Day 26, Tuesday, May 13, 2008

I wrote this on the 13th in MS Word, but we haven't had any internet until today, the 17th!

• We headed out to Pier 39 early in the morning.
  
• We stopped at a donut shop with mini donuts & got a bag for the kids. Of course, we had to try some---ooh, they were the best donuts I have EVER had! YUM!! Karry said they were just like the donuts he made when he was younger, at his parents’ store. Having that type of donut again had him talking about where we could fit a donut machine in our house. :)
  
• We stopped at the French creperie for our breakfast. We split a crepe with ham, eggs and cheese inside. It was very good!! We sat outside on the pier and ate w/the kids.
  
• We went to a few more shops along the pier, and then walked down to pier 33 to buy tickets to visit Alcatraz (on Wednesday).
  
• We had to check out of our hotel by 11 am, so we did that, and then drove to the Exploratorium (a science museum) where we got in free w/our Omsi membership.
• It was a fun place, but eventually (like 1:30) we were hungry for lunch and their café (along with half of the museum) was closed for an upcoming event. We drove back to Fisherman’s Wharf and had lunch at the Boudin sourdough place (the deli, not the full service restaurant…it was a difference of $6.99 or $14 for a sourdough bread bowl with clam chowder!!). The bread bowls were not nearly as good as Splash Café, where they had toasted the bread and it was SO good!!! This place was fun though. We picked up a small loaf of bread to go with the dinner we cooked. :)
• We left downtown and drove those crazy windy roads again (at least 20 minutes of crazy switchbacks) to get to our campground at Anthony Chabot. The kids fell asleep in the car and Karry hooked up the trailer. I read a book while the kids slept. :)
  
• We drove to our new campground, set up camp, and washed 6 loads of laundry (and I remembered later that I forgot our sweatshirts that were in the car and have been over-used…bummmmer!).
  
• Karry cooked up some t-bone steaks that I had packed in our freezer from home. I had a basic spice rub that I’d made at home & he used that + butter and cooked them in a skillet, YUM! He also boiled some small red potatoes that I picked up back in Chula Vista, and then I topped them with salt, pepper, spinach dip powder, parmesan cheese, and butter. Mmm! I SO can’t wait to get home and cook creatively again…I miss having the time, space, and ingredients to do that!!
  
• We cleaned up the trailer, put away laundry, and I scrubbed the bathroom again (oh it gets gross so quickly…I like not sharing a bathroom with the boys at home. :)…That was it for our day!!
  
  P.S. it’s nice to be back at the trailer again, the hotel felt like a huge mansion. I think we must have had a queen or king sized bed, we’re used to a full here and it’ll be strange going back to our king at home. It was weird just having to walk so far to put things away in the hotel room. Things are so close in the trailer—it always feels cluttered and messy, but when you want to put something away, it’s just an arm’s reach or a short walk away. We did love being right in the city. The sewers in San Francisco stink at night, fyi—if you’re ever walking around there at night and smell something, just go stand over one of the sewer plates and you’ll see where it’s coming from!! Icky…Praise God for the amazing weather lately. I’m not sure of the temps, but we were told San Francisco would be cold and we’d need coats—no such thing! It’s been sunny—warm enough (but cold in the shade) to wear jeans and a t-shirt with the sweatshirt ready just in case. :)

The boys loved all of the hands-on exhibits.

Isaac built a "camp" out of these little shapes that velcro to each other. He really wanted to go back there after lunch to finish his camp, but we just didn't have time to do that & make it to the new campground (and do laundry) before dark.

