This month's calendar                         Archives                            Our Google Calendar                   

February 6, 2015

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Continuing on with our road trip adventure from last week, we arrived in Henderson, Nevada to spend the night with my cousin, Mike and his wife Sheryle. They were babysitting their granddaughter, Kimmer who is 18 months old. She is such a cutie and we enjoyed all her antics. Sheryle fixed a nice dinner for us and we had a visit that evening. After spending the night with them, we headed out in the rain the next morning. Mike was kind enough to give us directions for the shortcut through Henderson so we could drive on to Visalia, California. After getting us lost several times on this trip, we have lost all faith in our GPS and didn't want to end up in Los Angeles again. Thanks to Mike, we made it just fine

We had to go to Visalia to pick up my cell phone at Applebee's. I had accidentally left it there on my way down to Arizona two weeks before. I was glad to see that they had saved it for me.

While I was in Arizona, my nephew wanted me to pick some of his lemons because his tree was bursting with fruit. Dave didn't want me to pick any as we had to go through California on our way home and they don't allow fruit from out of state to cross their border. I couldn't resist those big beautiful lemons and I was bound and determined to bring a few home with us anyway and I told him I would take a chance. After threatening to "throw me under the bus" (his words) if we were caught, I finally convinced Dave that we could smuggle a few in the car. We carefully packed them out of sight in the back of the car. Well, he stewed and fretted over these lemons and was sure that the authorities were going to haul us away and throw away the key when we got caught. We finally reached the border crossing and would you believe - they waved us right through without even stopping us! They didn't LOOK at us! I wish I had known that ahead of time so I could have brought more lemons home!

From Visalia, we traveled to Redding, California where we spent the night. Since Visalia is on Highway 99, we just drove north on that road instead of jogging over to 1-5. We can remember when that was a rural road through the valley. But now it is nearly as wide and as busy as the interstate. The map program said it was nearly the same time no matter which road we took. We had been advised by my cousin Mike that the best route to Eureka after leaving Redding was Highway 299, which cut west across the coastal range. It was such a beautiful drive along the Trinity River and we were so glad that he recommended that route. We got into Eureka in the late morning (we were only three hours away) and checked into our hotel before we visited with my cousin, Marilyn and her husband Barney. We watched the Super Bowl with them and she made a nice buffet for us to eat. Barney is a butcher and also has a business on the side making seasoning for meats. He gave us a box full of that wonderful stuff to bring home to share with the family. I would encourage you to check them out here. He also makes knives as a hobby and presented Dave with a beautiful knife that he made. We had fun watching the Super Bowl and commercials with them and getting caught up with family. It was a very nice evening, and we enjoyed it except for the way the football game ended.

Monday we decided to make the 8-hour drive to West Linn non-stop. We were going to cut over to I-5 at Crescent City to Grants Pass, but at the last minute, we decided to stay on the coast for a while. We ended up driving north as far as Reedsport before we headed east to I-5 near Eugene. Even on that route, it's surprising that we can make it the length of Oregon in an easy day. We made it to West Linn around 6 p.m. that night.

We spent the night in West Linn as we had gotten tickets to the Blazer game on Tuesday night so that we could watch our 11-year old granddaughter Jadyn dance during the half-time of the game. It was a fun evening and Dave enjoyed seeing all his friends at the game. The granddaughters were excited to have their pictures taken with the team's mascot, Blaze. Oh - and the Blazers won the game!

Wednesday, we headed home and it has been a busy week getting caught up on mail, laundry and unpacking. It also felt good to have some good old home cooking for a change. I like to eat out once in awhile, but not all the time. All in all, it was a nice road trip. We logged more than 4000 miles on Dave's new car (he wasn't too excited to see the odometer hit the 10,000 mile mark) and we saw things and places that we hadn't seen for a while - some that we had never seen. It actually looks like we'll be able to stay here for a couple of weeks this time. But it is always good to get back home and being welcomed by the promise of spring with daffodils and daphne starting to bloom.