The story of our roadtrip

Because I posted pictures in the 2 previous posts, I couldn't write the story to go along with the pics. So here it is in nutshell.

Ric and Diona moved their family from Virginia to Washington (state) over the summer. Unfortunately for them, it took 2 trips since Ric's orders came before Diona's. But very fortunate for us because we got to keep the 2 younger girls for about 2 1/2 weeks. After they had driven across the country twice, Amy and I volunteered to drive the girls home once they got back to WA the second time.

So, Sat. Aug 15, Amy & I with Cameron(10), Faith(8), Alainna(7) and Isabel(5) loaded up Ray's truck and headed north. Ric had booked us a hotel in Redding and we got there about 7:30 PM. The kids had been fine in the truck all day but knowing we would be doing it again the next day, we decided to let them get some energy out that evening. We walked down a few blocks for dinner and attempted to go swimming but water was too cold for them. After a good night's sleep, we started off early the next morning, letting them sleep in comfortable clothes so they could just jump in the truck in the AM. We stopped at a rest stop in Oregon with the Klamath River running by and the poor kids were freezing (see pic below of kids wrapped in blankets). We made it to their house about 5:30 PM. What a joyous reunion for those little girls to see mom and dad and 3 mo. old baby brother.

We enjoyed our stay in Washington (Silverdale) with a trip to a drive-through safari (pics) and scenic beach at low tide to see the bald eagles. I also got to go with Diona and girls to get them registered for school. We left there early Wed. morning with hotel reservations in Vallejo waiting for us. We chose to take a more scenic route home by way of the northern California coast. It was absolutely beautiful and well worth the "detour" time. We drove through the giant Redwoods and stopped a few times along the way. We pulled out at a river access stop, an elk viewing stop, a "drive-through" redwood tree, and a beach (freezing cold but beautiful spot for lunch). We were sailing along through the hills and valleys and coastline when we encountered a horrible engine sound. We were lucky, because we hadn't seen many CHP cars but had just passed one with someone pulled over about 5 min. before. So, sure enough, he came by and assisted us (which was good since phone reception was very limited). He called AAA and looked under the hood and diagnosed the problem as a "thrown sparkplug". Again we were lucky because Ukiah was only about 30 miles away and they had a Ford dealership.

To make a long story short (too late for that, huh?) we were towed into Ukiah and let off with the truck at a closed business at about 10:00 PM. Luck was still with us because it happened to have a few motels within 1 block of dealership. And then the good people of Ukiah helped us out and had our truck repaired and ready to go by 11:00 AM when we had to check out of motel. After a good lunch we were back on the road.

Next stop San Francisco. Across the bridge, down Lombard street and to fisherman's wharf and then back on road home. We stopped in San Jose for a quick visit to Winchester House (house of mystery). I stayed in the truck and took a nap while Amy and kids took the tour. I will mention that this trip home with all the stops was paid for by our "quarter jar" that kids and I have saved for 2 summers. It started as our "save for Legoland" trip last summer but we never made it and continued to add to it this summer, not sure how we would spend it. Since we were driving south through Morgan Hill, I took Amy down memory lane, going by our old house and Ric's first school, our ward and then over to San Martin to visit her old babysitter and our dear friends Conchie and Julio, but they weren't home and we were bummed.

We planned to keep driving since that was the end of our "fun things to do", but we just couldn't do it. So we got a room in Gilroy for the night. We finally made it home Fri. evening, exhausted but happy to be home.

The 2 previous have lots of pictures of this trip.