Crazy Stupid Weekend

Some called it stupid, we called it crazy.  Either way you look at it, it made for a hell of a ride and a heck of a long day.  The drive that took me from San Diego to Grass Valley CA via Hwy.1 redeemed my belief that road trips could be fun.  Come along for my recap.

 

We started out early with Starbucks and Subway.  If you haven't tried Subway's egg white sandwich on flat bread with chipotle sauce you're missing out.  Seriously!

 Once you get past Los Angeles there are crops and groves as far as the eye can see.  We passed blueberries, strawberries, almonds, pistachios, sunflowers, artichokes, corn.  You name it, we're growing it here in California.

 

We kept busy for at least 2 hours playing the alphabet game.  A-P were super easy.  We got stumped on Q for awhile until we saw a Quiznos off the highway.  Here are a few Q's I came up with while on the hunt, just in case you have a road trip on the horizon: Quality Inn, Quest as in Nissan Quest, Quaker State  Y had us for the longest time too until we saw the "Your" on the back of this semi.  Possible Y options I came up with: Yield, Yosemite, Yukon. 

We got real creative from there and created a new game.  Remember Slug Bug?  We'll there aren't a lot of VW Bugs on the road anymore, but there are tons of Priuses so we created Punch Me Prius (patent pending j/k).  Just be careful, you could end up with a few bruises :).  I'm pretty sure the Prius is the number one car on the road right now.   

We stopped for lunch in Big Sur at the Whale Watcher Cafe.   Yelpers were pretty spot on giving this place 2 stars.  The food was expensive and pretty terrible, but the views were great and we actually saw whales!

The gorgeous coastal views went a little something like this and went on for hours without end.  We cruised along the highway blasting music and singing our heads off.  I'm now completely obsessed with Ellie Goulding's Anything Could Happen

For all you surf buffs.  We spent 12 hours chasing Maverick's and this is what we got.

 We reached Half Moon Bay around sunset and took a nice long walk along the beach.  What a pit stop huh.  This little stretch of beach made me fall in love with the place.  I'm pretty sure I'll be planning a trip back sometime soon. 

 And finally almost 17 hours later we made it to grandmas!  She left the light on for us.  I know, I know, I'm cheesy.

On Saturday I had lunch with an old friend I met my first semester in college, 16 or so short years ago.  Turns out Grass Valley is a fairly dry town, who knew.  We headed to the Holbrooke Hotel, the only place we could find a martini, and we chatted for hours.  Don't you just love reconnecting with old friends. 

I took this picture of the sky from my grandma's deck Sunday morning at around 10:30.  I swear you can see smoke and flames all the way from the Yosemite fire.  So sad. 

The rest of the weekend was spent visiting with grandma and keeping my 4 year old niece occupied.  We looked at old pictures and talked about old times.  You know that stuff you do when you visit your grandma who has no internet.  Lord please don't let me fall out of touch with technology. 

 We took the "short" way home at only 9 hours and thanked out lucky stars we weren't going north on the 5.  Twelve hundred miles and 4 days later my brother, niece and I have great memories from a crazy stupid weekend that will last a lifetime!  Here's to taking the long way.

Bee Happy!