began writing on Monday, March 11, 2002 (trip began on March 9)

I am sitting here basking in the sunrise of a crisp blue spring day on a lake not far off from Yosemite. I have decided that the details of this adventure to date are simply too delightful to go unrecounted - if for nothing else but my personal edification.

--- Saturday ---

My sister, with whom I am sharing the pleasure of this road trip, arrived by plane on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. Owing to personal affairs, I hadn't quite packed yet, so we needed to head back to my house for a final "getting off". We proceeded to have lunch at the famous "Alice's Restaurant," but not, as the menu explains, the one where you can get anything you want. This restaturant is famous instead for its location (atop a mountain ridge) and its clientele (largely bikers). We had a delicious lunch and then winded up the coast on Route 1. We cut through the city and went over the Golden Gate bridge with the top down; an experience, though repeated several times to date, that has yet to tire me.

We looked around for Muir Woods, were unable to find it, and winded our way eventually to Santa Rosa, where my sister had made a reservation at a Travelodge. The weather was pretty grim at this point: overcast and raining. We checked into room 16, drove around desperately seeking higher fare than Wendy's (I had told my sister that, dining in wine country, we really ought to eat at a place where we could have some wine as we supped), and found a Zagat 26-food-ranked Japanese restaurant. We waited, standing, for some time, and it appeared, poor girl, that one waitress was wholly responsible for the entire operations of the restaurant. She seemed to be doing nothing but running the whole time! As such, we didn't feel that put off waiting; she was doing her best. We were eventually seated, ordered some wine, and picked out our dishes.

The food was delicious: my sister got some very delicate potstickers (of the cylindrical, ricepaper-encased sort) and very subtle Yakitori (chicken skewers) and I got us both a "Jewish sushi roll" which was smoked salmon, cream cheese, and something else which isn't recalling itself at the moment. I got pork and egg on rice - a lot like katsudon, but with a subtle variation in the sauce.

Becca, being two timezones off and having woken up very early that morning, was exhausted, and we returned to the motel to crash. I read in my bed for a little while (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, which I'd never read) before falling over and dozing off.

--- Sunday ---

The next morning, having both of us slept in a little and waking naturally, we grabbed the small, complimentary breakfast in the hotel lobby (with an old, hilariously loud, deaf, and clearly immigrated grandmother working the lobby), and set out for some wine tasting -- which my sister had never done and to which I was quite eager to return.

We drove down Route 12 and stopped at the second winery we saw. It was pretty large; a lot bigger than the ones that I had seen with Vanessa on Route 128 up in Mendocino. We tasted the wines, and they were alright: none really jumped out at me, but the 2000 Chardonnay was so amazingly light it was like drinking some form of clarified winewater (it wasn't watery, just...smooth). My sister liked that, so we got a bottle. I glanced at a map and noticed that the next road up on 12 was Adobe Canyon Road and seemed to trail up for a bit into the mountains. On sheer spontenaiety, we took it, looking for any nice wineries on the way. Well, we didn't find any wineries, but wow! did we find a view! It turns out that at the top of the thin, steep, windy, tree-covered road was a national park! We drove in, put the top down, and looked around: fantastic! The clouds and rain of the previous day had melted away to make a cool, sunny, and simply electrifying day, especially with the top down. Becca and I were both giggling just from the sheer glee of it. (Well, okay, maybe a little wine sampling didn't hurt the giggling, either.)

We drove back down to 12 and stopped at "The Wine Room," which we had read had five different small wineries served there, which sounded great to me. We walked in and I was greeted by a cheerful man in a tye-dye shirt: "Yo!" "Yo!" said a girl behind him. also in my direction. "Yo!" I shot back eagerly, which seemed to be met with their general approval. The shop had just opened and the crew to be found inside were carefully nursing off the remnants of a hangover with the bountry to be found within.

[becca] This place was deliciously unlike anything you might expect to find in the Napa/Sonoma region - hippie wannabees, willing to give us a taste of anything (seemingly as much as we might want) at no cost. The tye-dye guy let us know that if we had jokes and could make them laugh, they would be extra friendly to us. We didn't come up with much hilarity on our own (they seemed happy providing that themselves), but we noticed no lack in friendliness. David (yes, Becca is writing now as David is in the shower) found, to his utter delight, white port. He was in heaven and HAD to purchase it, as well as a wonderful late harvest Reisling (a delightfully sweet desert wine) and a Gewurtztraminer (yes, we both like the sweet stuff). We also had fun trying various gourmet mustards (we got the champagne raspberry honey, roasted garlic, and hot pepper beer varieties to bring home and perhaps munch with pretzels in the car).

