We had a lazy morning after our Yellowstone Yosemite adventure. Not only do Aimee and I have a strict no-more-than-one-early-wakeup-per-vacation policy, were we still recovering from the six miles of hiking we did after that early wakeup.
Our kids define "lazy morning" slightly differently, and forded a mile of the stream running next to our house. These kids are fearless.
Most of that day was going to be spent driving our way up the coast. It was a 500 mile journey to Crescent City, but we'd be breaking it up with a quick motel stop halfway. So the agenda wasn't too packed, and we had time for a picnic lunch on the nearby Sugarpine Logging Train.
Just like the name implies, Sugarpine is a rehabbed logging train turned tourist attraction. Some of the history was lost on our kids, but that's not why they were there. Like every child ever, they just love trains.
We hadn't even left the station yet.
The conductor relayed some trivia throughout our journey that the adults found plenty interesting. The most striking bit was when he said the original early-1900s logging operation completely clear-cut the 30,000 acres of forest outside of Yosemite that we were currently rolling through. There wasn’t a tree in sight that was older than 90 years. This is why we protect National Parks now.
With our kids grinning ear to ear, we of course wanted a group photo on the train. I looked around our little train car to see who I could ask. My general rule of thumb is to never ask anyone older that 17 to take a cellphone photo for me. But our options were pretty limited, and I handed my phone to one of the few people within arm's reach.
I immediately regretted it when I saw our would-be photographer fumbling with my phone, which I had already set up to take a photo. And then he abruptly looked up and said, “Uh oh. Someone’s calling you. Want me to answer it?” For so many reasons, the answer was obviously, “No thanks.”
After a few attempts, he handed me back my phone, and asked how it turned out.
"Um, perfect. Thanks!"
As I silently planned how to tactfully ask someone else to take our photo, I scrolled through my phone log to see who called. As it turns out, no one at all. I discovered that the call I had “received” was actually him somehow calling 911 from my phone. "Sorry, officer. Yeah, we're fine. Just an indecent exposure."
I'll be here all week.
After a rolling lunch, we eventually disembarked the train and found someone else to take our photo.
Although by that point, we were dipping into nap time, and it's not hard to see which kids were pretty checked out.
With bellies full and wiggles expended, we got back in the car and started our journey north. As we had hoped, the kids were out cold before we even left the parking lot. The next two hours were quiet and pleasant as we rolled through the Sierra Nevada mountains out towards the coast.
Our first stop was a slight detour to visit our friend, Danielle, and her family in the farming country outside of Modesto. Aimee has known Danielle since just after college, and is actually the Godmother of one of Danielle's children. It was delightful to catch up with all of them. We would have stayed through dinner if we didn't still have four more hours left in the drive.
Our other detour that day was the Golden Gate Bridge. The kids had seen photos of it, and were excited to drive over it in real life. To get there, we took the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, itself an engineering marvel. The massive four and a half mile double-decker bridge is one of the longest in the country, and is so big it actually passes through an island tunnel at one point. It was a delight to hear the “Oohs,” “Ahs,” and “This is so specials” coming from the back seat. Which is nice, since after a little jaunt through San Francisco proper, we rolled up to a completely fogged-out Golden Gate Bridge. Like, completely fogged out. I had trouble seeing the car in front of me, let alone any part of the bridge besides the road we were rolling over.
As you can see from his face, Quinn was still trying to figure out where the rest of the bridge was, but everyone was in good spirits.
Our detours and extra stops eventually caught up with everyone, but we were able to keep it together until we pulled into a little motel in Ukiah, California around 9:30 pm. We didn’t need much more than a bed, and this place fit the bill.
Staying in potentially-dodgy roadside motels always reminds Aimee and I about the dodgiest ones we’ve stayed in (I'm looking at you, Knights Inn Buffalo). So we reminisced about them while we got everyone ready for bed, and were very happy that this one wasn’t going to make the list.