Day 25, Monday, May 12

• We left our campground around 10 or so to go into the city of San Francisco.
• We were going to do a "49 mile scenic drive" and wanted to stop at the visitor's center to get a map. We drove around the city for an hour and a half and never found that visitor's center!!
• The kids LOVED the hills in San Francisco!! They were putting their hands in the air and saying "weeeee" and even Ruby made happy noises! The roads are SO incredibly steep!!! Going down isn't a big deal, it's going up (and then stopping at a light when you're at such a steep angle!) that's hard, I think.
• We decided to stop looking for the visitors center and to go to the Exploritorium, which was the starting point for the sceninc route in a book I have. Our gps guided us down a road and then said "turn left" where there were no left turns. The only option was to go straight, and straight brought us onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Oooops!
• We decided to go to Saulsilito, a small Bohemian town on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We had lunch at a small cafe there, which was run by a woman from Greece. It was great food, but kind of spendy--and we thought Disneyland was expensive! :)
• Saulsilito was a cute little town with fun shops & a pretty water-front atmosphere.
• We're disappointed by our campground's distance from the city, and the awful crazy roads to get there. Our campground's gate closes at 10 pm, so we can't really spend evenings in the city...And that 10 pm deadline is for safety, because those roads are NOT safe after dark...so we'd rather be driving them by 8 pm at the latest. We decided that for 1 night we'd stay in the city--leave our trailer at the campground, and find a hotel in the city.
• So, tonight we're in a hotel, near Fisherman's Wharf in the Marina District in downtown San Francisco!! Our original plan (prior to the road trip plan) was to stay inside a city (to rent a furnished apartment or do a house swap or something!) for a month. This is our one night of city life. ;) I read in one of my books that this particular hotel we're staying at is kid friendly and the best value for the $$ in the area. Hotels in the city can be expensive, this one is one of the least expensive that I could find. Every hotel we talked to mentioned a fire code that wouldn't allow our whole family to stay in one room. Yeah right...Anyways, we'd be forced to get 2 rooms that are connected, or a suite. We ended up getting THE penthouse suite at this hotel, the Wharf Inn. I've never stayed in a penthouse suite--how fun! :) It's not as impressive as it sounds though. This is really a motel, I guess, because the doors are on the outside--so imagine a low end motel with 2 rooms, a living room, and a small kitchen (that reminds me, no joke, of my great-grandparents' kitchen--in other words, it hasn't been updated!!). We have 2 little porches and a sliver of a view of the bay! It's nice, and the kids LOVE it, but the best part about it is the LOCATION!!!
• Tonight we walked along the bay area to see all of the fun shops, including a sourdough factory. We went to Hard Rock Cafe on Pier 39 (we had a discount card from the last Hard Rock we went to :). We walked up Pier 39 and saw fun shops (like a puppet shop! Isaac and I played in there for a bit!), and a place called Chocolate Heaven (oooooooh!), and a 2 story carousal which Karry and the boys rode on. I was snapping photos of Ruby while they rode, and a man walked by and (without looking at me) said "flashes are not good for children's eyes." Ok dude, thanks for the tip!
• We walked to a Safeway in the city to pick up some milk and baby food, and then back to our hotel. We have wi-fi this one night, and then won't have it again for 2 more nights. We're waking up early to walk along the pier again, to go to the donut shop and maybe the creperie (it all looks soooo good!), and then to walk around as much as we can (while we have free parking in the city) until check out time at 11 am!!
• We've booked another campground for the next 2 nights, one that's a bit of a closer drive with less windy roads (but still no wi fi :( ). It's an RV park, probably lacking the beautiful rustic nature of the state parks, but it has laundry facilities (our current park doesn't, and we need to do laundry!!), and it's close, and there's no gate closing time, and it's pretty much what we need for commuting into the city...just wish we'd booked this one earlier!
• We're hanging out in the city 2 more days, and then heading up to another campground that's up north (where I think we have wi fi) on Thursday.

After we made our accidental turn onto the Golden Gate Bridge. ;)

Me w/the kids at a view point

Alcatraz!

