Summary of Jon & Linda's Washington/Oregon/California Trip 1999

Sun 6	Mon 7	Tues 8	Wed 9	Thurs 10	Fri 11	Sat 12
Sun 13	Mon 14	Tues 15	Wed 16	Thurs 17	Fri 18	Sat 19

 Monday June 7

The night before, just to make transportation easier, we spent the night at Linda's parents' house. Linda's mom cooked a huge dinner consisting of fish, vegetables, chicken, corn, and all kinds of other stuff. She probably figured we wouldn't be able to eat right again until who knows when, so she decided to pack as much good food in as she could. In the morning, Linda's mom packed up some bread and other breakfast things for our trip, and Linda's dad dropped us off at the airport on his way to work. We were there way too early (around 6AM); the plane wasn't scheduled to leave until 7:40AM. Linda ran into Toni Alexander at the airport, a lady who used to work at AIG until recently. Toni was on her way to Phoenix so we didn't chat for too long.

The flight was full; finally took off around 8AM after a gate change and some other delays. We flew Southwest so we had a choice of seats. Jon chose some seats over the right wing, near a gaggle of giggling girls (more like older women trying to pass themselves off as girls). Jon thought they were pretty [that is a preposterous statement]; Linda thought they were too loud and easily amused by Southwest crew's on-air antics [really, they were just drunk from their connecting overnight flight]. When we made a stop in San Jose, we changed seats to the front of the plane and left the giggling girls to themselves. En route to Seattle, we passed directly over Crater Lake, OR. It looked like snow still covered much of the area. We wondered if we're going to be able to drive through the area later on in our trip, or was our one-minute glance from 30,000 feet going to be it for Crater Lake?

We took a Gray Line shuttle from Seattle airport to downtown Seattle. Since the hotel we had booked wasn't on Gray Line's route, we had to get off at the closest hotel (The Warwick) and walk about four blocks to our hotel, the Seattle Commodore Motor Hotel. When we walked into the lobby, the guy behind the counter was puffing on a cigarette and looking mighty bored. Linda asked him if our room was a non-smoking room, and he answered, "There are no non-smoking rooms here." Linda figured she better check it out before we agreed to sign up for three nights, so she took the rickety elevator up to the 6th floor to check it out. The room was tiny but it didn't smell too bad and it was overall functional, so she went back down and paid for three nights in full. The only reason why Linda picked the Commodore over any other hotels in downtown Seattle was the price: $57 plus tax for one night, whereas all other hotels were charging at least twice that. So we dumped our stuff in our room, cleaned up best as we can in the tiny tiny tiny bathroom (it was so small that you had to sit on the toilet sideways to have any room for your legs), and left in search of something to eat before our Seattle city tour at 3:00PM.

We walked a few blocks to Pike Place Market, home of the famous open air market, flying fish, et.al. Managed to find a Turkish place that sold döner kebabs, although they were nothing like the döner kebabs we had in Germany. The Seattle version had chicken but it was still pretty tasty. After lunch we ambled to the Westin Hotel where we were scheduled to meet our tour guide from Seattle Tours. We passed by a 7-Eleven, and of course we had to stop in and get something to drink.

When we finally met up with the guide, he said their regular van had its windows smashed out or something unfortunate like that, so we'll have to make do with a smaller van today. Turned out the van was one of those long uncomfortable ones with the driver and passenger chairs up front, three long benches in the back to fit the rest of the people, and a sliding door on the side to get in and out. Since all seats were filled up except for the very last row, that's where we ended up sitting. It was too late to cancel by then, even though Linda really wanted to, mainly because this tour company sold itself as having the best touring vans in town, with "big oversized windows and large comfortable seats" for our pleasure. What could we do but to endure a three hour tour being bounced around in the back of van?!

