Day 11: Home Sweet Home

This morning we woke up at Sabrina's grandma's house early. After a tour of her always impressive vegetable garden, we drove back to Sabrina's parents house for a most delicious breakfast of amazing local fresh eggs, gluten free waffles with homemade loganberry jam and a cantaloupe from the garden.

We tried to find a latte in Lebanon, but went into a cafe where the woman informed us she only had cappuccino in flavors such as caramel and white chocolate-- in otherwords some scary kind of mix. So back on the road we went.

We stopped in Portland at a chocolate shop recommended by one of Laura's friends called Moonstruck Chocolate. Unfortunately all of the truffles had butter in them but we each tried a bar of dark chocolate. We would have liked to try their dark chocolate mochas but the coffee machine was broken and we needed wireless anyway so we went a block down the road to Portland Coffee Company. We knew we were back the Northwest since we only had to walk a block to find a coffee shop. It was a very funky urban coffee place, with beat up wooden furniture and very tatooed and pierced baristas. We liked it immediately. Sabrina accidentally forgot to order decaf, and spent the rest of the day feeling very jittery. After coffee and chocolate we finally headed home to Seattle.

We've become quite fond of something we like to call "story time". We have been listening to NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" and "This American Life" podcasts whenever we need a good laugh. Perfect road trip entertainment.

Ironically the worst traffic we had the entire trip was coming home through Seattle. We finally arrived at Sabrina's house where we began the not so fun task of sorting out the car and all the crap in it. We discovered the source of the vague vinegar smell we had been smelling for a few days in the form of a leaky apple cider vinegar bottle. Laura's car may never be the same. We were ravenous and ate delicous leftovers from last night's dinner that Sabrina's mom sent us with. We were surprised and glad to see it is 70 degrees and sunny in Seattle today-- we take full credit for bringing the sun back with us from California. (You all are quite welcome).

We drove over 3000 miles, ate probably 6 boxes of Mary's Gone Crackers, too many gluten free cookies, and a lifetime supply of hummus. We stopped in health food stores all across the coast and almost always found kombucha, which suggests we aren't as weird as we thought for being so addicted to it. We got lost less times than we thought we would and we nearly always found the funny side of every messy situation. We hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventures as much as we have enjoyed writing about them. Now it is time for us to get some rest before we start a busy school year. Before we go:

Laura's top 3 memories: running out of the ocean to scatter the tons of birds who devoured our rice cakes and crackers, eating lunch on the roof of the car and having people look at us like we were insane and climbing to the top of the sandunes only to find more sand. Laura also now has tons of sand in her car, but doesn't mind because it reminds her of the beach and the dunes. How she loves the beach.

Sabrina's top three memories: seeing Wicked from the front row, swimming in the ocean in San Diego, and #3 is a tie between our day in Santa Barbara and Huntington Beach (however the best picture EVER is the one with us and the Viking in Solvang...)

Day 10: Laura discovers people really DO live in Oregon

Today we were very anxious to get out of our tiny motel room and get on the road. We knew that we had a long day of driving ahead of us. We anticipated not seeing much in the way of scenery for the first half of the trip because of yesterday’s boring driving. We were pleasantly surprised to be met with beautiful mountain passes and a great view of Lake and Mount Shasta within the first 30 minutes of driving. After Mount Shasta, we were back to some of the same old until we hit Oregon.

We were very hungry, but lacked motivation to eat any of the food in the car because we have been subsisting on rice cakes, peanut butter, hummus, crackers and apples for days. None of it sounded appealing and we were running out of it anyway. We tried to eat apples, but they were full of sand from the beach. Yuck. We also keep eating this really gross bag of herb flavored popcorn we bought before we left at Whole Foods in Seattle. It tasted stale when we bought it and hasn’t improved since then, but out of desperation we find ourselves munching away. Complaining the entire time about how bad it is.

We stopped in a small town south of Eugene to see if we could get some Mexican food. We discovered a small health food store and stopped in to see if we could find anything interesting, but there was nothing to note. We walked down the road to find Mexican and instead found a man with a chainsaw in the middle of the sidewalk. You would think that he would stop when we were trying to make our way down the road, but you would be wrong. So we decided that it was not worth walking in front of the obviously crazy chainsaw man for some food.

We finally got to Eugene and immediately found a health food store where we used the bathroom and bought kombucha (which we decided is available pretty much everywhere on the West Coast). We didn’t buy any food despite our starvation problem because we were only an hour from Sabrina’s parents house and her mom was cooking us a yummy dinner.