The 2 story carousal

Day 24, Sunday, May 11

• Isaac greeted me with a Happy Mother's Day picture when I came out of the bathroom after my shower in the morning. :)
• We packed up early and got ready to go. I cleaned out the car, and then munched on some cinnamon crisps leftover from Disneyland. A squirrel outside was watching me, so I threw some at him. Not long after, a buddy joined him. Shortly after that, I saw a ton of movement in the bushes around me & other squirrels, so I hopped in the car!! While Karry hooked up the trailer, there were tons of squirrels hanging around our campground!!
• We drove on those windy roads again, and then some straighter ones that looked like they were right out of a picture book of back country Ireland. It was SUCH a beautiful drive!
• When we got close to our campground, we had to drive several miles on roads with major switchbacks, and then we missed the campground and had to turn around and do it again! YIKES. I didn't realize the campground we would be staying at (in hopes of visiting San Francisco everyday) would be such a crazy long drive outside of the city. If you map it, it looks like a 30 min drive. If you drive it, it's more like 45 min to an hour, and the roads are so incredibly crazy-curvy (Kaleb said he felt like he was going to throw up) with no guard rails, and huge drop offs next to us.
• The campground, Anthony Chabot, also has those drop offs. It was difficult getting the trailer in there, with huge trees on each side of the narrow roads and drop offs on the sides. Karry's a trooper (and getting more and more experienced at manouvering that trailer!) and he handled it fine.
• We set up camp, let the boys play a bit, ate lunch, researched San Francisco in our library books a bit, and then went out to dinner.
• We ate dinner (Mother's Day!) at my new favorite restaurant chain, called Il Fornaio. They make their own breads, and pastas, and the kitchen is open so that the customers can see the chefs in there w/the wood fire oven (for pizzas), etc. It was impressive, and the food was SO good! We had dessert to celebrate Mother's Day, as well, and I had apple crepes with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, and Karry had a 2 layer creme brule (vanilla and chocolate), and the boys had ice cream with cute little cookes. We all loved it!!

Days 23 Saturday May 10

• We drove along Highway 101 (right next to the Pacific Ocean!) up to Big Sur.
• The drive was BEAUTIFUL and also scary, and also made some of us feel like we were going to puke. :) We saw a sign that said 80 miles of switchbacks ahead. Our campground was in 60 miles, but we needed to keep going north on that road the next day. ;)
• We stayed at Pfiefer Big Sur State Park. I booked it online w/no problemes, but when we pulled in, they told us our trailer was too long for that park! They did have an "emergency site" they'd let us stay in though, which was long enough (though not in the beautiful trees, it was in a field--it was ok though!!). We didn't have hook ups, so we had to conserve water & use the generator when I needed to defrost our meat for dinner in the microwave. Karry and I had foil dinners cooked over the campfire (a little bit too done) and the boys had hot dogs.
• The HUGE redwood trees were SO pretty to camp under and the sky looked huge. There were fun critters around us...Karry went on a little hike with the boys, where they encountered 3 baby skunks!! One lifted it's little tail end into the air and Karry got the boys out of there!
• We met a couple from Holland and their 2.5 year old daughter shared her ball with our crazy boys for a bit. It was fun talking to them! We invited them over for hot chocolate that night, but they were getting ready to go back to Holland (after being here 2 years!) and it was their last night on "Holiday" and they had some things to do.

You can see a glimpse of the roads we went on. See how the mountains (hills?) go in and out? The road followed those mountains (hills?), constantly curving like that--not many pull outs for a big trailer like ours. We did pull out when we could, to let people pass, and pulled out once to use the trailer's bathroom.

A small glimpse inside our car--Isaac watching a DVD with his headphones on (so we don't have to hear it!), and feeding Ruby a bottle. He's a great big brother, giving her snacks when she needs it, singing "twinkle, twinkle little star" to calm her down, giving her toys, etc.! :)