Actually the tour itself wasn't all that bad. We drove around downtown for a while, then went out to West Seattle for a really fantastic view of downtown Seattle (the weather was really beautiful too), stopped by the government locks (too bad it wasn't salmon spawning season so we didn't see any salmon swimming up the locks), drove around Queen Anne, Magnolia, and Fremont neighborhoods, and got to hear some of Seattle's history too. The tour guide gave us a $3 discount per person on account of the van. Linda still wrote a somewhat angry e-mail to Seattle Tours when we came back from our trip, just so she could air her concerns (see P.S. note at end of story). After the tour, we walked back to our hotel, bought some bottled water, juice, and chocolate milk at a neighborhood convenience store, and ate dinner next door at a pizza place. Actually juice and chocolate milk became our nightly staple while in Seattle.

Turns out our room at the Crappadore (it's more fitting than the "Commodore") is just about the saddest, suckiest room we've ever had the displeasure of staying at. Already mentioned the bathroom. The room didn't smell at first when we got there in the early afternoon, but by night, we noticed a strong pervasive cigarette smell that eventually got into just about every piece of clothing we brought with us. It got cold at night but we couldn't close the only window in the room for fear of choking on smoke, and we didn't want to cover ourselves with the bed sheets because they smelled too, so we (Linda more than Jon) ended up freezing at nights and sleeping very poorly. Not to mention the small lumpy bed we shared, the threadbare walls through which you can hear everything in other rooms, the tiniest sink, shower stall, and toilet you've ever seen; there wasn't a door or curtain on the shower stall either (the opening was only about one foot wide), so each time we ran the shower, the entire bathroom got wet. The room did have a TV with cable though, so fortunately when we were in the room (which wasn't all that much anyway), we were able to catch a basketball game or whatnot. The first night we were there, we awoke around 2AM to the ruckus of garbage trucks right underneath our window. The second night was the couple next door doin' it very loudly. The third and final night was a woman yelling at her man in the streets below. What an experience! All to save a few bucks..

 Tuesday June 8

Early morning, walked in a light drizzle to Pier 69 to catch a ferry to Victoria, Canada via the Victoria Clipper. Left on time at 8:30AM, grabbed two seats on the lower deck port side towards the front. The Victoria Clipper ferry is one of those super fast turbo-engine catamarans so it only took about two hours to get to Victoria. En route, we had free hot tea, ate some bread from Linda's mom, and somewhat planned for our day in Victoria (aside from the previously scheduled City and Butchart Gardens tour).

After we got off the ferry in Victoria, a customs agent looked at our passports but didn't stamp it (bummer). We got on the upper deck of a double-decker tour bus for a tour through downtown Victoria and on to Butchart Gardens outside of town. The driver told us a bit about history, layout of the land, etc., and we ended up at the Gardens where we were left by ourselves for about two hours. The Gardens were incredible, almost too much all at once. The landscaping was overwhelming, with flowers, trees, waterfalls, and ponds everywhere. It actually wasn't that big, so two hours was just about right. We wandered through all of the park and looked at everything. Because of the season though, not everything was planted but it was still a lot of stuff to look at. There were lots of people there, mostly tour groups (the parking lot was jammed with double-decker tour buses) and Japanese tourists. It would rain lightly here and there, but overall the weather stood up, and according to our bus driver, this kind of weather was best for picture taking (something about colors stand out better). Somewhere in the middle of walking around, Jon lost a screw in his glasses. There was no hope of finding the screw, and there was nothing to hold one of his lenses, so he couldn't use his glasses anymore. We hoped that there was an optometrist in town who would be able to replace his screw.

For lunch we dined at one of the Gardens' cafes. Linda had a turkey sandwich and Jon had an egg salad sandwich. The best thing was a glass of peach juice that Linda got - it was so smooth and yummy, pretty incredible. Best of all, US dollar is strong against the Canadian, so we got a pretty good deal. Bought some postcards and a magnet to further take advantage of the exchange rates.