Around 5pm we arrived at Sabrina’s parents house in Lebanon, Oregon and discovered that fall had started here in the Northwest while we were gone. Sabrina's parents moved this year from Seattle out to what is truly the country to be near their moms. It is a beautiful and picturesque pastoral area where their biggest issue is deer in the yard eating the apples off the apple tree. We sat awhile in the yard enjoying the fresh air and petting Sabrina’s uncle’s very needy kitty named Tata who drools but who is very lovey otherwise. We discovered that cats find Laura delicious as Tata kept trying to eat her. Laura says this is not the first time a cat has wanted a nibble on her. Sabrina’s mom made a delicious dinner of chicken and rice, a big salad with veggies from her garden and Sabrina’s recipe for yams which makes enough for Thanksgiving dinner for 12 so we had a LOT of yams. It was WONDERFUL to eat real food, especially a hot, home-cooked meal. Very satisfying to the body and soul. Laura also got to learn where Sabrina gets her sense of humor and strange story-telling genes as we sat and chatted with her mom and dad over dinner.

After dinner we made a stop to see Sabrina’s maternal grandma and uncle and after a short visit drove to her paternal grandma’s where we are staying the night. A new experience getting our own rooms here at grandma’s—we might get lonely, who knows.

One day left until we sleep in our own beds again. I think we can’t wait for that.

Day 9: Stockton = hell

Well today we didn't do anything worthy of picture taking, so no pictures to share today. Mostly we just drove and drove and got lost and drove more.

We started out the day in Stinkyfield and proceeded to the closest health food store, which was not that close. When we got there it was more of a vitamin shop than a food store, but we found some new gluten-free items to try, and the elderly clerk really enjoyed chatting with Laura about how his girlfriend's granddaughter could be her twin and about his one day (probably in 1972) that he went to New York. Laura was horrified at the idea of having a twin in Bakersfield. We hope her twin can escape soon.

We finally got on the road after having breakfast on the car in the parking lot of Rite Aid. A man walking by yelled to us that what we were eating (rice cakes and peanut butter AGAIN) looked good. He informed us he had just bought some Hungry Man dinners. Oh dear.

The secenery in this part of California is not particularly attractive. Everything is kind of dry and beige. We did pass miles and miles of almond trees, and olive trees. We also were somewhat disturbed by what appeared to be a cattle feedlot with many cows in pens and no grass. The smell of that area makes us both gag a little just thinking about it. It lasted for miles and miles and was so bad we could hardly breathe.

Around Stockton, after a good 4 hours of driving in pure nothingness we got off to try and find a bathroom or wireless or both. Stockton, or at least the part where we got off, was terrifying. We could not find a bathroom and for some reason Sabrina thought stopping at a local park was a good idea. So you have the mental picture: this park was the local hangout for all the hoodlums of the neighborhood. Many people gathered on park benches, doing who-knows what. As soon as we got within a few feet of the bathroom door a cloud of about 100 flies flew away. Sabrina got within a foot or so of the door and saw police caution tape on one of the stalls. She immediately turned around and said "we are leaving NOW." Laura had no objections whatsoever. So back in the car we went, with locked doors. We gave up on Stockton and decided to try Sacramento instead.

Sacramento is a very big city for which we had no map once again. We drove for several miles around and around looking for a Starbucks. If we had been in Seattle we would have passed at least 12 Starbucks in the area we covered, but here after a good 20 minutes we only found one. Even Starbucks was a trial, with faulty wireless, and a long journey to the bathroom where we had a security guy try to helpfully unlock the bathroom door for us, despite there being someone in it, who spent a good 10 minutes in there changing clothes or something while we stood outside. Finally we finished up there and took another journey to Whole Foods which we found comforting once we finally got there. I should mention that we also got cranky because it was approximately 95 degrees and we were wearing long pants because we didn't know it would be so freakin' hot.

We got food at Whole Foods planning to camp for the night with the goal of camping outside Redding. However, by the time we got on the road again from Sac as they seem to call it, we were running late again.

We made a valiant effort to camp. But there is NOTHING on the road for miles and miles and miles north of Sacramento. We found a couple of campsites mainly set up for RVs (no firepits in the supposed tent areas and no one there to take our money). Meanwhile the sun was going down and down. We finally gave up and drove to Redding and found a motel 6, where we can not make any of the food we were going to cook over the fire and so it's left over guacamole and chips tonight. We were kind of bummed not to get to camp but the only other campsites around here are a good 30 miles east and it was just too dark to try.

the only redeeming venture of the day was our trip to a little place called the "Olive Pit" which sells local olives and olive oil. We each got some yummy local olive oil and had fun trying all the different kinds of olives.

