Finally So Cal

Journal Day 5: Starbucks: A Pastime or a National Addiction?

Best Western Hotel Lobby Garden

Once again, we found a local Starbucks. May I point out that this is the BUSIEST Starbucks I’ve ever been to. There was a line up of cars at least 12 deep through the parking lot, the seats in the shop were full, there was a line up damn near out the door of this place. It was incredible. And rightfully so. It was a great coffee. Grande Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha, with whip, extra hot. AWESOME!!! Anyway, it was full. I think half the town was there.

From here we went down to Humboldt Bay to see… the bay… it was nice. It, too, smelled a little weird. And of course was populated by sea gulls. It was pretty chilly by the water (53F), which really isn’t that cold but I acclimate very quickly. LOL. Anyway, this is the Bay… behind Alan.

He’s such a charmer, isn’t it? Hey, by day 4 on the road, I’m lucky he’s only sticking his tongue out at me and not leaving me behind!

As we continued south we passed through another piece of the Redwood Forest, along Fwy 101. In the day light it’s much less scary, but I’m beginning to wonder what we didn’t see in the dark.

For example, in the daylight, Bigfoot emerges!

We also saw a Bald Eagle soaring high above us as we drove down another mountain , and a group of Hawks circling overhead. See, it’s a good thing we stopped at the Bird’s of Prey Museum otherwise we wouldn’t have known they were hawks! Eh? Eh? Yeah, that’s right, we’re geniuses!

In Leggit, we stopped in a little preserve for the Redwoods and drove through a tree. That’s right – Eddie went through a tree. It was so cool. Alan got out (before I drove into the tree) to take pictures. It was a tight squeeze. Eddie’s not a big car, and I only had about 4 inches on either side of my side view mirrors! We also stood in some trees, lay down in some trees, held some trees up... you get the idea! (FYI – it’s a trick… we only look like we’re holding it up, but you probably already know that!). There was a little gift shop with some cool trinkets and a bunch of old dudes and women sitting out front marveling at the fact that the trees were older than they were.
Alright, enough pictures for now.

From here, we headed towards Ukiah. But on the way, my driving skills, and Eddie’s ability to take
corners, were tested. There was a race down the mountain from Leggit. I think we all figured Bigfoot was chasing us! Seriously, it was ridiculous. Zipping in and out of other cars, I was keeping up with sports cars. It was a beautiful thing. It became almost too comfortable to be driving that fast because when we arrived in Ukiah it was weird to be slowing down to 50km/hr. We were smart enough to stop in Ukiah for food, which seemed to be a rarity during our trip, and once again had lunch at Applebee’s. Up to this point, just about all of our meals on the road have been at Applebee’s. Good food. Good prices. Huge drinks. Makes for a lot of pit stops for bathroom breaks. Which can also prove to be a problem when driving through small towns in Northern California.

For example, Geyserville, CA. No gas station. No bathrooms. We snuck, literally, into a café which has a sign on the front door which explicitly states “Bathrooms for use of Patrons only”. Well, no one offered to seat us, or ask us if we’d been helped so we helped ourselves. To their bathrooms. Which were really nice; potpourri and everything. I think mine even had a little decorative hat with a ribbon on the wall. Very cute.

Onward south towards San Francisco; the gem of our trip. Once again, we arrived in time to experience rush hour. But I’ll get to that in a minute. We planned one thing right: our arrival into San Fran was by way of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was SO cool. Needless to say, more pictures!!!
We stopped for a while and saw Alcatraz from a distance, and walked up and down a few streets to get a feel for life in San Francisco. We stopped and walked through a reproduction of the Aqua Ducts at some Science Centre/Museum for a while, and sat at the edge of the Bay and watched the waves, and intermittently , a sea lion playing in the surf.

If you want to see these pictures, write me and I’ll send them. They just aren’t great so I won’t post them here. Oh, and to get all “Hollywood” on you, we went to the place where Sean Connery meets his daughter in the movie “The Rock”. I was like “Oh my god! Nicholas Cage has stood right here!” No, I didn’t really say that out loud, but you can bet I was thinking it!

Continuing on: I feel should tell you that if you’re a yellow car in San Francisco, you are automatically assumed to be a cab. We had at least three people try to “hail us”. They all looked so disappointed as we waved as we drove by that I was almost compelled to stop and take them up a few blocks just to make them feel better.

So, on to rush hour. Wow… that is something else in San Francisco. Michael Fishman received an email from me as we drove through the scary roads of San Francisco and I’m sure if he could have heard what I was saying as I was typing it would have gone a lot like this:

“Dear Michael, OH MY GOD!,

We’re on our WATCH OUT FOR THAT CAR way through San Franci HOLY CRAP co right now. There’s a lot of traff F@*K ic right now trying to get onto the THE LIGHTS ARE OUT? Bay bridge. Calgary’s’ JERK traffic seems so BUGGER ALL sedate compared to this JACK A$$!...”