We briefly stopped by a winery by the name of Chateau St. Jean; while we both delighted in the garden and flowers that were arranged in the courtyard and the beauty of the surroundings, the wine room itself didn't really appeal to us, and we left after briefly perusing a copy of the Wine Spectator.

Further down the road and on the way to Glen Ellen we found the faboulous Benziger winery. If anyone reading this is ever in the area, you just HAVE to go there. It was an amazingly enjoyable (and breathtakingly beautiful) vinyard with a great tram tour that was humorous and educational. It was the highlight (for Becca) of the day (well, perhaps that National Park at the top of Adobe Canyon road might vie for contention there....) and an experience not to be forgotten.

All of the wines grown at Benziger are grown without herbicides or pesticides and they have a very aggressive greywater recycling program, too. They have a whole "insectory" where they encourage the bugs that eat grape-harming bugs to come and live! It was interesting to learn that, when making wine, you don't want the round, full, juicy grapes that you'll find in the supermarket: small, thickskinned, and loosely populated vines (so as to concentrate the taste in each fruit better) make the best wines. We tasted a large selection of wines, including a Muscat dessert wine with which Becca absolutely fell in love, and a reserve Cabernet Sauvignon that I found particularly subtle and delicious. But it really was the reserve Port (the first that Benziger had ever made) that knocked me flat. I almost wanted to cry; it was just divine.

[becca] Well, by this time the siblings had inbibed to their content and were in need of victuals for sustanance (it was around 2pm at this point). We got ourselves a little bit lost (Becca really is a pretty terrible navigator, although David doesn't always listen to her directions anyways - I think it is a bossy big sister, annoyed younger brother thing) and found a little grocery store to purchase picnic items.

[david] We got some tasty cheeses and wheat crackers and other things to snack upon and set out, top open and funky musing blaring. Finding a fishing dock, we sat down and had munched for a bit when a boat pulled up about three inches from us. As it turns out, we had sat ourselves directly at a mooring point. It was pretty funny; I've never had anyone just drop in quite so suddenly on a boat while I was eating. =)

[becca] After lunch, we decided that it would be nice to see a little of Napa (we'd really only been on the Sonoma side of the mountains so far) so we drove around exploring the quaint little downtown area, enjoying driving without much aim. We found a fun (if expensive) Wine Train, that Becca would have loved to take and watch the scenery of the Napa valley float by while dining gourmet many course style, but David vetoed since we'd just eaten and we wanted to get on the road again. So off we went on our way to the next leg of our journey - Yosemite!

The drive was pleasant as we crossed the flat part of California, which, while less grandiose and spectacular, really has a beauty all it's own. As night fell, Becca got more and more antsy about finding a place to bed down for the night (this particularly since we had veered a little off Becca's pre-planned AAA book investigated route and into the unknown). David would have liked to drive through the mountains at night to get to the other side and wake up in the beauty of the park, but Becca wore him down with her pleas of "bed, bed," along with road signs that disappointingly seemed to indicate the present impassibility of the mountain range. Following an ambiguous sign that seemed to indicate a bed at a turn off the highway, we drove down a very windy, dark, road and eventually found Tulloch Lake Resort. Deciding that we could not possibly afford to stay at a mountain lake resort (I mean, really, we were looking for motel or motorlodge, resort is a totally different catagory) we continued to drive on, hope dwindling that we might find a place to lay our weary heads. After stopping at a gas station/quickie mart several miles later (on the other end of the lake) we realized we weren't going to find any other place to stay, and decided to at least find out the cost of an evening at the resort (being firm that $150 or more would be the point we'd decline). We were delighted to find that, being the off season (we were quite literally the ONLY people at this beautiful, and very large, resort) and a Sunday night, we would only have to cough up about $85 for a room with two beds.