Day 8: Good-bye San Diego (we love you!)

Today we manifested another 75 and sunny day-- just order it up and the universe provides, or so it seems. We started out the day at another health food store to replace what the silly birds took away yesterday. Then off to the the Healing Arts School in Pacific Beach for delicious massages done by massage students (in other words, cheap and good). After a fabulous hour each of all the road kinks being worked out, we emerged ready for our next adventure: finding huntington beach. We had decided to get a bit north today to make tomorrow's drive not so long, and we had missed meeting up with Sabrina's friend Rebecca who lives in Huntington Beach (just south of LA) on the way down, so we decided to drive up there for the rest of the afternoon.

First we stopped at the San Diego Veteran's Hospital, site of the San Diego dietetic internship. The cafeteria was nothing exciting-- far too much fried chicken in our opinions, but otherwise perfectly nice (though the security was very tight-- we had to show ID and got interrogated about our purposes there before entering).

After that quick detour we of course got confused going to Huntington Beach since we don't have a map of that area and had to backtrack a bit before finding it. It was definitely worth the drive! The beach was magnificent. The water was a stunning blue and the temperature was perfect. We spent two hours lying in the sun and we did not want to leave when our parking meter was up. Next we walked around town, mostly killing time until rush hour was over and stumbled upon a fantastic farmer's market. They had the most delicious berries that you could smell from 10 feet away. Rebecca came to meet us at the market after she got off work and we had fun discovering that she has many of the same nutritional obsessions we do, such as weird fermenting projects on her kitchen counter and juicing up a storm, so we had fun exchanging ideas. (I would just like to add for the benefit of Scott, Rebecca's husband, that she is not weird, just from Seattle. Trust us).

We had yummy roasted corn at the farmer's market for dinner and Laura got carried away with the cayenne pepper and practically burned her mouth off, but it was really good just the same. We posed for pictures with Rebecca and with a kitty that was randomly on the side of the road (they really do follow us everywhere). Then it was on the road again.

We had a goal of making it to Bakersfield tonight, which we have re-named stinkyfield/smellyfield/nastyfield (our personal favorite) because it smells VERY strongly of manure here. VERY strongly. It took longer than we thought to get here because we had to go over some "mountains" which by Washington standards are more of hills, but it was steep for awhile and slowed us down. Then, we could not for the life of us find the damn econolodge. We tend to pick the hardest to find motel in town-- which is probably why they are cheap, because no one can find them. (We also had the same problem in SD and in fact there, never found the econolodge and gave up because we were so tired).

We got to our motel after 10pm again where we had quite a hike from the car to the room with all our gear. We bought a bag of avocados at Trader Joes in Seattle and still haven't used them and they are very ripe, so we made guacamole in the hotel room, which we realize is very weird, but we are willing to accept that. Surprisingly Laura is pretty sure it's the best guac she has ever made. It was very delicious, and not just because we were starving. We finished our "meal" with berries from the farmer's market that all fell out of their little boxes and are now a mess in the bag, but still taste good. Tomorrow is an all driving day so hopefully we will have some fun adventures to tell.

Day 7: Why do people hate Mondays?

This morning we finally got some much needed sleep and slept in until 10. We lounged around the hotel until after noon and then tackled the much hated task of cleaning out the cooler. It was full of water and we were sad to throw out some of our neglected veggies and a *sniff* melted, wet bar of chocolate and a whole container of hummus. What you see in the picture is what we salvaged.

Then it was off to the food co-op and then the beach. We have discovered that co-ops in California tend to be all vegetarian. By then it was nearly 1pm and we hadn't eaten (we are not the poster children for blood sugar control this trip) and so we were wandering around dazedly trying to figure out what to eat. In the end, it was yummy strawberries, once again rice cakes and peanut butter, and hummus and crackers, and veggie juice. We took all of this with us to the beach and Sabrina wondered allowed if people thought we were crazy with our jar of peanut butter on the beach. We sat and ate on the beach for about two hours. We figured if anyone asked we would just explain we were from Seattle, which also probably was obvious by our pasty paleness. We noticed two girls near us that clearly spent a good part of their lives tanning, and I imagine we were just as offensive to them for our whiteness as they were to us for their over tan-ness.

We spent a good deal of time sunning ourselves (yes mom, we wore sunscreen) and reading our books. Eventually we decided to take a dip in the oh so warm Pacific. We were frolicking joyfully in the waves when Sabrina looked back towards their towel to make sure no one was messing with our stuff and saw approximately 30 seagulls where the towel should have been. She turned to Laura and said "see where all those seagulls are? That's our stuff." We ran back to find that the hungry seagulls had run off with an ENTIRE bag of rice cakes (including the BAG) and an entire box of crackers. They did not seem to want the strawberries or the kombucha, but maybe they just didn't get to that yet. Oops. It was funny anyway, though somewhat embarassing since we should have realized this would happen given that the birds were patrolling up and down the beach the whole time looking for crumbs.

