Cali Trip: The First Half

As promised, here follows an account of our California trip.

Day 0.5, Sunday: Yes, day zero-point-five. Art's parents picked us up at 5:30 pm, and we were leaving our driveway by 6pm. AS SOON AS we started driving, the antics started. Art and I claimed the back bench, and Mari and Joe had the seats in front of us. Art's spot in the van provided many an opportunity to stick his feet in his siblings' faces. And when opportunity knocked, he answered. We hadn't even left Bellingham yet, and I was already wondering if "we were there yet."

Mari and Joe were annoyed, but also amused. All three of them had dissolved into side-splitting laughter before too long. I realized that was the first moment I had seen Art laugh so hard that he cried. I wish I had caught it on camera, but my mind's eye will do just fine.

We drove straight to California, only stopping at rest stops to use the bathroom (which I made sure I did at every one. I did not want to be the one begging to stop because I had to pee).

Driving straight through the night was like mini-torture for me. It's too dark to see anything, I'm too tired to read, but too uncomfortable to sleep. Art spent much of the trip with his legs across my lap, which I let him do as often as possible, since he's much bigger than me. But eventually it got to be too much. I was very glad when I saw the sun coming up, because that meant that I didn't have to pretend to sleep anymore.


Day 1, Monday: We got to great-grandma's house in Fresno at 11am. She is 95, but besides the walker, she doesn't look it at all. Her house was surprisingly large for just one person to live in, but those two extra bedrooms were our salvation. If all six of us had slept in the same general space every night of our vacation, we would have been a pretty grumpy group.

This day was spent relaxing, obviously, since we had just spent 16 hours in a van. We did some grocery shopping so that we wouldn't be eating grandma's food, and we ordered KFC so nobody had to cook.

Later on that evening, we went to Art's dad's stepdad's place to watch some football. Well, the guys watched football. I read. And tried to stay far away from their wiener dog, who got so excited that she kept peeing everywhere. Mari and I played a little Jenga, and we got a cool video of me making the tower fall over.


Day 2, Tuesday: Art's dad (I'm just going to call them David and Sally from now on) wanted to find a few graves of relatives. We paid a visit to great-grandpa's grave, but didn't find the other ones, and eventually abandoned our quest. David took us to the Fresno zoo instead. I have only ever been to the Winnipeg Zoo, and no offense to Winnipeg, but this zoo is much cooler. The highlight of the zoo (besides the giant parrots, and pacing tiger, and girraffes, and playing elephants, and giant turtles, and swinging monkeys)? Seeing a goat chase Art because Art had paper in his back pocket, and the goat wanted a piece of it. And got it.

On the way back, we went to In-N-Out burger, which is a must if you're going to California. I have been to one before, in San Francisco, but I never got a picture of my first In-N-Out experience, so we got a picture of this one.

We stopped off at David's former sister-in-law's (David's late wife's sister. David was married once before, she died, he met Sally in the Philippines, they had a family, and here we are). We ended up staying there until quite late, playing card games with the cousins while the parents got caught up.


Day 3, Wednesday: Probably my least favorite day. We went the Navy Base in Lemoore to pick up Magic Mountain tickets at a sweet military discount, had a fantastic lunch there, but then I spent a long afternoon in an arcade/gym/rec room watching everyone else play games while I just wanted to nap.

This was my first opportunity to get on the internet, which occupied me for a little while, but I was just so sleepy! (Remember how I said I basically didn't get one night of decent sleep on our whole vacation?) We thought we might get to go swimming on the base, which I was looking forward do since it's so hot there, but only those with a military ID are allowed. I clearly don't have one of those.

When David and Sally got back from where ever they had gone, we went to the navy exchange to do some "shopping" and then finally made the trip back to great-grandma's in Fresno. She went to bed not long after we got home, and the guys wanted to watch a movie. I think I made it halfway through, but I was so hot and tired and cranky that I just went to bed.


Day 4, Thursday: We went west to Salinas. For those who don't know, Fresno is in a valley, which means it's very hot. Going to Salinas meant going "over/through" the mountains, and there, it is much more temperate, since they get a nice ocean breeze. (See Map.) We visited with one of David's many cousins for a while, and then met my former college roommate, her husband, and their year-old baby for dinner. I hadn't seen her since I was a bridesmaid in her wedding three years ago, so we basically ignored the people we were with so we could chat more. I don't even remember eating!

I miss her. She was a godsend as a roommate, and we connected so well. We haven't really kept up that connection as well as I would have liked, but we were like old friends as soon as we saw each other.

That night we stayed in a motel, and then it was off to Monteray and the ocean! Which I'll save for the next post.

I've included a very official map for your assistance, in case you nothing of the layout of California (which I didn't until I made this just now).