Recently we were invited to stay at a vacation home in Bodega Bay, CA. With the four days off of school for President's day coming up, we thought it would be the perfect time to get away for a bit. We invited some family friends, who live in nearby Petaluma, CA, to come with us and were really excited to go...until we discovered just how expensive flights would be. Unwilling to pay that much for a weekend trip, we toyed with the idea of taking an extra day off and drive instead, making the drive as much a part of the trip as the stay in California itself. So, a little more than two weeks beforehand, we decided to do it: we are going to pack up the family and drive to California!
Here's our goal for the first leg of our trip. The ultimate goal was to make it to Petaluma on Thursday night, though the plan was to make it to Grants Pass, Oregon (about 50 miles from the California border) and then decide if we should just stay there or continue on.
Snacks in hand, we packed up the car and were ready to go by 8am Thursday morning. Our first leg of the trip was about 2 minutes...we stopped at Starbucks for some driving energy. As we parked the car, Matthew very enthusiastically asked "is this California?!" Oh, sweet Matthew, we still have 500 miles to go till we get to California, and 300 more till we get to our destination.
Crossed into Oregon without making any stops. Yay us!
All smiles after a pit stop in Wilsonville, Oregon for gas and burger king fun.
Naptime! So far, this has been a breeze!
Uh-oh. Young Prince Aaron woke up when Daddy stopped the car to use the bathroom. Neither snacks nor games can help him feel better, but we pushed on to make it to our dinner stop. (Partially because Daddy bet Mommy that we would make it to Grants Pass by 4:00. This was a bum deal...never bet the driver of the car anything that deals with speed of getting somewhere. Especially if that driver is Chris.)
The boys were soooo ready to get out of the car and play for a bit. We found this nice park with lots of fields...but those fields were also where the dog owners of Grants Pass were not vigilant about cleaning up after their pets. So this tennis court was a perfect alternative (plus we didn't get our shoes wet from running in the grass).
Grants Pass is cave man central. Back in the 1920s a group of citizens decided formed a city booster club, calling themselves the Cavemen (after the nearby Oregon Caves National Monument). The theme took off, and now even the high school mascot is the cave man. We stopped to take our picture with this awesome 18' caveman statue before going on to dinner.
Having never seen a Black Bear Diner before, we thought it was a unique Grants Pass thing, but it turns out they have 20 or so restaurants in Washington, Oregon and California. The boys loved the black bear statues outside, and we had an amazing experience inside.
As we were waiting for our food to come, our waitress came up to the table and told us that two women who had been sitting near us had paid for our meal while paying their bill. We were incredibly touched, and it made our meals taste that much better.
By the way, when you order a kids meal at the Black Bear Diner it comes with a customized ice cream sundae. The waitress came out with bowls of ice cream and a tray covered with different toppings. She would ask each kid "Do you want sprinkles? Cookie pieces? Whipped cream? Caramel sauce? Chocolate chips?" Needless to say, the answer was "YES" to all of her options. Highlight of the trip for these kids, for sure.
After dinner we stopped at a Dutch Brothers coffee stand. We had never been to Dutch Bros before and in Grants Pass they are EVERYWHERE! After we ordered our drinks, the barista asked if this was our first time there. We said yes, and she said that it's a company policy that first time customers' drinks are free! What kind of magical place had we stumbled into? Free dinner and free coffee?! So far this road trip is awesome!
On our way out of town we surprised the boys with a portable dvd player that we had borrowed from some friends and some new shows from the library. They got in their jammies and settled into their seats ready for bed. I thought they would fall asleep while watching the shows, but they were so excited to be watching tv in the car that they stayed awake waaaay past bedtime and only fell asleep after I turned of the show.
This part of the trip got a little hairy. The weather was terrible going over the pass...rain, wind, then fog, but we made it through okay. Then at about 10:00, Matthew woke up crying and woke up Aaron who started crying, too. Their poor little bottoms and legs were sore from sitting for so long (I mean, really, who wouldn't be uncomfortable? And, for kids it's got to be worse since they're strapped in a 5-point harness and can't really shift around). At this point there really was nowhere to stop, and we were so close to making it to Petaluma anyhow it didn't seem reasonable to stop. So we did what any good parents would do to stop the crying...we gave them lollipops! This helped a lot, and Matthew actually fell back to sleep with the lollipop still in his mouth (which we of course removed), but he woke up every 25 minutes after that until we arrived in Petaluma at our friends' house at 12:20 am.
So, we did it! We drove 801 miles in about 16 hours, and it was definitely worth it to get up the next morning and have a casual start to the day before driving just 45 minutes out to Bodega Bay. Stay tuned for the next part of our trip. :)