Around 5pm a few wispy clouds appeared and we got a little chilly, so we packed up and drove to one of Sabrina's favorite restaurants, Casa Guadalajara. At the restaurant we both ordered margaritas (how could we not?) We considered getting the large to share until we heard the large margarita was 27 oz-- it was the size of a serving bowl. The "small" was still 17 oz and we both were feeling a little fuzzy afterward. Good thing our hotel is only a few blocks away. We also ate too much but the food was muy bueno. (Sorry if I can't spell in Spanish). Sabrina had chicken tostata salad with no dairy and no tostata, and Laura had chicken tacos, no cheese extra guac. Delicious!

Sabrina did warn Laura that Southern California tap water tastes bad. At the restaurant Laura concluded her water tasted like "twig" which even now makes us laugh-- it's just too true. She says she imagines they stirred it with a twig before serving it.

A little note about our directions: we have decided to go with the map exclusively this time instead of relying on the computer to tell us where to go. It has worked out much better this way. We actually avoided getting lost for once.

And that's it-- we went to the store, the beach and dinner. No further adventures to report, because we were lazy all day and loved it. Why do people hate Mondays? It was 75 degrees, sunny and we were at the beach-- try not to hate us too much.

Day 6; A WICKED good day

We woke early again to try and fit in as much of Los Angeles as we could into one day. Laura’s friend Stephanie was an awesome tour-guide/driver and took us all around the city. It was really nice not being lost for once since Stephanie not only knows the city but has GPS in her hybrid.

First stop was the Whole Foods in Westwood, where Sabrina used to live. Like seriously, she practically lived in that store, since it was 3 blocks or so from her apartment. We dragged Stephanie around on an impromptu grocery store tour, and she was a good sport, even though I’m sure we bored her to tears. Breakfast from WF was hard boiled eggs (yes, again) kombucha (though Sabrina tried the mango flavor for the first time and disliked it so much she only drank a few sips). Laura tried a new brand which goji berry flavor, which was good, but not “gingerberry good”. We also had larabars and soy yogurt amongst us.

We then took a driving tour of Sabrina’s old neighborhood (the picture above is of the apartment where Sabrina & Marc lived in LA. Then we drove through UCLA which was a little trippy for Sabrina to be back, but Laura and Stephanie agreed it is beautiful.

Back on the road we were going to try and get tickets for Wicked which is playing at the Pantages theater which is near the Hollywood the walk of fame. We realized by the time we were almost there that we were too late for the lottery (more later on this) and decided to go straight to Malibu and come back to try for the 6:30 show.

Off we drove to Malibu. Sabrina and Stephanie thought it was pretty hilarious that our trip planning program said it would take 20 minutes from UCLA to Malibu, since no where in LA takes 20 minutes—it actually took us more like 45 minutes to get there. We had a meandering drive through the hills, accidentally on purpose as we took an experimental turn and got stuck going up a hill for something like 5 miles. We saw many crazy masochistic bikers riding up the hill, and crazy large houses. We finally found our way back down to the ocean and put our toes in the sand (see pictures—one of Laura and Stephanie and one of the two of us). Laura and Stephanie insisted on going down to the beach by climbing down a steep slope barefoot and got very dirty. Sabrina walked around to the stairs and actually beat them to the beach. Figures.

After our Malibu adventures we drove back to the Pantages to wait to try for Wicked tickets. We were over an hour early, and wandered around and came across and little vegan restaurant where we had lunch. There was much more fake meat than anyone should ever have there, but we did manage to get some excellent (pseudo-meat free) salads there and made it back to the theater in perfect time.

So the lottery works something this: 2.5 hours before show time you stand in line to put your name in the lottery—there were probably about 75 people in line. Each of the three of us put our names in. They have 26 first row tickets available for drawing at the bargain rate of $25. Then you wait half an hour until they draw names, and so we sat in some conveniently placed plastic chairs to wait. We all gathered around and listened to the very obnoxious, fake, overly-enthusiastic woman doing the drawing around 4:30. She pulled names out of the container and wanted everyone to applaud each winner, which got old really fast. The fourth name called was… Sabrina's. Sabrina was pretty damn excited to actually “win” something, since she rarely does. The winner of the drawing can get up to two tickets. Since neither Laura or Stephanie won, Stephanie left us tourists to see the show and went to do some errands while we watched—very graciously coming back to pick us up after it was over.

