“Okay, what should we work on first?”

“Let’s start with the details of the artist’ dinner”

“Sounds good.”

The women got to work.  Tina using her laptop and making necessary phone calls as she and Bette took care of detail after detail for the upcoming show.  After about 2 hours Bette said, “Honestly Tina I can’t think of one more thing to do.  Why don’t we take a break and we can put the finishing touches on the Gallery layouts for the show when we get to the hotel?  Besides, the rest of the drive is really beautiful.”

“Sounds great, I’ve never really spent time in Southern California before.  I’d love to take in the sights.”

“You know Tina you’ve mentioned that you lived in Hawaii, that you visited Italy, and that Ellie was able to spend most of her High School years in Seattle.  Tell me about your travels.”

“Well you know we started out in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  Our first apartment wasn’t far from where I’d grown up.  Well, when Ellie was about six months old Joe got a great opportunity.   He was hired right out of school to work developing the Pacific market for a new growing company.  As I said before the company put us up in a condo practically on the beach in Hawaii and Joe used it as his base for nearly 2 and half years while he traveled throughout the pacific.  He traveled all the time but Ellie and I made a nice life for ourselves.  We went with him on some short trips to Japan, Korea and Hong Kong and the three of us took trips to Fiji and Tahiti. I loved the lifestyle in Hawaii.  There were so many young people.  In many ways I really was able to enjoy the bohemian lifestyle. I would walk all over, to markets, explore the art scene, and spend hours at the beach.  It was perfect, especially while I still had the nice safe life with my husband.  I really loved it.  Even though I was still in my teens with a baby I felt so free.  I even learned to surf.  It was so amazing.  Have you ever been to Hawaii?”

“Yeah, but just once, to a big resort.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but I would’ve loved to really get to know the place.  Your experiences there sound incredible.  So where’d you go next?”