On the way back into town (we sat in the lower deck), the bus driver gave us some suggestions as to what to do for the rest of the day before we leave for Seattle. One of the things he suggested we see is the Crystal Ballroom in the Empress Hotel. It's suppose to have a crystal ceiling that's magnificent. We went there but it was being used, so we couldn't see it. Ended up just walking around all over downtown Victoria. Had some free chocolate samples from Rogers Chocolate - scrumptious! Walked up to Chinatown, visited a Catholic church (crappy from the outside but really nice looking on the inside), saw an interesting condom store (mail orders available, also accessible from the web), and bought more postcards and a t-shirt. While on our walk, we passed by an optometrist place, and went in on the chance that Jon's glasses screw could be replaced. A doctor named Akbar (that's what his name tag said) not only replaced the screw, he also cleaned Jon's glasses with a professional glasses cleaner. He then wanted C$1, but when we said we didn't have any Canadian money, only credit cards, he said "never mind," and comped us the whole deal. What a guy!

We got to the Parliament building right before they closed at 5PM and managed to catch the last tour of the day. The building wasn't incredibly impressive but pretty typical of an old government structure. They were setting up for some press conference later in the day, complete with finger foods and such (looked really good but we couldn't stay, obviously), so our tour was cut short.

Back outside, we hung out near the pier so we could catch our ferry back to Seattle. All of the sudden we were surrounded by a swarm of school kids and their chaperones who decided that they wanted to wait in the same exact area that we were hanging out. One of the chaperones told us that they were from Snohomish, somewhere east of Seattle. They got special privileges and boarded the ferry first. Not before Jon did something crazy and stared intently at one of the kids' name-tags to try to see what grade these kids were - almost ended his career as a teacher before he even started! For dinner on the ferry, we each ordered a "Clipper Basket," which billed itself as containing a bagel, turkey meat, fruits, and a sweet treat. Turned out it was a "make your own sandwich" type deal, with separate bagel, hunk of turkey meat, block of cheese, and tube of mayo and mustard. The "fruits" was a cup of apple sauce (disgusting!), and Linda didn't get a "sweet treat" while Jon's basket had two pieces of Pepperidge Farm cookies. What a disappointment. The ride back to Seattle wasn't on a super fast ferry, so we got in about 9:30PM. Made for a pretty long but worthwhile day.

 Wednesday June 9

Before we left in the morning, Linda called ahead to Mt. Rainier to see if the roads are drivable. The park's tape recordings spouted a bunch of confusing messages and it was hard to figure out which roads were closed or opened, but finally a live person there said the road we wanted take on the east side of Mt. Rainier was opened all the way through.

Walked to a trolley station (they're electric on railroad tracks, not like the trolleys in San Francisco) near where we boarded the Victoria Clipper yesterday, and waited an awful long time for a trolley to show up. Took the trolley to Occidental Park which is a piece of land around Pioneer Square that's got a memorial to fire fighters. From there we walked to get tickets to the Underground Tour. Gale, the tour guide for our group, talked a lot, told a lot of bad jokes, but was otherwise interesting and full of info about Seattle. We saw a bunch of old brick walls underneath buildings and sidewalks; they eventually all looked the same at the end of the tour. One thing Gale said that was interesting was that the underground parts of old Seattle were not the remnants of a fire that destroyed the town in the 1800s (nothing was left after that fire). What happened was after the town was rebuilt, some dude decided to regrade a very steep hill after the hill was built on (instead of the other way around which would have made more sense), so parts of buildings on that steep hill were buried underground while the street got regraded. That's why there's a tour of the underground stuff today.

After a quick lunch at Subway across the street, we ended up at the waterfront and did more postcard buying. Paid a visit to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, a store full of oddities such as shrunken heads, mummies, a two-head cow, and other weird things. We couldn't seem to escape groups of school kids on field trips though.