Laura and Sabrina had almost two hours to kill until the show started, so we ate gluten-free cookies we bought at Whole Foods that morning, drank iced tea, and soaked up some sun while we waited (not such a bad deal).

The show was absolutely, un-freakin’ believable. Laura, being a native New Yorker has been incredibly spoiled in that almost every show she’s ever seen has been from the front row since in New York they have these lotteries all the time. (Laura would like to clarify that in New York it’s called rush, but Sabrina doesn’t really think that’s relevant here. ) Anyway, Sabrina has never seen a show from the front row before and was pretty much giddy with excitement, and nearly started crying when it started from sheer happiness and joy (yes, we are criers, deal). Sabrina has the Wicked soundtrack and wasn’t sure if this production would meet the standard of the voices on the original cast recording, but it really did. The actors were really good, everything was fabulous (except for the ensemble member Laura spotted at the end who was expressionless and chewing gum—oops). It was definitely worth the time and effort and we loved every single moment. (Except for waiting in the ridiculous bathroom line, the likes of which neither of us has ever seen in any theater ever.)

Stephanie picked us up accompanied by her friend who has lived in LA for almost 10 years and who used to be a talent agent. He gave us a very colorful tour of Sunset blvd pointing out where celebrities go to party, where rock stars go to trash hotel rooms, and where to pick up hookers—all the stuff you’d never know without an insider. In appreciation, we gave him one of our “Solvang Danish Days Festival” buttons, and another one that said “I won the wicked lottery” for the collection he has on the inside ceiling of his car. He was pretty stoked about the Solvang button in particular.

Even though we had a really good time in LA, we were both really glad to leave. The negative energy that emanates from LA was draining and Sabrina in particular felt really stressed and on edge just being there. The only time she felt relaxed was during Wicked. This is why she moved away from there in the first place. Laura is quite sure she will never, ever live in Los Angeles.

We, being somewhat crazy, got in the car after the show and are driving from LA to San Diego—it is now past midnight and we are just north of San Diego near Carlsbad. Hopefully we will get to bed before 2am and plan to sleep in, go to the beach, and drink margaritas tomorrow at Sabrina’s all time favorite restaurant called Casa Guadalajara in Old Town San Diego. We are looking forward to a chill day.

Day 5: we finally reach “vacation speed”

This morning we had a luxurious lie-in, as they say in England, sleeping in until 8am. Being girly-girls it took us two hours to get out the door after once again having breakfast of, you guessed it, hard boiled eggs and rice cakes with peanut butter, though at least we ate at a table like civilized people this time. It is amazingly, perfectly beautifully sunny and warm today—not a cloud in the sky. We drove first to a little Dutch village called Solvang. We were pleasantly surprised to learn they were having a festival called Danish Days today. We wondered through the town to see,, tranditional dancing (see video) and many people in Viking costumes, including this lovely gentleman who graciously posed for the above picture with us. Sabrina got to hold his axe, and he provided the charming hats. We also saw some amazing chainsaw wood carvings, including this lovely nome and eagles. On the way out of town, we also passed an ostrich farm but they charged $4 to take a picture so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

On we drove to Santa Barbara, one of Sabrina’s favorite places in the entire world. We decided to just hang out there for the afternoon, to avoid the worst of LA traffic. We sauntered casually up and down the main street of town and in and out of little shops. We found a fabulous restaurant called The Natural Cafe where we dined on dairy free nachos (still good, I swear) and salad with carrot-beet-celery juice on the side. It was delicious and surpisingly way too much food even though we were both starving when we got there. We spent several hours just walking slowly around Santa Barbara, and absorbing some much needed vitamin D. We also took a tour through the art museum, where they had an exhibition of old Hollywood photography and some Picassos. Afterwards, we headed back to our new favorite restaurant, where we had spotted a vegan, gluten-free brownie earlier, which was approximately the size of a human baby’s head, which we shared it it was delicious—and turned out to be dinner. It was a very enjoyable afternoon, and definitely our best so far.

We left SB at around 6, hoping to get to Malibu before sunset, but we got stuck behind some excruciatingly slow motorcycles and realized that was not going to happen. So instead, we pulled off at Ventura and watched the sunset from the beach. It was lovely to put our toes in the sand, even if we were somewhat distracted by a desperate need to pee, with all of the park bathrooms locked up for the night. Thankfully we found a nearby gas station quickly.

Tonight we will stay with Laura’s childhood friend Stephanie in Los Angeles, and once again try and pack too many things in one day tomorrow before heading off to San Diego.