[david] I asked about a pool; there was one, but Kimberly, the hotel receptionist, looked at us pretty funny. "It's unheated," she warned us. "Bah, I can take it!" I exclaimed, looking my manliest. Becca and I wandered down to the pool where, well, the water was surprisingly not solid. Yeah, it was cold; it got colder the deeper you went, so by the time my calves were immersed my toes had lost most feeling in them. Hm. No swimming tonight, even for a manly man. =)

Since we had gotten in somewhat early, we decided to lounge a bit, and in the process I got the life story of the poor woman whose job it was to singlehandedly staff the empty (sans us) resort for the night. Kimberly had just gotten engaged that very day to her second fiancee and we toasted (with Napa wine) the occasion. She then proceeded to, without much prompting, tell me all about herself, her past, her kids, her marriage, and...here's where it gets interesting...UFOs. As it turns out, Kim is the first person I've ever talked with who has actually claimed to, in person, have seen space aliens. Wow! She described how she had been seeing them ("about 3 feet tall, very glittery, sometimes not quite there, like when people transport in Star Trek, as if they were in another plane...they moved around very quickly...") and how her flatmates didn't really believe her, until the little men ("not green") came for a visit when they were also around. ("They're really into UFOs and stuff now.") I was just blown away. I mean, sure, maybe she was making the stuff up to amuse me, but she seemed to have no problem going into detail on things and keeping a consistent storyline, so she was either very cunning and was just messing with me or she actually had seen something really odd. Interesting. Her financee called and gave me space for a quick slipaway right about at the time she was describing that the LORD in the Bible might actually be an acronym for the Leaders Of Round Discs. Hm. I'm not so sure about that one.

Anyhow, my poor sister had been waiting during this whole conversation in the room. I had thought she was just reading and so forth, but she had been anxiously awaiting my return. Oh dear. And talk about perfect horror movie setting: EMPTY resort, nobody around, and the brother, off for a quick errand, takes an hour and a half to return. Heh. She was glad to see me back.

---- Monday ----

We slept wonderfully in those beds and awoke to a bright knife of sunrise slicing its way through the curtains. I walked outside and took in the beauty of the morning lake. Come to think of it, I'm not really awake most of the time when sunrises are happening. =) Anyhow, it was a cool, crisp, and very invigorating way to wake up in the morning. I went for a walk around the hotel a bit, stretching and lounging; eventually Becca woke up, too. We soaked it up a bit, began writing this epic, and off we went -- to Yosemite! =)

We drove for about two hours and passed the park gate, and started driving through on Route 120. Unfortunately, both the Tioga and Sonora passes were closed, so we wouldn't be able to cross the Sierras as I had hoped we could. All the same, we decided to head as far east as we could on 120; we first turned off at a beautiful view and hiked down some ways to a giant rock overlooking an amazingly huge, beautiful canyon and stopped for a while, tanning and lapping up the gentle breeze, warm sunlight, and soft ambiance of rivers and birds. Next stop was at a children's "snow play area" that had snow around six feet thick: there were road signs buried to their hilts, which was amusing: they were the only indicators in places that there was any road there at all. At Yosemite Village we got some lunch and gas and walked around to see Bridalveil Falls (which were amazing!) and just soaked up some of the gorgeousness that is the park. After doing a couple loops around the valley (it's pretty confusing: they didn't make it very clear that 120 *ends* there), we headed south on 41 and wound our way up and down through the park, stopping many, many times to observe the sheer beauty of the park. Seeing that Badger Pass was open (and being curious) we headed up to it...and found a tiny ski area. When we stopped to consider where our next destination would be, I noted that Sequoia National Park was not far off from where we were thinking of going (south on 99), so we decided to drill down and see if we could make it.