Took a quick 90-second monorail ride from Westlake Center to the Space Needle. Went to the top of the Space Needle and the weather really cooperated with us here. We couldn't see Mt. Rainier but everything else was visible. We think we found the building that Jon's Grandfather was talking about, his old high school on Queen Anne hill. The Space Needle is situated in Seattle Center, which has, among other things, a big fountain that has unpredictable water spouts. When we walked by, there was a group of people who tried to outsmart the fountain by playing "chicken" with the water. For such a sun-starved bunch of citizens, you'd think when the sun is shining, the last thing they want to be around is more water! Oh well.

For dinner we decided that we could afford to splurge on a really nice seafood dinner by the waterfront. So we chose Elliott's Seafood because their menu looked good. Our Seattle tour guide had previously told us that the Copper River salmon is in season right now, and if we ever got the chance, we should have some because they're only in season a few weeks out of the whole year. So that's what Jon had, and boy was it treat!! The meat was so tender, it practically melts in your mouth. Linda had Dungeness crab and tiny shrimp pasta, which was also very tasty. Their salad alone was enough to make a meal - it had apples, walnuts, cranberries, bleu cheese, in addition to regular salad lettuce type stuff. We definitely splurged appropriately.

To digest our big dinner we walked around the waterfront and saw jellyfish floating near the surface and little leaping silver fish off the pier. Stopped by 7-Eleven on the way back to the Crappadore just to complete Jon's convenience store research. Just a bit of something we noticed: there seems to be a lot of homeless people and scruffy-looking guys with backpacks walking around everywhere. Even though we've been staying in a not-so-good area, we noticed these characters pretty much all over downtown Seattle. More so than in L.A. Go figure.

 Thursday June 10

We packed with enthusiasm because we knew we were leaving today. Walked a few blocks to the National Car rental place to pick up a car for our one-way trip back to L.A. Weeks earlier, Linda had reserved a mid-size car at a compact car's rates, and with some additional finagling, got a one-week-plus-one-day rental for a really good price. Thusly, the rental agent lady was confused and a bit hostile, saying something about how, as renters, we should know that the rate we were quoted for the car was illogical. But she recovered by the end and Linda didn't get hostile in return, so soon we were on our merry way, driving a green 1999 four-door Pontiac Grand-Am with CD player (no tape deck), cruise control, and power everything.

In previous days, we had spent some time on the phone locating a nearby Safeway market and Target store so we could buy a cooler and stock it with food for our road trip. We ended up in Factoria Mall in Bellevue, which happened to be on our way to our first stop, Snoqualmie Falls. Target wasn't opened yet so we went to Rite Aid and bought a cooler. But by chance we saw a better cooler with more bells and whistles at Safeway next door, so Linda got a refund while Jon bought food. We even got a Safeway card so we can get discounted prices. This card proved to be pretty handy throughout our trip, as there was a Safeway at just about everywhere we stopped.

After we got the cooler stocked, we drove out to Snoqualmie Falls. We hiked down from the top of the falls to the bottom, past a generating plant, and through a forest. The hike back up was kind of hard, steep grade almost throughout. This is the falls that was in the opening credits of "Twin Peaks," but the shot of the falls in the TV show was from another vantage point that we couldn't get to. It was still neat to see the falls.

Jon discovered the usefulness of his Grandma's special travel mug at this point. He would chip off some ice in the cooler, put the ice in the mug, fill it up with Diet Coke (or some other diet drink), and drink and drive at the same time. The mug was practically spill proof, except when he forgets to put the top on correctly.

The drive to Mt. Rainier was very scenic. As we got higher and higher, we noticed more and more snow on both sides of the road, which was pretty cool [or scary] considering how it wasn't even that cold outside. We stopped at several view points along the way for some shots of Mt. Rainier. When we left the forest grounds at the southeast side of the park, we stopped for lunch of sandwiches and juice. Somewhere along the way we saw a deer on the side of the road, and llamas on a llama ranch. Strange looking things they are.

