MP: it's so hard to say goodbye

After some great food, sun, scenery,  family,  trees, and ocean, we have left Hotel California. Cara, Mark, Kyle and Joey sent us off with a yummy meal at their beautiful home, and now we're On the Road Again.

We made it to Elko, NV last night, but not before stopping to eat at Chihuahua ' s in Winnemucca -  a town that gets us one step closer to I've Been Everywhere.  Great meal!!

Now we've hit Utah and plan to Get Out the Map, since we've got some choices to make today,  and Every Day is a Winding Road.

MP: On the streets of San Francisco

Headed north to the city Saturday morning (first time for all of us to SF) and look who we ran into at the Golden Gate bridge?!?

 My cousin Cara and her family  - Mark and Joey (missing Kyle!) - live in nearby Roseville and graciously spent the day showing us around SF. The bridge is amazing and the view is something to be seen. 

From there the boys jumped in the Montoya car and we all headed to Union Square. On the way, we traveled Lombard St. I'm pretty glad I didn't know ahead of time what I was getting into. In the Suburban. Glad we had lightened our load a little. 

See all those people at the bottom? They're standing in the street filming us (and others) coming down the crooked street. I felt like they were hoping for a disaster to YouTube. But, amazingly, we made it. 

Then on to wait in line for the trolley, enjoying the sights and people watching. SF is just slightly more diverse than Preble County, Ohio. 

We headed to fisherman's wharf and walked and ate and took it all in. Eric tried the famous clam chowder in sourdough while the kids compared SF sourdough pizza to mine. Being the creatures of habit that they are, I think mine won. Everyone was a trooper on the crowds and line waiting - city life! Thank you so much to the Montoyas for an amazing day we won't forget. 

Captain's Log: Day 8: The Price of Beauty

Captain's Log: Trip Day 8. Beautiful drive today. Mojave Desert to central valley area around Bakersfield where the irrigation starts. Still looks like a desert everywhere else.

Then the grape country

Then another coastal mountain range

Then the ocean 

 

 

Then highway one ...

Then a bad decision:

C: Hey kids we are going to go on a beautiful drive up famous highway 1!
Kids: Will take long?
C and MP: A while but worth it
C: Look kids look over the cliffs!
MP: Beautiful!
Kids: Wow
C: Look how far down!
Kids: wow
C: Another turn
Kids:
C: Look at the waves crashing in down there!
Kids:
MP:
C: Hey look at ...
MP: (distributes Dramamine tabs)
Kids: Sleeping except Flip Flop
MP: Soundly sleeping
C: Increases speed to test heavily loaded Suburban
C: White knuckling the steering wheel trying to stay ahead of Camaro behind
C: Is anyone awake?
Flip Flop: Awake but says nothing
C: Many turns. Wishes there was a way out.
Flip Flop: I'm hungry
C: I'm a little busy. Eat some almonds
Flip Flop: I don't want almonds
.....
hour later
.....
Later
Still twisting turning
Kids: begin to wake up
C: Tired of this road
SJ: (waking and stretching) How much longer til we get to the house?
FF: An hour and a half
SJ: That must be wrong. It was close to that when I went to sleep.
FF: Here you go, puddin' pop. Yep. Hour and a half, isn't it?!?
SJ: sad silence
MP: wakes up and realizes we are still twisting around cliff edges
FF: We're hungry
MP: (rethinking cook at the house plan) We'll find something quick to grab as soon as we see some kind of civilization.
.....
GPS: Hey, there's a cow!
FF: Let's cut him up and eat him.
.....
arrival time still near an hour away
.....
FF: (noticing houses up on the mountain) These people are obviously alive and have to find sustenance somewhere. Let's find out where they get their food.

We finally got to Monterey Peninsula and grabbed some gas-station food, which helped everyone tolerate a quick grocery stop at Walmart by MP. Finally arrived at the house about 8:30 p.m. Pacific time. This is our view this morning:

I've been to CA before. I've been to CO. And Texas.  But the part of the country we drove into today was a first for me and did not disappoint.  West Texas and SW New Mexico are fascinating and so unique. Granted, we experienced unusually nice weather in both places (although I really did want to feel the 108 degree to say I did), but we had a great day.

We had talked about Carlsbad caverns for so long that it had become just a spot on the trip map. When we actually saw the mountains and then the cave we realized it was well worth the spot. We chose to walk in the natural entrance even though that was an hour hike going down very steeply.  Very glad we did.

Quote of the day: "Be careful not to cross into the houses!" - Evan, as we were leaving his driveway.

Hummingbird: Evan and the cat and the park

We went to the park with our cousin Evan and then went to Walmart to get a new cooler. At the park we played tag and I did a chin up. I hung on the chin up bar for 30 seconds.

I love aunt karyn's cat. He's my best friend.

Pictures I didn't take

At home it's June 7, but here in western Arkansas we still have some minutes left in Day 1. The kids are just about all asleep. We had a wonderful visit with my aunt and uncle and cousin's family. I'd love to show you a picture of the foundation and logs of the log cabin my uncle and cousins are building - by hand. You would be impressed.

Or maybe I could show you the barges on the Mississippi at the base of the St. Louis arch. That we saw at the picnic we had by the river.

In the "morbid curiosity" file, I could display the crown which fell off of Eric's tooth about 6 hours into our drive that led to an educational lesson on tooth cement. No? A moment of gratitude that I was driving instead of taking pictures at that time.

Sadly, I am not showing these pictures.  Primarily because I took none of them. As I prepare for my sleep shift as we head for Texas,  I declare that tomorrow I will do better. Because we will see my nephew. And he is cute. And his mother is a photographer.

MP

I leave you with the one pic I did get in...These kids (and Mark!!) are cute too!