We drove down out of Yosemite, stopping at a Foster's Freeze so my sister could catch a taste - the place we stopped at had just opened the previous day, so all their orders were done by hand, since they hadn't yet gotten their computers in proper working order. We drove fast on the straight highways and by the time we reached the Sierras again for Sequoia National Park and had begun our ascent, the sun had begun to set. Spectacular reds, pinks, and purples littered the sky behind us, outlined crisply by dramating mountains and rolling green hills. We must have stopped half a dozen times in the half hour that the sun was setting. We plowed onwards and upwards. At 5000 feet Becca said that we'd hit snow before long, since there had been snow just before 6000 feet in Yosemite; but the air was warm and there were no ice patches to be found -- I didn't believe her. Sure enough, though, by the time we hit 6000 feet, cool white patches abounded and a few hundred feet later it became clear the road was being plowed. We entered the park (sans ranger: "Pay as you leave") and headed towards King's Canyon, still ascending, banks rising as we did. The dark road took us around 5 miles before it stopped with a barricade, clearly having become too difficult to plow. A turn off for a lake awaited us there, however, and we swerved down the tiny mountain road until coming to a small parking lot by the lake, dark except for the cool, dim starlight filtering through the trees and a campfire across the waters. My sister, "blind as a bat at night" needed a little leading to come from the car down to the shore, over a bit of snow. We quietly stared at the stars for a while then headed back, putting the top on the convertible down so Becca could watch the stars turns with the car. The heat was on full.

On the way back, we spotted a Lodge on the road (in the park!) and there seemed to be indications that there might be food to eat. Both of us were pretty hungry by then; we hadn't eaten anything substantial the whole day. The restaurant looked closed, but walking around the building we saw a lighted room with people eating: dinner! The food wasn't gourmet, but it was hot and filling and that added up to a great lot of contentment, especially when we overheard from the next table that breakfast was delivered to those staying in the Lodge by way of basket at 7am. We checked in (they were, coiincidence of all coiincidences!) running a special on Lodge rooms and we got about half off.

The John Muir Lodge was really amazingly gorgeous: we walked in to a huge, homey room with a big wood fireplace burning, couches, puzzle-piece games, and old sci-fi magazines. We would have been happy spending a week there, even indoors. The room was pretty luxurious, too, epecially for the price we were paying. We slept well.

--- Tuesday ---

We woke up and got on the road early, almost leaving before the basket arrived! (Unusual for me: I usually wake up around 9 or 10am.) We read up on the area and discovered that the General Grant and General Sherman trees in the park are the third largest and largest trees (by volume & weight) in the entire world! We decided we'd go see them. We walked around the sequoia groves just gaping at the size of the absolutely massive trees. One tree by the General Sherman Tree, the Fallen Monarch, had fallen over 150 years ago but whose wood was of a composition indigestible to fungi and bacteria. The Fallen Monarch had been used as a horse stable, a home, and a saloon! We walked through it: it was profound. The funniest part, I think, is trying to take pictures of people with the sequoia trees: there's just no way to get the whole tree in a picture: by the time you'd get far enough away to capture all of it in a frame, it would be blocked by other trees. It's also really hard to get a picture of a person with the tree and still be able to both recognize the person and get more of the tree than its lowermost roots. We continued on and out of the park, winding down some 7000 feet in the course of around 5-7 miles of road, which made for nearly continuous hairpin turns around gorgeous landscapes. Both of our ears popped several times.

Near the bottom of this windy road there was a mid-sized turnoff with around 8 parking spaces, none of which were occupied. We stopped and got out for a breath of the oh-so-sweetly fresh air and I walked down to meet a largish stream that we had been watching grow from a mere trickle at the mountain's top. The banks were lushly green and the air was simply electric; I watched lizards scamper after each other around the curious topologies of rock. I couldn't help but sing it was so beautiful and made up a little (but loud) song, glad to have noone to hear it but the wind. It was such a simple and yet beautiful experience, short thought the stop was.

We went back to the car, and drove out to Route 99, which cuts southwards nearly all the way to L.A. There we stopped for lunch at Apple Annie's, where while waiting for our seating I popped a quarter into the Ms. Pacman machine and proceeded to play the best game of Pacman in my life. I passed the first four stages perfectly: eating four ghosts with each of the four pellets, eating fruit whenever it showed, and not losing a single life. I passed the banana stage, entering the "second cherry" stage and then entering the "second banana" stage before finally getting wiped out when I got too aggressive at trying to eat ghosts that seemed to revert to their more malicious form in mere microseconds. I closed out with some 65,000 points and just twitching with the excitement of it. My sister had been getting a little impatient: she had been seated a while ago.