All along the roads we drove on, there were Weyerhaeuser signs such as "Planted 1985" or some other year indicating groves of trees that were barely grown, half grown, or almost full grown. Other parts of mountains were bare, half planted or whatnot. We passed by lots of logging operations and drove alongside lots of logging trucks. So many trees cut down, it's a wonder the forests are still full of them! It's also amazing how thick and close together these Pacific Northwest trees grow.

Got to Mt. St. Helens main visitor center around 4PM. We didn't know this but there's a total of three visitor centers, each a bit closer to the volcano but very far apart from each other. All centers closed at 5PM or 6PM, and to top it off, it costs $8 per person to see any of the visitor centers. What a rip-off! The main visitor center guy told us that it wouldn't be worth it for us to buy the visitor passes if we weren't coming back the next day (which we weren't), but we were free to drive on toward the volcano as far as we could get without crossing the point where we would have to pay. So that's what we did, and ended up at a free visitor center (an unofficial one, I guess) and gift shop place that had a really good view of the volcano. There was always something fishy about Mt. St. Helens; before the trip, Linda found all sorts of info regarding the other national parks that we were going to visit, but nothing on Mt. St. Helens. To charge $8 per person just to see a volcano is a rip (considering it's not even all there anymore), not to mention being out of line with what other national parks charge (about $10 per carload). Strange. Linda still doesn't think looking at a volcano from a distance is worth $8 per person [since the closest visitor center is still fairly far away].

Drove back down the mountain, stopped by a Texaco station to fill up. Jon made a special friend with the guy behind the counter. They talked about the Lakers, Chargers, and other guy things ["I know you want to get going, but in my opinion"]. Got on I-5 going south. Throughout the trip we tried to avoid taking I-5 whenever we can, preferring side roads and other more scenic routes; but obviously there were times when we had to take I-5, which worked out fine in the end.

We passed by some iffy towns before stopping in Woodland, WA late afternoon. Stayed in Lewis River Inn, a pretty newish looking place for a reasonable price. We got a standard room but it felt like a gigantic palace after the Crappadore! Ate dinner at Burgerville next door, which specialized in turkey burger and cheeseburger "baskets." Their fries were nice, big, oily, and hot.

  Friday June 11

Left the Lewis River Inn and got ice at the AM/PM next door where we saw a bunch of white trash types. Headed out to Portland, OR, on I-5 and had planned to check it out, but it looked so dopey, the freeways were busy, and there were too many bridges, so we just skipped it. We had called ahead to find some Target stores in Oregon because we wanted to take advantage of not paying sales tax in the state. Went toward a Target (in Tigard), couldn't find the off-ramp, so kept on going and reached the next one (in Beaverton) without too much problem.

From there, we headed to the coast, turning west at Eugene and going toward Florence. We got to Florence a little after noon and decided to follow the sign that said "To Beach." It took a long-ass time to get to the beach on that winding road. Finally found it, had our picnic, and then left back up the road. Going back, there was a sign leading back to the 101 which made it a slightly shorter journey.

We stopped to get gas at a Texaco, and the old guy attendant said, "How may I assist you?" Jon said, "I think I can get it." The guy said, "No, you can't." Apparently there's some kind of law in Oregon with a $10,000 maximum fine (for the gas station) that says you can't pump your own gas. The guy said they voted on it last year. He even did the windows, mirrors, and headlights (that's not part of the law, though, since the other places after that didn't go that far). We asked him about Oregon Dunes, but he only knew that it was about five miles away.