Day 22, Friday, May 9

• We went to Avila Beach (thanks for the suggestion, Shari!). It was awesome. Best things about Avila Beach: 2 playgrounds (NICE ones), great community (lots of moms with strollers walking around), bike trails, calmer waters (I think because of the way the beach faces, if you look at the map), the ocean isn't too far from the parking area (not too far to walk w/kids), free parking, plenty of dry warm sand, plenty of wet sand for castles, not too busy, warm but not too hot, nice area to wash off feet, public restrooms, outdoor sinks for washing hands, 2 great picnic areas (1 on beach w/bbq pits @ each table). I think I want to come back to this beach every year, it was SO awesome!!!
• Ruby was quite the snacker today--she ate all of her snacks I had packed (for the day) before we got to Avila Beach (a 15 min drive), after having breakfast + a bottle! Isaac helped give her snacks in the car (he sits by her).
• We had lunch at Splash Cafe at Pismo Beach (thanks for the suggestion, Celina!). We had the "World's Best Clam Chowder" in bread bowls, and the kids had hot dogs and curly fries. It was so yummy!!
• Pismo Beach was rough & windy today, so we didn't hang out there long--we went in a few of the shops though.
• We went to an RV supply place at Grover Beach. Karry asked if I thought we needed anything, and I said "a flat screen TV." :) The guys at the store said they didn't have any, but they could order one (Karry, was of course, being funny when he asked about it). :)
• I got to stop in a bead shop and then a bakery right next door that was SO incredibly cute. I picked up some yummy dessert for this evening.
• We tried to get everyone to take a nap. Isaac and Kaleb whispered and kicked each other, Ruby stayed wide awake and then crawled all over us and punched keyes on my computer. ;)
• We played on the dunes right by our camp site. I think if I were a Roger Hargreaves character, my name would be Miss Cautious. I was scared of the kids walking off the ridges of sand (10' or more drops...they saw them as big slides...I saw them as soft sand waiting to cave in on my little kids!). Kaleb said "it's ok Mommy, we'll just walk up this big hill and we'll be ok." :) The boys LOVED running around out there, and so did Karry. When we were coming back to our camp, some bigger boys ran out there ahead of their mom, and Kaleb said "it's pretty dangerous out there," but they didn't listen. ;)
• Tomorrow we head out to Big Sur. I've read that the roads around there are pretty crazy (a big cliff w/the ocean down below). I'm glad we're heading North & the ocean will be on our left!! Pray that I fall asleep while we drive or something!! :) Our trailer sways in the wind, and roads along the coast tend to have more wind--which makes it harder to control. The thought of narrow, curvy roads next to a cliff (with wind) scares me!
• We’ll be dry camping tomorrow night (no water except what’s in our tanks, no electricity unless we use the generator) and I’m guessing they don’t have any internet connections there! I'll write more whenever we're online again (we're at a state campground after that, for 4 nights--not sure about that one either).
• PS, pray for Ruby, it's almost midnight here and she's been coughing through the night. Poor girl! I'm worried about her!!

1 of the playgrounds at Avila
There was a pirate ship there. See the pretty condos in the background? I read on Wikipedia that an oil company leaked oil in Avila in 1994 & has had to pay 30 million to demolish and completely rebuild the contaminated town. They took out all of the old dirt and brought in fill dirt. There was a town like that in WA (contaminated waters & soil) I studied in college, and the women were having miscarriages there...I wonder about Avila? It is now a beautiful town. Had I not read that, I would have no clue!!

Noah in his play jeans at the playground. ;)
My lovely family! We did get the kids' meals @ the wild animal park the other day, the buckets looked like perfect sand buckets to me. The boys carried thier "collections" of sea shells in their buckets all day.
Ruby in the backpack, which stands up nicely if we take it off and set it down.

An area with little tide pools and rocks to climb on.

Oh, I also read that there's been 1 reported shark attack at Avila (since the 50's), and the woman was swimming way off shore w/a wet suit and flippers (50 feet or 50 yards) with the seals. The seals disappeared, there was a big bubble, and then her friend couldn't find her. Lifeguards found her later and she had fatal wounds, just like those from a white shark. That was 2004, and tourism declined a bit in Avila after that, but it's picked back up now. It's a fishing town (a whole pier devoted to boats unloading fresh fish), and a tourist town.

My family at Splash Cafe. Ruby was in her stroller down low, these stools & table were high up.

Me with my bread bowl.

Splash Cafe.

The dunes.

Our campground is behind us on the left.

The line to the right of Karry was like a 15 or 20 foot drop off. It was like something out of Aladdin where the sand gobbles up the cave of wonders. ;)

It was SO fun to walk barefoot through the sand though. This is Kaleb's footprint & my footprint together.

Oh yeah, and the boys got to ride bikes tonight while I cooked dinner. Kaleb's $35 Walmart bike randomly broke and Karry had to put it back together. Well, it's working again--that's all that matters, right? :)