I got a burrito and while eating we decided we'd try the trek onwards to Death Valley; more than a little insane -- since both of the passes were closed, we'd need to drive *around* the Sierras to get to it. It would be a long, hard drive to make it by sunset, but we decided to try. We got in the car and began the most intensive period of driving of my life. We zoomed south on 99 and then headed east at Bakersfield -- the roads slowly got drier and drier and flatter and flatter until at last we were truly in the desert, dry winds blowish harshly at the tumbleweed and passing cars going on long, straight lines of painted concrete. At one point I topped out the car at around 120 miles an hour, zooming through the desert smoothly and quickly. It felt good to go that fast; to be getting nowhere in a real hurry. The roads just went on and on, up and down, right and left, with no towns and hardly any other cars but the occasional truck. I've never been in the midst of such barren and desolate beauty.

Unfortunately, we were also running pretty low on gas; we did pass a very small town (that seemed to be primarly subsisting on mining the salt flats for [surprise!] salt) at which gas seemed a bit pricey; sure that there would be gas up ahead (and there being no signs to indicate otherwise), we continued on. We were starting to get a little worrying low on gas, so I thought I'd save us some time by taking a shortcut through what looked to be the town of Wildrose, at which I was sure there would be a refueling station. This turned out to not be a really great idea, gaswise, but was an amazingly beautiful drive...up a quarter-paved road strewn with potholes, veering through closecut rock canyons, and past a wild donkey that "charged" my sister (it looked to me like he was just quietly walking towards her, but she tells the story differently). Wildrose was three tents, two RVs, and one radiator water reflling station. No gas, and 35 miles to Stovepipe Flat; thankfully we made it. Stovepipe's general store didn't even have gas prices posted. I didn't care and don't know to this day what I payed per gallon for that stop. All I know is that a liter of water, some chapstick, and a little moisturizer cost about $20. The place was around 150 miles or so from any permanent municipality of respectable size. It was cute, though and we were dry, chapped, and out of gas. Supply and demand, supply and demand.

We drove on, hitting the valley floor just before sunset and stopping at the Furnace Creek Luxury Resort, which is positioned precisely in the absolute middle of nowhere. We saw it from about ten miles off, being nearly the only source of uniformly arrayed bright, shiny lights and definitively the only tree haven for hundreds of square miles. We didn't stay there for the night, or even eat dinner there (let's just say the nightly charges started at around four times what we had payed previous nights), but we did get a nice, cool drink each to sip, watching the sun set over Death Valley sitting in big, comfortable wicker chairs. We just sat there for a while longer as the warm darkness began to envelop the area. I just love it when it is dark, lightly windy, and warm. It makes nights feel just electric and reminds me of excitedly sneaking about as a kid at camp.

We put the top down and zoomed off to Badwater, which is the lowest point in the contiguous United States, at some 282 feet below sea level (or something like that). There wasn't anything really special otherwise about the spot: in fact, you couldn't stand at the lowest point precisely since there were some animals living in the saltwater pools by the spot that would get killed if you stepped on them. But I turned on my highbeams and we stared at the sign, about fifty feet away. We continued through the desert, gaining speed as the roads stopped turning. I don't stay "as the roads straightened" because even though they stopped turning to the left and right, they had clearly just paved lightly over the sand dunes, giving a distinct up and down to the drive. At points, there would be "waves" of up&down that, when traversed at speeds exceeding 100mph or so, become exceedingly silly. Becca caught air on the last one of the most exciting of these series, by which point we were almost crying from giggling at the sheer joy of it.

We stopped at Shoshone, just outside of the park, for dinner. Shoshone was founded by an Old West sheriff and has a population of around a hundred. We ate at the only restaurant in town, which was still open. A waitress with an attitude as large as she was came to serve us. "Do you have any specials tonight?" I asked; "Only me, honey," came the gravelly wry hilarity of a line oft practiced. Dinner was simple, and good after a day of long travel. Becca ordered apple pie for dessert, since we thought it was kind of funny that at our stop at Apple Annie's we had ordered nothing with any apples in it at all. I asked for a second fork, and our waitress brought out a double-slice of pie with two scoops of ice cream, giving us a wink. We drove across the street after polishing up, and I tried to scrape some of the dust and bug guts from the windshield with a modicum of success.

On we pushed to 15 after briefly considering making a stop in Las Vegas to see Boulder Dam (which I've not seen) and deciding to save it for another trip. We shot a good ways towards L.A. and wrestled through a strong sandstorm (quite something to fight with, especially when passing big trucks) before hitting Bakers and collapsing in a "Good Night Hotel" that advertised itself with comic happy faces and a bill: "Try Us, You'll Like Us!" We passed out; in one day we had gone down from the High Sierras, around the whole range, up its backside into the desert, through another set of mountains, and come most of the way to Los Angeles. It was the longest, fastest bout of driving I'd ever done.