We drove down the 101 and turned off into a Dunes area. We had decided before this that Oregonians don't like helpful street signs, and we saw lots of signs for various park areas, but none for the Oregon Dunes. It might have been that since the area is so big, they have names for all the different little sections that we were supposed to know. Even still, though, they should have some kind of sign that says, "Oregon Dunes - Jabuby area" or "Oregon Dunes - Franklin campground." Anyway, somehow we turned off into a Dunes area and paid $3 for a one-day pass and parked near a beach area. We went over some big sand pile (i.e., a dune) and the water was on the other side, sort of like a regular beach. We saw a couple ATVs going on a path near the parking lot. They had a section of the beach tied off for the snowy plover, a bird that nests on the beach. We drove down the road to another spot where the dunes looked a little better, and our shoes were full of sand for a few days afterward.

At Reedsport, we turned inland and stopped at a roadside elk viewing area where a large herd was walking around. Road construction held us up for about 20 minutes before we got back to I-5. We were looking for somewhere to stop for the night and kept turning into iffy or empty towns, but Linda had seen a billboard or two for the Seven Feathers casino/hotel/family restaurant. Turned out the place was nice and gawdy in the Las Vegas fashion, with a huge statue of an eagle catching a fish. We talked to the goofily-mustachioed concierge guy at the valet parking area, and he said rooms were $79 a night, somewhat preposterous for a crappy town (Canyonville) in the middle of nowhere. He said there were a couple of motels down the road that Seven Feathers owned so they were "clean," so we went there for a mere $40 a night. The "Valley View Motel" was decent enough, and the lady at the counter had a little Happy-dog that she named Bear. We ate dinner at the casino which again aspired to be like Vegas with the option of having a buffet (we didn't get the buffet, though).

 Saturday June 12

We left the lovely casinoville Canyonville around 8:30AM on our way to the Oregon Caves. The road was winding especially for the last eight miles. We took the 10:45AM tour with seven other people. The caves were interesting (although not as "wow" for Linda, the world traveler who has seen Mammoth Caves in Kentucky) [this statement is not entirely true; the caves were still neato to look at, even though it pales in comparison to the Kentucky one], and had lots of stairs and low bridges to hit your head on. Afterward we bought a couple postcards and a magnet.

Had lunch at the tourist info building at the head of the road toward the caves. The place was empty, closed due to illness, the sign said. Sent a couple of postcards from the mail slot there, just to have a goofy postmark for whosever (whoevers'?) postcards they were.

We then drove to Grants Pass and bought gas. Linda really was insulted and offended by the inability of Oregonians to let you pump your own gas [this statement is entirely true!]. This was especially exacerbated by the fact that this one place we got gas had one attendant and was really busy. To top it all off, the other cars in line have to idle longer, adding to pollution and the eating up of gas. Oregon is a weird place, needless to say. We found a Safeway and bought some more food (including some good Orange-Peach-Mango juice). Jon forgot about getting some fruits so had to go back in and get some. And sadly, our bag of Hershey's almond Bites got waterlogged in our cooler and the bag had to be left behind.

Drove toward Crater Lake, but it was getting a little too late to go into that big snowy area, so we pulled off the road and stayed in Prospect, about 30 miles away from the lake. We stayed at the only lodging in town, the Prospect Historic Hotel and Motel where you can spend $80 to stay in the historic old house or $60 to stay in the regular motel part (needless to mention where we stayed). We heard water rustling, so after settling in we went exploring to see where it was coming from. We walked one way and saw the water, but also saw some really sorry-looking white trash types drinking beer and frolicking in the water, so we walked right back quickly. Ended up going another way and down this nice quiet trail that had a low, rushing waterfall going through it. We would've gone farther but we were stopped by this barking dog. A little girl came to stop the dog, but he just got more excited, so we turned around. We went into a grocery store, and the people there said to go up the road for a mile and see a couple of bigger waterfalls. We drove up there and saw the falls, which were pretty tall. Linda got pretty close to the edge of the cliffs to get her precious video shots, which got Jon all worried so he responded by taking a picture of her standing up there like a freak. There were a few obnoxious college-age kids but it wasn't too bad all around.