Day 21, Thursday, May 8

• Got the trailer ready to go & brought the trailer to Legoland ($1 more for parking & right up front!).
• We caught some of the rides we had missed, got "Granny Fries" (apple french fries w/vanilla sauce..mmmmm!!!).
• Got some Legos by the pound (tons to choose from--every type and color of Lego you can imagine!)--we let the kids each get 1/4 of a lb. Isaac & Noah had no problem (Isaac picked out too much). Kaleb just wanted finished products, or little people. He just doesn't have the vision like his brothers. :) He barely filled his bag and said he was done (but he did manage to put a handful of flowers in there—flowers? Buddy? He said he wanted to build a garden…). :)
• When we got back to the trailer, Kaleb plopped down on the couch and said “it’s good to be home.” HOME? :) This is the boy (er—one of them) who was just saying “I want to go home” the day before. We had the kids go potty, packed up Capri suns and snacks, buckled into the car and drove that “home” right out of the Legoland parking lot.
• We left Legoland @ about 3:30, and our GPS said it would take 5 hrs to get to our campground near Pismo Beach. 2 hours later (after crazy rush hour traffic), it still said 5 hours!!!
• We pulled over in a big parking lot to make sandwiches to eat along the way. Less than an hour after that, Isaac said he had to go potty and couldn’t wait, and the other 2 boys chimed in “me too" (yes, they had gone when we stopped for dinner!).
• We were on Ventura Highway, and I remembered a song about that highway and couldn’t remember who sang it or how it went. I called my parents to ask them. :) I think it’s America, but I need to look it up. My mom sang it for me & she thought it was by Bread, but it’s not on the greatest hits album I have on my ipod. :)
• We drove on crazy, windy mountain roads. Karry didn’t realize we’d be going over mountains & didn’t put in a fuel additive that makes us have more power. We were going 35 miles per hour up a hill (with the pedal to the metal!) in a 55 zone with a string of cars behind us. YIKES! Going down the hills was scarier to me—Karry didn’t even have to push on the gas and we were going down fast—the weight of the trailer pushing us, of course...Scary!
• We got into the campground at about 10:30 pm, and just had the kids go potty and then climb into bed. No jammies…No kids’ teeth brushed, except for Noah who really wanted to. :) We were all so tired, and Karry had to set up the jacks, and the sewer, water, electrical, and all of that…

Day 20, Wednesday May 7

Today we decided to go to Sea World. Karry had never been there before, and I haven't been since I was a little kid. It was pretty awesome to see the shows, especially. Those animals (marine, and the pets we saw in the "Pets Rule" show) can do some pretty amazing stunts!!! Wow! We were wowed by the "Shark Encounter" exibhit (see the shark below--there was glass above us and on the sides of us, and sharks were swimming behind all of that glass!!). The kids loved the penguin exhibit (Kaleb, especially). Noah liked the huge Clydesdale horses they had in stalls there.

It was in the 60's today (and will be for the rest of our trip through California--buuummmmer!). We all wore pants and sweatshirts, but would take off the sweatshirts every now and then as the sun broke through the clouds. Despite the chilliness, Kaleb's face is burnt, my face (esp. my nose) is bright red, and Karry's head is hurting and red. Bummmer! We didn't think about sunscreen on such an overcast day!!

Kaleb peed his bed again this morning. What is the deal with that? He doesn't do that at home! It's a big deal when he does that--we have to wash the sleeping bag, and sheets, and his pillow too (how does he get it on the pillow??).

Today the trailer has been feeling like such tight quarters and multiple times today the kids said they just want to go home. This morning was stressful--with such a huge mass of laundry (sleeping bag, etc.), where do we put it, and how do we walk around it, etc? It was a little tricky. The living area of the trailer is a hallway. Ruby crawls there, the boys walk there or sit there and play. Just walking from the bedroom to the bathroom can be such an obstacle course with all of the kids and stuff sometimes. It feels like we brought too much stuff (wish it wasn't so crowded with stuff in here), and yet, we didn't bring enough of what we need. We stopped at an Old Navy today to pick up one more pair of pants for each of the kids & me. I packed for sunshine, not 60 degree days! ;)

We're looking forward to our theme park days being over. We got free tickets to go to Legoland one more day, so we're stopping in there for a few hours tomorrow on our way up north. After that, we'll be done with theme parks. While it's been fun, it's been so expensive. We've bee spending at least $30 everytime we have a meal at a park like that (and we usually share meals and drinks--I can't imagine what it would be like if we always bought our kids the "souvineer bucket" kids meal deals...). I can't wait to just be camping in the woods or at the beach and have a simple ham sandwich in the trailer!! :)

We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, driving about 5 hours towards Pismo Beach (after a bit at Legoland). Pray for sunshine! We want sunshine! Pray that no more kids pee their beds!! :)