squeeze in Podcasts.

The dynamic with Chloe is every bit as close and connected as Gavin’s but also very different. Chloe and I are very similar.

While Gavin was my kick in the pants to figure out what I love, Chloe is my support, encouragement and creative partner in crime. She listens to my ideas and gives feedback and pats on the back. I get inspired by her creative YouTube videos. Like Gavin, Chloe never ceases to amaze me. While Gavin is deep thinking and contemplative, Chloe is grounded and practical. All of her successes in life came from very hard work.

Chloe worked her fanny off at absolutely everything she did. While things seemed to come easy to Gav, Chloe would work and work and work at something until she got it. We chat about this phenomenon and recall an example of this during her dance training. There was a trick in dance called a leg pirouette or kick-spin. It did not come naturally to Chloe and it was the “cool move” in dance. Chloe spent months at the studio trying to get this move and we spent hours and hours in our garage working on that thing until she got it. The frustration and then joy from working hard and finally accomplishing that goal were probably more rewarding than if it just came naturally.

From these types of struggles to success, she gained a rock-solid work ethic. She is never a slacker. She is always helpful. Dave jokes that, of the 3 kids, Chloe is the favorite! He’s joking and we all know that is own daughter Sophia is his favorite, of course, but we all laugh at this because Chloe is such a gem…the dedicated rule follower! She won’t miss a deadline, she’s always helpful and engaged in all family activities and is never late. She’s the planner. If we want to do a fun family trip, it’s up to Chloe to plan it all out.

She planned our route for this trip and decided we would leave at the crack of dawn…5:30AM.

When we are a few hours in to our drive Chloe tells me about Podcasts. She says there is one called Serial. I’ve listened to books on tape and TedTalks…but I haven’t really done the Podcast thing. This one was fantastic! It is about a young man, (high school) who was sent to prison for murder. It’s a true story and the Podcaster is investigating all the facts and telling us what she has learned. In my opinion, after hearing the entire Podcast…I think the man is innocent. He’s still in prison. Wow, so sad.

This is Chloe’s listening to Podcasts while driving photo!

We take a break from the Podcast and chat again, about life. Chloe is very intense, in a different way than Gav. She’s hard on herself and will not stop and rest until her goal is complete. I think part of this personality trait was inherited from me and another part was from growing up as a dancer.

We chat about that crazy dance life, again. The company she danced with was SERIOUS! Even if you were sick, you went onstage to compete. The director would say that, if you’re sick, you can throw-up in the wings when you’re done dancing! It made her tough!

Chloe went directly from school to dance almost every day of the week and often danced until 10 at night. She would squeeze homework in on breaks or stay up until midnight to get it done. She was smart, so she was in advanced classes and she got great grades. In high school she was captain of her dance team and started dance at school at zero period… at the crack of dawn.

There was no rest for Chloe.

Now, in life, she treats herself the same way. She takes everything very seriously. She doesn’t do anything half way and never needs anyone to prod her…she just gets it done! If she’s sick, she just keeps going. You would never know that she’s sick. She’s a total stud! She helps in the yard like a boy. She weed-whacks, drives a tractor, chops wood.

Chloe is not a girly-girl…she’s a total stud!

Chloe and I are very similar in that neither of us have had a certain life-time dream.

We find ourselves analyzing this, often. Gavin always wanted to be an actor. Chloe and I have so many interests and never really settled on a career choice that would fulfill our souls! It’s hard and frustrating for Gavin to relate to this. It is also frustrating to Chloe and Me. Most of her frustration comes from not knowing what she wants to pursue. If she had a clear “dream” in mind, I have no doubt that she would not quit until she accomplished it. We both really want to have that one dream or passion. I have found mine now, with my writing. This took me over 50 years to figure out.

I always find myself trying to help Chloe break through to that place…hopefully way sooner than me! I once heard Mel Robbins, one of my favorite “Gurus” say, and I’m paraphrasing here: When you wake up in the morning and you have somewhere to go and you’re super excited about it, what is that thing?

That thing is probably where your passion lies.

Are you going to a garden to take photos? Maybe garden design or photography is your passion. Are you going hiking amongst nature? Is it the scenery or the exercise or the wildlife you love? Naturalist? Exercise guru? Are you throwing a party? Party/wedding planner? You get the idea. I figured out that I like all those things and what I love about all of them the most is sharing them with others…thus…blogging about all the things!

This concept helped Chloe and I a bit, but we discuss how we have too many interests and it is so hard to narrow them down. The blogging world experts say to stick with one subject. As you can see, I’ve broken those rules completely and I write about anything I want. Chloe is loving her Vlog and also Vlogs about all the things she loves. But, I can tell she wants more. She’s just not sure what that will be.

Chloe benefited so much from dance. She was able to work in exciting places because of her skills. On our drive we talk about that and her choice to dance right out of high school. She chose not to go to college even thought she took all the college prep courses and got mostly A’s high school. She was such a great student.

She has no regrets about not going to college. She felt like she would have just been going because it was what everyone did. She knew she wanted to dance, she didn’t need a degree for that, and you need to dance when you’re young. So, she feels she made the right choice. She is also of the mindset that you should go to and pay for school if you have a set goal in mind, like being a teacher. It seemed like a waste of time and money to just go because everyone else did.

As we drive along I ask her if she ever considered the idea of going to college now that she is no longer wanting to dance. She says that you can learn absolutely anything online nowadays…So, no to college. If she wants to learn about something, she will just dig into it online.