Had sandwiches and Cheetos for dinner (at least it saved money, I suppose). We won't talk about how someone (earlier in the day) almost killed us by trying to pass two vehicles in not enough road [yes well the guy in the truck probably would have killed us anyway even if on-coming vehicles didn't]. It rained during the night for a couple minutes, so we weren't sure what the road conditions would be like at Crater Lake.

Sunday June 13

The drive to Crater Lake was surprisingly easy (as in not as curvy as a mountain road ought to be). The mosquitoes were in full force. The first visitor's center had a post office for the people who live there (maintenance and stuff). There was snow everywhere (but no new snow), and the roads were open only a fraction of the way. We got some good vistas of the lake in the open areas, despite the ever-present Korean group that giggled too much and smelled of kimchi (according to Linda, anyway). It was fairly warm out, despite the snow and everything. Shorts and t-shirts were good enough. The water in Crater Lake was nice and blue, though unfortunately we couldn't get too close to it since most of the roads/trails were closed. Afterward, we found a Safeway in Klamath Falls and bought ice, juice, M&Ms, and a couple of bagels.

Since everything was closed, we didn't spend too much time at Crater Lake, so we hightailed it to Lava Beds, which meant we entered California finally. The surrounding was mostly desert-like but with some tall trees and high hills nearby (with a little bit of snow). We passed by the Petroglyphs area but didn't stop, and couldn't go back later because we went another way (got a postcard from it, though). We talked to the nice guy at the entry gate and he told us what to look for, which include caves and lava stuff. Parked at the visitor center and checked out the map, ate lunch, and then walked a little bit. We saw two mouths of caves nearby and felt the cold air coming out. This kind of spooked us so we went to the visitor office and asked them what we ought to do. They gave us a couple of flashlights to use (free) and told us what caves were cool and whatnot. The first cave had lights inside (Jon still bumped his head), had explanation signs telling us what we're looking at, and was right in the parking lot more or less so was readily accessible. The next cave had no lights but it had a couple of holes where the sunlight came through, and Jon bumped his back really good. After that, all the caves were pitch black inside. Along the looped road of caves, there was also a "natural bridge," sort of a lava formation thing that was interesting to look at. Didn't stay too long because it wasn't so early in the day, we needed gas, and the caves were kinda dark and scary and whatnot. [Linda will have to go back some day with a hard hat, knee pads, sturdy shoes, and really go caving the proper way.]

After the caves, we took a straight road along the Oregon/California border and stopped at a city to get some gas. Both the gas stations in town had been gutted (probably due to the new laws concerning underground storage tanks and whatnot). On the way out of town, we passed by a border check and lied about not having fruits and vegetables with us. We got gas for a preposterous $1.629/gallon in McDoel. There was a nice view of Mt. Shasta along the way, though.

We got back on I-5 and drove past Sacramento and into Redding. We found a cheap Arco ($1.25 a gallon) but didn't see a hotel nearby so kept going. We found a motel that was in the Mobil guide (with a check mark for good value) with an attached restaurant [we'll need to notify the Mobil guide that this motel should be delisted]. The problem was that we didn't go far enough into Redding to find other things, but it's no big whoop, man. Checked in, walked next door into the restaurant, it was empty, and a woman said, "Oh, we're closing in about a half an hour." Linda said, "We'll eat fast," but Jon said we should just go somewhere else. We got into the car and drove toward what we thought was Redding city center and did a couple of circles before finding a Mexican restaurant (called La Cabańa) where the people actually spoke Spanish. Decent and inexpensive, and open past 8PM. The food came pretty fast, too.

 Monday June 14

Left the hotel in search of that Arco with cheap gas we saw yesterday and finally found it a couple of freeway exits away. The gas was at least 20 cents cheaper than the other places around. We got beverages, too (which meant we really had to go by the time we got to Lassen).

