Today was a bit of a tiring day. We got up extra early to make up for lost time because we played around too much yesterday. Oh, and as a side note from yesterday, the man at the KOA campground has been nicknamed “Mr. Kranky Pants” because of his extreme defensiveness about the prices of his high class cabins. Laura told him she thought it was usually cheaper and he gave us a lecture on how if we signed up for the “KOA kard” which we had just declined purchasing, it would be $4 cheaper. (Since she had in mind a price more than $15 cheaper this was not helpful). He didn’t really tell us where anything was or how to check out, etc. He just handed us the key and sent us on our way. Very charming man, really.
But back to today. We really did get on the road by 9am, after a breakfast of hard boiled eggs, rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh mango—with a side of vitamin D and fish oil tablets. With minimal stopping—once in the redwoods to hug a giant tree and at a co-op for some lunch (thanks for the tip Irene!) and many many more construction zones, which we only seem to hit when Sabrina is driving. But of course we take this opportunity to dance it out.
The redwoods were spectacular, but we didn’t have time to take it all in so upon our arrival we were all business. We walked into the gift shop/visitor center and demanded to know where the big trees were. The lady pointed us to a part of the park where we would find the “Big Tree”. Literally, that is what it is named. When we got there, the place was surrounded by many tourists and Laura was disappointed that she couldn’t hop the fence and wrap her arms around the giant, so instead she had to settle for a lesser specimen.
Driving this part of 101 was beautiful but totally exhausting. The road went back and forth between 1 and 2 lanes and up and down and around curves, so total concentration was required to drive it. Sabrina drove about 100 miles and it completely wiped her out.
We’ve decided that the trip planner program we have does not understand the concept of “Chaos time”—it thinks that by leaving at 9am we should have arrived in San Francisco by 5pm. We did make it by 9:30 pm, after an absolutely harrowing drive on 4 different highways to get here. Why we had to drive on 3 highways to get back to the one we were already on is a mystery to us but that is what our directions required, so it’s what we did. Driving on an 8 lane freeway in the dark in a strange city was not our idea of fun. But we arrived at Marc’s aunt’s place safe and sound, if 90 minutes later than we told her we’d be here. The conversation in the car during the highway fiasco was of a frantic speed. Laura in the driver’s seat demanding Sabrina tell her what came next, Sabrina saying exactly what the directions said, but not making sense. Laura became increasingly more frantic, as you might imagine, while Sabrina was desperately trying to make sense of the impossible directions. A miracle can only explain that we did not get lost.
So now we are sleeping somewhere without bugs flying around our heads and for that I know we are grateful.
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