Road trip!

I haven't posted for a week because we have been gone on a wild and crazy vacation in the land of cold and fog, otherwise known as San Francisco. We drove over there to visit our friends, the Thteed family. They actually live elsewhere in California, but were visiting Lady Steed's parents who live near San Francisco, so we were kind of crashing their family vacation, but apparently it was cool. Last week:

Sunday: We left after church (5 pm) and drove to Reno. Nothing really exciting happened. We found a surprisingly nice park in Wendover and ate dinner there. The best part of the day was when we arrived in Reno at midnight and had to wake S-Boogie up to bring her into the hotel. She looked like she was having a bad trip from all the lights and noise in the casino.

Monday: Took our sweet time driving to San Francisco. Stopped at the Jelly Belly factory for their tour and loaded up on free samples. If you are ever driving across northern California on I--80, it is definitely worth stopping for. The factory was pretty neat and had lots of cool machines (there weren't any Oompa Loompas, though). Plus they are very generous with the samples. We also drove across the Golden Gate Bridge for free because the nice toll booth lady counted S-Boogie as a member of our carpool. Had a nice picnic dinner by the beach in Half Moon Bay and fed Pringles to the seagulls. I need to sit by the ocean more often.

Tuesday: Went to Golden Gate Park and saw the bison and the windmill. I thoroughly enjoyed walking around and smelling the eucalyptus trees--I think they are one of my favorite trees ever. S-Boogie and The Big O had a great time at the playground. We stopped for Chinese food on the way home and had a waiter who didn't realize that when you have two toddlers at the table you need to get them out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. I'm sure everyone there was amused by S-Boogie's ritual chanting of "noodles in my bowl".

Wednesday: Went to San Francisco again and paid an insane amount of money to park our car for the day. It probably would have been cheaper just to get a parking ticket or even to have to replace the car. Anyways, we had a lot of fun at the California Academy of Sciences museum and aquarium. S-Boogie loved the fish and wasn't that amused by the penguins. We also visited the main branch of the San Francisco library and bought some books at their book sale. It had a really large selection, but the prices were a little steep for a library sale. The library was large and nice, but Orem still has a better media collection.

Thursday: We went south to Santa Cruz. Stopped along the way to check out a dead humpback whale that had washed up on the beach. It looked like a deflated balloon, but at least it didn't smell as bad as I had feared. We also went for a short hike in the redwood forest (now I just need to visit the New York islands) and then we hit the boardwalk. S-Boogie got her fix of carnival rides and Mr Fob and I went on the Giant Dipper, one of the oldest roller coasters in America. We also discovered that The Big O really hates carnival rides, but he liked feeding cheerios to the seagulls with S-Boogie.

Friday: Drove, drove and drove some more. We came back to Utah in one straight shot and it took longer than we had expected. Stopped at In-N-Out on the way and Mr Fob discovered another reason why California rules. For dinner we stopped at a place in Battle Mountain, Nevada (the Armpit of America). I think the waitress thought we were weird and cheap because we ordered one chicken fried steak to split (we weren't that hungry and no one wants to eat an entire chicken fried steak before sitting in the car for hours on end) and then we ordered a single scoop of ice cream (it was to mix S-Boogie's medicine into). Plus we only had water to drink, but we always do that since we hate soda. Anyways, the journey was long but we made it home at 2 AM and went directly to sleep (after checking email, of course).

I was a little nervous about going on this trip because I haven't been feeling so great lately and travelling tends to get me all out of sorts. But, it was a lot of fun and I felt better than I have in a long time because I had to get out and do things every day. Plus it was so nice to be able to spend time with Mr Fob and S-Boogie without other distractions there. More than anything, I realized that I really, really need to live by the ocean. I don't know why, but walking on the beach can fill that hole inside like nothing else can. We'll have to see what we can do about that someday...

So that was our trip and it was lots of fun; I'll probably post a few pictures after we get them onto the computer, which probably won't happen until tomorrow.

Comments

Th. said…
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I'm glad you had a good time. I've been suffering from post-hosting stress (not serious -- don't worry), so it does me ticker good to hear the news.

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Th. said…
Incidentally, the Big O also found the penguins boring. His favorite fish were the rays.
svoid said…
That is so weird to think that I passed through some of the exact same areas as you and Master Fob only a couple of days later. I was hoping to camp at the state park on the beach at Half Moon Bay. Unfortunately the campground was full and I had to keep riding through the night looking for another campground until I finally gave up and got a hotel room in Santa Cruz. The Golden Gate Bridge was really cool. Unlike you, I had to pay $5 to get across it though.

How was the fog when you guys were there? It was still a little hazy when I passed through. The fog did clear briefly; just long enough for me to get a picture from one of the scenic viewpoints.

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