--- Wednesday ---

We woke up in Bakers even earlier than previous days, grabbed two complimentary danishes from the lobby (and gulped down some Tang. Tang!) and whisked down 15 to Los Angeles. We had a bit of a time finding Disneyland; you'd think, what all with its size and all, that there'd be a whole lot of signs for it, but if you did, you'd be wrong. We were wrong.

Eventually we got ourselves properly oriented and found it, but the frustration had ground away the cheery morning karma and set the pace for a day more gruelling than the others. We parked and got tickets for Disney's California Adventure (which Becca saw as only fitting, given that what we were doing, after all, was a California Adventure) -- the funny part was looking at their representative exhibits of interesting parts of California: "Did that. Did that. Did that. Doing that today. Did that. Doing that tomorrow." It seems that at the very least our experiences have been a superset of what the Walt Disney Corporation has seen fit to announce to the world as being that which makes California California. Largely, however, Walt's reinterpretaion seems to involve a lot of shopping, souveneirs, and overpriced American food. I was very surprised to see wine (alchohol!) being served in the park and was pretty blown away to find gardens with orange and lemon trees, corn, and beautiful flowers growing; that part of the park smelled particularly delightful. The rides were impressive and the lines more so. We finished off the park with a nearly two hour wait for the roller coaster. (It was a fantastic ride, but wow was that a long time to just stand in one place!)

Neither of us had had just about anything to eat the whole day aside from an ice cream treat and a churro (a Mexican snack of a long, cylindrical, cinnamony piece of dough), since none of the food looked to be particularly authentic or affordable and every time we found a place that seemed reasonable enough they were closed. Starved, we set out for the ocean through thick rushour traffic and found Angel's Bistro open. We were welcomed in warmly with a British accent and seated by the owner himself. Some cold udon noodles as appetizer, I delighted in the dried tomato and prune marinade on the tenderly juicy lamb. Yum.

The mood being considerably improved but the hour late, we headed for Hollywood and found the famous Chinese Theater with the handprints, footprints, and sometimes other-prints of famous actors and actresses (Groucho Marx imprinted his cigar, for instance). My hands are the same size as Arnold Schwartznegger's, it seems, but his are just a tiny bit thicker. Okay, fine, a lot thicker. But they're the same size and my feet are bigger. =)

I was freezing at this point: a cold wind blowing into my T-shirt and shorts, my teeth chattering madly. We ran back to the car after searching vainly for Pink's (a hot dog stand of apparent high repute that Becca insisted we find). Driving to Santa Monica we fished around for a place to stay, both of us bleary-eyed and rather grumpy from the standing around, driving while lost, and (excepting dinner) our poor eating habits. We stopped at a few places after driving for what seemed hours, only to find them all full up. We pulled into one hotel only to find the office closed. As Becca was walking back from the office, a girl poked her head out of a room at the hotel: "Hey, you guys want my room?"

As it turned out, this girl's friends had decided to stay nearby -- she wanted to check out and stay with them, but since the office was closed, she had been left with the room for the night. She had gotten the place for $79 that night and we paid her $50 for our use of it. "You guys are cool, right? You're not going to party, right?" She asked, a little scared. Any damage that we might have done would have gotten billed to her, so it wasn't without reason. We dropped her off at her friends' place and crashed for the night, half expecting our room to get broken in, this whole thing being a setup. I double-bolted the doors, though, and eventually slept soundly.

--- Thursday ---

We got up the next morning far before the office opened, packed up, dropped off our key, and headed up the coast, it being far too windy and cold for any extended stay on the beach. (We did, however, drive to the end of the Santa Monica pier, something that I'm guessing would have been impossible in the summer!) Passing through Malibu (which, yes, I HAD thought was a beach in Hawaii prior to the trip), we saw breakfasts advertised at Paradise Cove. Intrigued, we turned in and found a gorgeous strip of beach adorned with a restaurant. Apparently Beach Blanket Bingo and Gidget had both been filmed in the cove. Cool! I felt almost bad for not ordering some rum-based drink to sip on the beach watching the ocean, even though it was only breakfast.

