Road Trip 2012: Sunny Southern California, Part I

It's Monday. Chances are, we get home on Wednesday. What??? For some reason, unless I'm thinking of it directly like that, I feel right now like I have more time than I did a week ago when were were traveling to Arizona. Who knows.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

At Lake Havasu City the night before

We were up reasonably early in Lake Havasu City (apparently pronounced "HAA-vaa-su" rather than "ha-VA-su" as we had been doing), grabbed breakfast at Dennys (now cruelly without their chocolate peanut butter menu items), and hit the road. The morning started out looking like most mornings have:

But after not too long, started to look like this!

And then this happened:

Oh, yes. California at last. Not that we hadn't utterly enjoyed our time in the Southwest- that was kind of the point of the road trip. But how can you have a road trip without hitting California?? As an added bonus, California meant four straight days of not having to pay for a hotel: our first night was spent in Oceanside with my family, the second in Mission Viejo with Katie's family, and the third and fourth in a hotel my mother procured for us in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

But first we had to get there. It wasn't a horribly long drive to Oceanside- maybe five hours? We hit town around the dinner hour. But we did have some unexpected adventures along the way. The more enjoyable of them came about as we stopped for gas. We were desperately low, and pulled off the highway when we saw a gas station in Chiriaco, CA. I vaguely noted a sign for a museum, but was more focused on the impending water bottles for purchase. But then we came around a bend and saw a barbed wire fence, with a field full of tanks stretching out behind them. And I do mean tanks:

Boom

The George Patton Memorial Museum of Chiriaco, California! Thus located because of the Desert Training Camp he used to prepare soldiers for the desert fighting to drive the Nazis out of North Africa in World War II. I announced to Katie that we had to stop there, assuming the entrance fee was $20 or less. A quick search on my phone yielded up the entry fee: a suggested donation of $5. Sold!

We restocked on gas and vittles, then trundled across the road to the museum. Out front, they had the "West Coast Vietnam Memorial," what looked to be an unofficial monument to the locals who were lost. A little further down, they also had one for local 9/11 victims and those lost in the ensuing battles.

Inside the museum, there was a 26 minute video on Patton's career, and memorabilia galore. I learned quite a few things that were new to me. To start, I didn't realize that significant fighting had even occurred in Northern Africa. Bad history major! *slaps own hand*

As it turns out, the day we visited was also the anniversary of D-Day. Aren't we clever? While Patton was not part of the invading force on D-Day, that same force was not able to break out of Normandy. Fresh off of his victories in Africa, Patton and his troops were called up a month after D-Day, and successfully pushed the Allied forces into the rest of France and then on into Germany. Later in the war, he was also called up to help end and win the Battle of the Bulge.

And then, of course, we had to go look at the tanks!

Duck tank

Soviet fire-fighting tank... with giant spikes at the front

Back to the road, where we ran into the bane of Katie's existence: California drivers. The quality of language in the car plummeted through the floor boards and started burrowing to China almost immediately. Though we have lightened up on the rule now that we are in Northern California, once we hit Oceanside I banned her from driving for the rest of California, and she happily accepted. (Apparently this story has spread like wildfire among all sides of her family.)

Speaking of which, Oceanside!

My beloved Oceanside. I get here every chance I get. We drove straight to the harbor, ate dinner at the little Italian place there- new to me, and quite good- and then bounced over to the beach. I ran straight into the water. Katie chose not to follow, assuming quite correctly that the water would be very cold.

Usually, I stay a few miles to the left of the harbor (my dad is probably gasping in shock and pain right now- is it south?), so I had never explored the beach to the right (north?) of it. We wandered along it, dodging an untold number of groups of teenagers (we suspected, and later had confirmed, that school had gotten out that very day). We passed many seagulls, and this batch of Seussical palm trees:

We hung around a bit longer and enjoyed the sunset, then wound our way to our resting spot of the night: Tim's. I can never get a solid answer from anyone, Google included, on what exactly I call my mother's cousins, but whatever they are, he is one of them.

Tim and his wife Denise were truly superb hosts. On top of having a gorgeous home and a very fluffy dog, upon our arrival, Tim reparked my car (parking and I don't get along), then made us both a bowl of ice cream, with nuts and banana on the top. I can't figure out why, but it was hands down the tastiest banana of my life. The four of us hung about in their living room for about an hour, chatting on a whole host of things. I remained carefully neutral about my plans for DC in the fall- I could tell from the number of books written by Glen Beck and/or on Reagan to glean that we probably fall on different sides of the political spectrum. Which just goes to show you that we all need to stop demonizing the "other side" as being horrible people, because they were wonderful people!  Katie and I each got our own room, and the password to the Wifi, and retired to bed.

The next morning, each of us were independently awakened by a knock at our door. Venturing a cautious bedhead out into the hallway, we were greeted by a tray of freshly made breakfast: scrambled eggs, toast, and a sectioned orange. The bearer of such treats? None other than Tim and Denise's 17 year old son Morgan, who the previous night had been entirely taciturn and typically 17. Of course, that may have been because introductions were made while he was neck deep in a video game, and not inclined to be distracted by a couple of wandering vagrants.

We enjoyed the afternoon at their pool, and then Morgan again impressed with a spread of Trader Joe's finest- chips, salsa, and hummus; Ritz and brie (a surprisingly good combination); organic soda; fine chocolate. All plated and displayed very snazzily. Apparently that's his thing: he loves to prepare and display food. I think he will go far in life. Our final hours were spent watching the first two episodes of The Walking Dead, which Denise had sold us on the night before. She made us cookies, and Morgan made us popcorn, and all four of us settled in for the zombie goodness. Denise is clearly used to feeding large packs of teenage boys- the cookies and popcorn just kept coming! Katie and I did our level best, but we barely made a dent.

At 4pm, we hit the road to go to see Katie's grandparents in Mission Viejo.

I feel that this post has gone on quite long enough, so I'll leave Katie's family and The Long, Long Drive to San Francisco for the next one. Ciao ciao, and parents, I will see you soon!

Crew team coming in for the evening