The Great Trip of 2009, Phase 3

Phase 3 - California July 21 - July 31.

We spent the first few days in California just chillin' out. I had anticipated there being downtime in Yellowstone and Utah, but there totally wasn't! Not that it wasn't fun, it was just completely chaotic, even on our "down" days. So it was nice to relax and take naps and just breathe for a little bit.

July 21st was Teancom's 3rd birthday, which I've already posted about, but which I thought deserved mention again. Cause I'm like that.

Big Trees

On Saturday, July 25, we went to go see the train. Elijah has been wanting to go back to California so he could see this train. It's at Roaring Camp Big Trees Railroad, and it's a fantastic train ride! You go through the redwood forest close enough to some of the trees to touch them! Over a trellace. Past a burned-out corkscrew bridge that looks amazing. On a switchback going up a 9 1/4% grade (most trains only do 4%). And you stop at the top and get out at a grove of trees. The whole time the conductor is telling you all about the history of the park, and it's fascinating!

The top of a tree. I just liked how the limbs look like spokes on a wagon wheel:

Elijah on our engine, Sonora:

For instance on the fascinating history: Just over on another ridge you can see the forest. Well, from that ridge all the way down to Santa Cruz, 7 miles away, the whole forest had been clear cut. That was about 100 years ago. They clear cut a forest that was thousands of years old. ... The reason why the state park is located right there? A lawyer from San Fransisco bought the land for cheap and then brought his wife down to show her what a killing he would make from logging. She thought the forest was amazing and demanded that they preserve it, instead of cutting it down. My mom and I think she gets a special place in heaven for that.

That burned-out corkscrew bridge:

The kids also loved that Thomas the Tank Engine was at Roaring Camp. (This is the closest we got. There was a line to get a decent picture, but I wasn't waiting in line for half an hour to get a picture with Thomas. He was just a caboose anyway!)

We didn't go when Thomas was there on purpose. It was actually disappointing for the adults, cause this normally low-key park was at carnival levels that day. That's just not our kind of thing. Though, it did mean that this great bluegrass band named Shoreline was playing. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. They were amazing! If you like the folk rock of the 60's (we're talking Peter, Paul and Mary or Simon & Garfunkle), you'd love this band. I found a site about them: http://www.zvents.com/performers/show/1138337-shoreline#

I want to find some music of theirs to buy. It was that good.

Justin with the kids on top of a felled tree. It's hard to give a good perspective on how big that tree was. If I had done better on that, the kids would have been too small to see well in a picture. So we have this picture instead:

Dea, with Miciah in background:

And I took a picture of myself, just to prove I was there:

Delightful picture, no?

The Beach

We went to the beach twice (can you go to CA and NOT go to the beach?), and the kids had a good time playing. A lady had just finished digging this huge hole, and we took it over after she left. The kids loved it. They continued digging it out, making stairs and slides. Definitely cool.

What to say about the beach? It's sandy. The ocean is neat. The end.

Other Things

In CA I got together with Jane, my AP English teacher in HS. Jane is awesome. I also got together with Jason and Angie and their little one. I hadn't seen them in years and years, and it was good to re-connect with some old Hollister friends.

We also went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is always amazing. If you're ever in the area, I suggest going.

Less than a week into our California stay I realized it would be really hard to stay as long as originally planned. Rob was having a rough time at home by himself, and the daily phone calls just weren't cutting it for either of us. Before you call Rob a whiner, let me just say that if I had known that things were going to be as complicated at home as they were right then, I wouldn't have gone to CA at all.

Main problem: Rob is applying for jobs as a professor. He's applying all across the country, and we were trying to have meaningful conversations about where we would consider moving, etc. Hard to make those kinds of decisions over the phone.

With all the stress, I asked my mom if we could go home a week early, and instead of telling me we are wimps, she and my father hastily re-arranged plans so it could happen. I was very grateful.

And it ended up being good that we went home a week earlier, cause 1- Elijah was getting homesick and hard to manage, 2- I was getting tired of living like a single mom, and dealing with hard-to-manage Elijah, and 3- Teancom and Dylan, my neice, did NOT get along. Dylan called me mommy, and Teancom wasn't happy about that. By the last few days, Dylan and I got along great, but Teancom and Dylan were enemies. One of them would start walking towards me, and the other would run to me to get there first, and so the first would start running, too. Then they'd cling to my legs and say, "Hold me!", "Hold ME!", or "MY mommy", "No! MY mommy!" It was amazingly awful, and I'm glad for Teancom's sake that we left when we did. Even though Dylan is adorable.

We left on Saturday, August 1st and spent a day in Bakersfield with Budge and Jana, so the kids could play together.