We took the road to the southern entrance of Lassen Park because we weren't sure if the northern entrance would be closed or not. The drive was fairly easy, considering it took us up to 8,000 feet. There was a map of trails, so we took the trail closest to the visitor area called Sulphur Works, which was a bridge over sulfur spewing and thermal springs. Smelled pretty bad, eh. We went toward a couple other trails, but they were all closed that high up since they were covered with snow. It was hot though, going up to 80 degrees or so in some spots. We decided to drive through to the other side of the park since the road was open. Some trails were open farther down the mountain on the northern side, too. There were a couple controlled burns in a particular spot, so it was nice and smoky for a while, like a big barbecue or something. We walked on one trail, but we had no water and just tennis shoes, so we didn't want to go too far. Got some nice pictures, though.

At the north entrance, we stopped by a store for campers with food, showers, and laundry facilities. We saw a deer about 15 feet away in the parking lot, and saw a family of geese (swans?) swimming around in Lake Manzanita (same area).

We drove out of the park and back through to Redding. Found an even cheaper Arco in Red Bluff, and refilled on beverages and gas. It was hotter'n hell out there, and some double trailer 18-wheeler truck was getting gas right along with the other cars, and idling and spewing fumes on us. And some rodeo hicks were inside the AM/PM, talking in their funny way. Drove through Sacramento, and then got to Stockton, staying at a La Quinta on a road full of restaurants (all the chains, like Carrow's, Red Lobster, Black Angus, Marie Calendar's, and all the fast food stuff too). We ate at Carrow's since it was right outside our door, more or less. The hotel was pretty booked, maybe having something to do with all the rodeo hicks we saw along the way.

Tuesday June 15

Got our free breakfast at La Quinta and then drove on down to Santa Cruz. Hit traffic east of Oakland because of a bad accident. It was stopped for a few minutes. Our car beeped at us because we were low on windshield wiper fluid. We got on a small highway/farm road toward Santa Cruz, there were lots of other cars, and then there was road construction to top everything off. The car started beeping because we were low on fuel. Oops. We were a little anxious going on the winding, uphill, stop and go traffic (almost) road with no gas station in sight. Finally got lucky and found some place with gas at $1.529/gallon. We put $5 worth in, and put water in the washer fluid thing to make that beeping go away too.

We got to Santa Cruz and found the Mystery Spot, and got a 25% discount off admissions through a coupon from their web page. There was a huge group of Chinese tourists who got there just when we did, so we decided to wait for the next tour (it was too crowded, for one thing). The Mystery Spot was full of weird height differences and leaning on an incline and stuff. It was mostly optical illusion (it's more slanted than it looks, so everyone slants thinking they're straight up and down but they're not), but they claim that there is also a 3-5% variance in magnetics and stuff. There are supposed to be 24 known spots like this in the world, including the Bermuda Triangle. Linda got a little dizzy deeper into the area, though she's always getting dizzy about something [not true!].

After leaving Santa Cruz, we drove down Hwy 1 and got off in Capitola to eat lunch by the beach. There was a little beach traffic. And there were no traffic lights, only 4-way stop signs. Kinda goofy, like the whole town is opposed to traffic lights. We parked on top of a hill above the beach, ate, took some pictures, and walked down to the beach. The beach stank, so we left.

We went on toward Gilroy (to connect to I-5 again so as not to take Hwy 101 all the way down to L.A.). It was a winding road that climbed up a short hill, and came upon Gilroy. After about five seconds of pondering where to get garlic ice cream, we just kept on going. It smelled like garlic on the outskirts, and then onions too, kinda neato. After another hilly road (though we averaged 75 to 80 mph), we came upon the I-5 again. From there it was just a straight shot, and we tried not to get too much below 85 mph. We got home around 6:45PM after a little bit of traffic on the 405. Our mileage ended up at 2,002 (not including the trip to San Diego to pick up Mindy the next day, which brought it up to 2,243 miles).

 THE END

 p.s. After reading Linda's e-mail about our experience with Seattle Tours, company reps offered to refund the price we paid for the tours. That's appropriate, I think.