Road Trip 2012: The Long Long Road

After Oceanside, we made the quick 40 minute jaunt to Mission Viejo, home to some of Katie's family. We stayed at the home of her grandparents, and were immediately put to work to help prep dinner. A big family dinner was on the schedule, and Aunt Cindy and Uncle Darrin and their posse were due to arrive within the hour. I learned how to cut a watermelon, and I'm very proud.

Dinner was a fun affair- I wheedled out the story of how Katie's parents met, and there was chocolate cake. Aunt Cindy reminded me of Katie's mom Lynn so very very much.

But the next morning it was out of the warm embrace of family and into the wretched grasp of LA Traffic. And thus begins the Long Long Road to San Francisco.

We passed LA in the middle of the day, so we weren't subjected to the legendary Los Angeles rush hour. But we still hit plenty of traffic! They stop very very suddenly in Los Angeles. You have less than five seconds warning before 70 mph turns to 0 mph. Thank goodness for well-functioning brakes!

But even with all of the shenanigans of the other drivers, it was pretty fun to drive past all of the signs for places you usually only see in the movies.

We even saw the Matterhorn, but it was by too quickly for us to get a picture.

After about two hours of crawling we broke through and were able to continue on our merry way (needless to say, I was driving). We stopped for lunch at a little Italian place in Agoura Hills, and once again found ourselves at the mercy of very loud bunches of recently-freed teenagers. Sadly, we are pretty sure we acted exactly the same way at that age. Which really wasn't that long ago. *shudder*

From there on out, we wound our way on and off of the Pacific Coast Highway- and interestingly, in and out of radio stations. One of our Rules of the Road is that she who drives calls the music. As I was driving, I had on country radio. Maybe California just has too many stations, or something, but every so often it would just completely switch stations and an Alan Jackson song would suddenly be rap. No classical, no fun Mexican polka music; rap every single time. But when we did have country, it came in crystal clear.

We kept driving for hours upon hours. We passed the Google guy several times, which we found highly amusing, but our backs definitely started to complain. We finally stopped at a gas station at dusk and filled up on snacks so we wouldn't have to stop for dinner. At this point, I deemed us far enough out of crazy drivers to let Katie take over, as 7 hours of driving in one day was quite enough for me, thank you. You see, I am a benevolent dictator. I ease up on my rulings when it suits me.

One might perhaps wonder at why we didn't just pull over for the night and make San Francisco in the morning. Because we had a very exciting thing waiting for us: a snazzy hotel right in the heart of the city! Seriously, it was on 4th and Market Street. Walking distance to the Wharf and pretty much everything else our little city hearts could desire. And the bed was sooooo comfy! No offense to Motel 6, but the Mosser has got you beat.

We hit town just before 10pm, and went right to sleep so we could get up first thing in the morning. The adventures in San Francisco to come shortly!