I got the coconut and macadamia pancakes; Becca the two-cheese omlet. MMMM. I can still taste those sweet cakes days later, the best ones I've ever had. Becca's hash browns were also of the "best ever" caliber. Awesome. The clear and sunny day and scrumptious breakfast was giving a much sweeter start to this day than the last. We drove along the rolling hills of 1 and 101 for hours, stopping at an In-N-Out Burger (called 800-555-1212, asked for In-N-Out, called that number, asked for directions: cool!) to show my sister one of the famously tasty & fresh burgers.

After lunch, we cut over to the coast and continued northwards on 1, twisting and cutting through the gorgeous hills. We were around Big Sur when the sun began to set; Becca had never seen the sun set on the ocean, so we tried to get a nice place from which to watch and accidentally ended up driving into a luxury resort with prices starting at only $455 a night." Eep. I was seconding thoughts of trying to sneak in anyhow when a guard with an ear-mike on duty vetoed the possibility. By the time we had made it to the next cliffside turnout, the sun had already dipped behind the clouds (not the water!) and the sunset, far from being spectacular, was more a summary "snuffing out" than anything.

In the evening dimness, we made it to Pacific Grove, and seeing a cute inn on the left decided to crash. The Beachcomber Inn was staffed by the most hilarious and welcoming old lady, who cut us a great deal on a room and offered us free rental of videos from the hotel's own collection. We ate at the adjoining restaurant, the Fishwife, where I had one of the best seafood bowls of my life (the pineapple salsa played a key role - wow) and we returned to watch Congo in the room. After the movie, I cracked open Steinbeck's Cannery Row, figuring it would be good to have read the novel before revisiting the location the next day. I got about halfway through when my eyes refused to stay open longer.

--- Friday ---

I woke up to roll over and crack open Cannery Row, determined to finish before setting out for the day, which I did (while only mildly annoying my poor sister, who I think was a little miffed at our comparatively late getoff. We did manage to get out, but not after we had cleaned out and rearranged the car, returned the movies, left, realized we had forgotten the Riesling in the fridge, and turned around, then left again. Walking among the rocks on the beach, my sister got soaked by a Wave of Unusual Size (think Princess Bride) to my great delight and her mortification.

We proceeded to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of the world's finest, to which I had been many times but never inside. (Long story: lots of "just missed" visits.) We went inside and gazed upon some really mindblowingly fantastic aquatic lifeforms. Stuff like that just doesn't happen on land! The rainbow-pulsing jellyfish were some of my favorite, but the otter-feeding was pretty fun to watch, too. Batrays feel very soft, by the way; and octopi can taste with their suckers! Cool.

Vanessa met us up for lunch (mmm: clam chowdah) and she showed us around the deep sea exhibits at the Aquarium, to which she had been dozens of times. It's cool having a tour guide, especially when it's your girlfriend. She had to check out for a surprise going-away party for her friend, but Becca and I decided to take our time heading back home, first heading to Gilroy for a requisite garlicky dinner.

On our way there, we stopped to again try to watch the sun set over the ocean at Salinas River State Beach. Unfortunately, it was bitterly cold and the wind blowed strong and continuously. Neither of us quite dressed for the occasion, the two of us huddled together for dear life in the biting cold as we watched what would have been a remarkably unspectacular sunset were it not for the beams of colored light that would from time to time find themselves shooting out from the cloud cover on the horizon. We ran back to the car and thawed out, slamming the heat on full power.

After getting lost for a bit in Gilroy and stopping at what we thought might be an authentic local restaurant with lots of garlic on the menu but turned out to be a very generic diner-cum-bowling-alley, we found this absolutely delightful little hole in the wall, the "House of Taste" that was tucked away behind a garden. There was live music from what looked to be a remarkably talented high school jazz band and there were tasty and affordable garlic dishes on the menu. We were sold and had a very happy last meal together.

The drive back to my house was fast (as always, with me driving) and uneventful. I left to attend Vanessa's friend's going-away party and didn't come back until late.

--- Saturday ---

We woke up, Becca got her stuff together, and we set out for the airport. We hugged goodbye at the airport.

Summary: BEST TRIP EVER. I feel like I ate California whole and my sister and I got quality bonding time. A++.