Day 1 – Leaving San Carlos

I wake up early this morning excited and needing to finish some work on our taxes, but first I  have to go to Vanilla Moon to get an apricot pistachio scone and then go to Starbuck’s to get a Chai tea to go with it. I really wanted to eat something for breakfast that I wouldn’t be able to get on the drive across country and our vacation time in Prince Edward Island, which is schedule for the next five weeks of our summer. I picked up an extra scone for the drive.

55055 on the odometer – left the house around 1 pm to do a few errands — like buy a bigger, faster memory card for the new camera (which writes faster so you can take more pictures in a row without having to wait for the camera to save the picture to memory), drop things off at the thrift store, grab some yogurt at Harmony, drop some things off at work so that they can be sent to our DC office for me to work on while the kids are at boy scout camp…, fill up the car, check the tire pressure, oil, etc. (Jasper can do this now, thankfully)…

Finally Left at 3:22 pm and the drive was good while the commute lane lasted through most of San Jose and almost to Gilroy. I started taking notes while we were stuck in traffic on 152 East – stopped dead in our tracks, no movement in sight on the two lane road… nowhere near a side road; nothing to do but wait. The boys were so quiet that I had to look back to make sure they were still there. Yep – they were still there and looking quite catatonic. They were just enthralled with the DVD player – Once he found out Tobey’s car had a DVD player, I think Jasper went back in the house and  picked out 15-20 DVDs to play on the drive.  I didn’t hear a peep from them until we reached Visalia. Which meant most of the time, I was talking to myself. Hmmm, this may be a longer drive than I thought…

When traffic finally started moving, which was just after a lovely section of roasted garlic smell, I was passed by a semi-truck sized garbage truck going uphill on 152 because there were soo many poky mini-vans in the passing lane it was maddening!!! There were 4 wrecks between that section and getting to I-5 which made me want to take side roads and avoid the freeway. If I knew that section better, I would have taken side roads. We hurried up and left on Thursday because I didn’t want to be driving down Central California on a Friday before a holiday weekend. I was right to do that,  but some of those crazy holiday drivers left on Thursday. I hate it when you encounter drivers who won’t go a smidge over 65, but won’t get out of your way until you try to pass on the right and then they’ll go 90 to prevent you from passing them. At this point I start to wonder why I wore a bra with underwires – are they going to poke me the entire way to the east coast? Note to self – find a better bra to wear in the morning.

Gotta figure our how cruise control works on this SUV because all of these leg lifts on my left side only can’t be good…Going 92 and passing no one (oops, I meant 82). After going what seemed like halfway across the state on 152 E and then turning South on 99, I finally spotted a sign that said “Visalia 29 miles” hooray! Closer to seeing Dad and Paula for dinner. At this point the movie was over and Bryce started whining that his stomach hurt (which is code for “I am really hungry” or “I have to poop.”). Holy cow that kid can be persistent – I wonder where he gets that???
We finally found dad’s house (I love the maps app on my iPhone) and we drove right past dad because we were looking on the other side of the street… Kids immediately hop into the swimming pool and forget about being hungry. A little bit later we order pizza from Me & Ed’s. Dad goes to get it and it becomes dark and we wonder what has become of him and the pizza. Turns out they gave our pizza away and had to make another one – so we ended up with two special meat pizzas – wow, put bacon on pizza and watch it disappear. Very, very tasty! (There was so much pizza that we got to eat it the next day too!) It was really nice to finally see dad and Paula at their house since they moved back to California. Now on to Bakersfield – what a destination. We stayed at a ratty motel 6 that night… Note to self – find a newer hotel to stay at next time…

License Plates seen today: (we have a special laminated map to keep track of the states with a dry erase marker)

AZ, NV, CA, FL, OR, WI, AZ, AR

Other things of interest spotted along the drive:

Seen in los banos: Jesus Christ came to save sinners
San Joaquin Valley Hay Growers Association building
Near firebaugh everything smelled like broccoli
Passed a load of sweet corn
Jostens Printing & Publishing
Sequoia National Park 39 miles (once we left Visalia)

I Wonder:

What is a food grade carrier and why is it driving down the road? Is it milk? Something else good? Chocolate?
How wide is a wide load? Is it the same width as my butt?
Why I decided to drive across country with a 12 year old in puberty?
Who the marketing genius is who named the company real good solar even if it was 1978 when it happened. Turns out it is Real Goods Solar (but I guess I could see the second s as I passed their company car going down the freeway). Not that it makes a difference in the bad company name.

Related Posts:

• Day 1 – PEI or Bust – San Carlos to Bakersfiled
• Day 2 – PEI or Bust – Bakersfield to Sedona
• Day 3 – PEI or Bust – Exploring Sedona
• Day 4 – PEI or Bust – Heading to New Mexico
• Day 5 – PEI or Bust – Bandelier & Santa Fe
• Day 6 – PEI or Bust – Bandelier to Albuquerque
• Day 7 – PEI or Bust – Albuquerque to Oklahoma City (Almost)