Stopped at a tiny corner store in Oregon...really wanted a coffee and they had an espresso sign
, maybe a 7 up and a few bags of chips...BUT check out that awesome clown! The lady was so nice and oblivious you couldn't be mad
OUR CALIFORNIA TRIP!!!
Soooo, let's see.......gonna try to remember the trip:
1) Stop in The Dalles Oregon....uneventful...sleepy, go to sleep.
As we're driving the next day through Oregon realize the small towns, (the one's that would normally look like a
meth head was lurking behind every corner in Wash and Idaho) seem to have a certain self respect to them, neat, tidy and quaint.
Not to mention how amazing is it that a state has a law to require an attendant pump your gas for you!! Yes! Oregon the state with self respect:)
2) Stop at Mt. Shasta KOA. Got there late-ish 8 or so, played in the little park, started a fire, drank some beer
3) San Jose(Brian at work the whole time here...me and Amelia explore and chill)
day 1 - thrift stores:) Eat at a Korean restaurant NOT what we had expected...lots of tiny bowls filled with mystery items...freeze dried fish type stuff....ick, culture smulture
day2 - Happy Hollow Park and Zoo- so charming and fun, Amelia is the Absolute perfect age for the park....adorable, great day, crooked house, dinosaur in the sand to dig up..cool...Amelia is exhausted
For some reason we decide to go to denny's....then sadly realize that calf. puts the calories on the menu at franchise restaurants....holy cow...I bet that place would be out of business if it was required in all states....pretty sick really
day3- San Jose children's mueseum - really, really great
go to Santa Cruz - On the drive is when I realize Brian is singing reggae with an accent and it really starts to drive me crazy...literally 105 degrees in San Jose and when we get to Santa Cruz its 65 degrees, we HAD to go to the thrift store to get warmer clothes. eat at a great place, go to the beach and the pavilion area...go on a few rides...drive back to santa clara
day4- hang out by pool, chill - go to Tuttti-melon
day5- parks (get lost) leave for Yosemite
Leave late, get there late(of course) luckily for us we found a cozy little b and b - amelia goes to sleep and we drink beer on our porch, cozy
4) Yosemite
day 1) get our camp site at camp 4, clean the crap out of the car so the bears don't get it
explore, go bike riding, a little hiking, climbing
day2) Brian runs up half dome - me and Amelia go to the museums and sight see
hang out with our neighbors, some old guy from Ohio, who makes a yearly trek AND who does NOT stop talking, a recently unemployed guy who's 30ish and looks 19, a REALLY quiet guy from Australia and Tina from San Fransisco and her kids and sister from back east...I drank WAY to much wine
day3)head back to san jose/santa cara
5) San Jose - just a pit stop for Brian to have a meeting at tivo...eat a decent sushi spot in a strip mall....Santa Clara= strip mall heaven
6) San Francisco- Stay at the Argonaut Hotel - For a function at Brian's work so we all get to stay for free, woot!
Day 1 - Brian does his work thing - I try to find the parks I had researched...MUCH harder to navigate than anywhere I've ever driven...you can't turn certain ways at certain times of the day for gods sake and the cut off turn time just so happened to be 4:00 and we were driving around at 4:05...ugh Can't help but notice the white painted bikes on the corners of the streets...yikes.....are the drivers really crappy here or are the bicyclists? any way go to a crazy awesome park...has a wavy cement slide, great structures and a rope fort...really cool park...we just missed the last carousel ride...no biggie.....as it turns out, almost every park we went to had one...
Going back to the hotel I run a red light and run into a biker..YIKES..he was fine, didn't even fall off. Got a ticket...so freaked out. I think I freaked out the biker and the cop...drove home REALLY slow in a daze, crying....I feel like how a senior citizen must feel when they start making those type of mistakes...shamed, confused, embarrassed, naive... Amelia must have sensed my weakness because a safari themed restaurant caught her eye and she begged to go...I had no strength left to say no...so we go there and I feel like I'm in some sort of dark safari twilight zone, PLUS I get swine haggled by some stupid balloon lady making balloon animals table to table for tips...she just made a butterfly for the kid next to us...how could I say no, so basically they let panhandlers in the restaurants...we go to ben and jerry's and go back to the hotel...
Day 2) refuse to drive
make Brian drive us to Zeum, children's museum.....and park...play at the park, wait for the museum to open....so fun, made a music video...took crazy pictures, even made a crazy claymation video...really amazing place...maybe a little ahead of amelia's skill level but she still had a blast...took the trolley back down to fisherman's wharf (ridiculously commercial...but whatever) Find a really awesome sushi place...brian went to Alcatraz and then a baseball game with his work all day
Get Amelia's picture drawn by a women who told me it would be $35 one day and went back the next and said $55...boo then she added on strange costs like the celaphane it goes in, the mat board, some questionable tax...sham.....get me out of this place AND it doesn't look like her....at least the lips don't.....whatever
Day 3) we out,we out...Honestly couldn't get out of there fast enough(and I'm sure the feeling is mutual, seeing as I almost added another white bike to a corner)....I've been to San Francisco maybe 4 or 5 times before and normally I have liked it...but I guess due to the accident I was very happy to leave (or maybe I'm getting old?)...Too congested, hard to navigate, too expensive...other than the architecture...San Francisco had few redeeming qualities for me, I never need to go back
7) Bandon Oregon - stay at a quaint beach front hotel...Brian starts to get obsessive compulsive about finding amelia sea shells...never find any...stop at a lot of beaches along the coast....
8) Drive 13 hours!!!HOME
So we lost most of our pictures from the trip (part of the reason I go into such detail in the post), it was such a fun trip this really makes me sad
Also, now that they are added the quality is also poor boo oh well at least we have these....