I happen to agree with her. I went to college. I got a degree in Economics. I hate to admit that I feel it was a total waste of my time. Looking back I really can’t think of anything useful that I learned from my college experience. I took it very seriously. I was on the Dean’s list and the President’s list. But…I just didn’t feel like there was anything earth shattering about it other than studying the right way so that I could pass a test! I know this anti-college opinion is taboo to express. I’ll write about that in another blog post.

On a positive college note, Sophia, my step-daughter, goes to college and is loving it! She is in a sorority, having a blast and decided to study in Italy for a Trimester. She returns in a few days and I’m hoping to share all of her adventures with you.

Chloe and I stop at a rest stop. Gasquet. I notice that she is filming my feet in the next stall of the bathroom, trying to be so sneaky. I flash the peace sign at her camera…which she has no idea I’ve done until she gets to the editing room at the end of our trip. Haha.

I also took a picture of her feet. Great minds think alike! Or, the apple doesn’t fall to far from the tree.

As we leave the bathroom the sign reads, Don’t drink the water…I guess we are in California!

Chloe and I arrive in the Redwoods, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, to be exact! We feel absolutely giddy about the sheer enormity of these beautiful trees. We find a place to pull over and frolic about like garden fairies amongst these majestic giants.

After we have our mini adventure, we jump back into the car and continue our conversation about dance.

Chloe graduated from high school early so that she could take a job singing and dancing as Tiger Lily in Peter Pan in Branson, MO. From there she traveled around the country doing theater and eventually travelled the world in big productions on cruise ships.

I tell her how thankful I am that she took this route. Who gets to see the world and get paid for it? I often remind her that all her hard work at dance paid off. Look at the adventures it gave her. She also was able to teach dance in studios and coach a high school team. So, dance has given her a lot.

Sometimes I feel like she doesn’t understand how remarkable and out of the ordinary her life has been, having done so much at such a young age. When I say this, she agrees but I still don’t think she really gets it. I think sometimes she feels ordinary.

I guess we all just feel boring and ordinary to ourselves!

Chloe also talks about how brutal the dance world is in LA. Auditioning for dance in LA is a nightmare. The rooms are packed shoulder to shoulder with beautiful, highly trained, incredible dancers. Then, you get the dance job and you are a tiny speck on the TV amongst a group of identical dancers and no one can really see you. All that intense skill and training for that just didn’t seem worth it anymore.

I’m glad she made the change. It was time. I am a firm believer in the idea that, if you don’t love what you do for work, don’t be afraid to switch it up. Change careers. Find something new. This is the only life you have!

We arrive at the glorious California coast

It is breathtaking. Even though I grew up in Southern, California near the beach, this scene never gets old.

As we drive along, I tell her that my experience with gymnastics was similar. Most of the adventures I had as a kid were through gymnastics. I went to Gymnastic Summer camp almost every year of my young life. I travelled to Germany with my team when I was about 9 years old. Being good at gymnastics afforded me to coach gymnastics to pay my way through college.

That was a God-send! I never went on a single family vacation…we didn’t do that in my family. So, I thank gymnastics for giving me my adventures! I LOVED Summer camp. Maybe I should have been a professional Summer Camper! Anyway, gaining a skill like that, whether you dance professionally or compete in the olympics or not… is still so valuable and useful.

We find ourselves moving away from the ocean and we vowed to drive along the ocean as long as possible so we take an obscure road back to the 1 from the 101. We don’t have internet at the moment so we didn’t realize this fork in the road would add another 3 hours to our drive. When we figure this out, we decide to take another obscure road back to the 101. We did our best not to kick ourselves. It was definitely beautiful but we would have appreciated it more if we didn’t have about 10 hours of driving under our belts, already!

After recovering from taking the wrong fork in the road, we are about 12 hours in to our drive.

We get punchy. We discuss how much I loved olives when I was a little kid and how I would always get a can of black olives in my Christmas stocking. Chloe hates olives. She says that if she had to describe them to someone who has never experienced them she would say that, due to the texture and saltiness, it’s like “taking a melon-baller to a dolphin.”

Mommy, where do olives come from?

Well, you know that melon-baller we have in our utensil drawer? God just took that and he scooped one scoop out of each dolphin in the ocean. And that’s where olives come from.

Chloe Leatherwood

That’s hysterical to me! Maybe that is where the hole in the top of a dolphin comes from!

I told you we were getting punchy!

I’m also reminded of a road trip with my sister, Mitchie, where we decided that body oder smells like chicken noodle soup. Maybe that’s why I’m a vegetarian! We laugh uncontrollably because we are being so ridiculous. It has been a long drive!

Since we have internet again, we decide that it’s time to listen to a Podcast, again which makes the end of the trip fly by.

We arrive to Steve and Rinda’s house and were greeted by the “Babe” cat’s, doppelganger.

My brother, sister-in-law and my sister Mitchie, who arrived earlier in the day, had been drinking wine for hours in anticipation of our arrival.

It was time to catch up!

Being close with your adult child is the best gift that life can give. I’m so lucky to be connected, at the heart, with my kids. Trips like this make empty nesting, not so bad after all!

In part 2 of Cruising with Chloe, I will tell you all about the actual visit in Novato, Sausalito and Napa, wine tasting and exploring this fantastic part of the country.

Check out Chloe’s youtube video of this trip on her channel

Listen, guide and be guided by the ones you love and who truly love you. Keep your heart open, even if it gets hurt. Life is only worthwhile if it is filled with love.

Lot’s of love to you, My friends….xoxo Jill