Drivin' Like Bats Outta Hell
Thursday, Apr. 17, 2008 at 8:04 a.m.
Things I learned on my holiday:
1. I really love San Luis Obispo. LOVE it.
2. Napa is overrated.
3. Drinking lots of wine at 9 am is completely underrated.
4. Emu burgers are yummy.
5. Museum docents really like to talk about the historical significance of prostitutes.
6. Hubster�s SIL is a total who-de-who bossy boss.
7. Ticks scare the bejeebers out of me.
8. Tahoe is also overrated.
9. Driving south all the way through Nevada on 95 means you have some sort of death wish due to boredom.
10. Said drive on Nevada is a good place to stash a body.
11. Said drive on Nevada is also a good place to rev up the Hubster�s car to 130 mph.
12. Don�t try to check into a hotel in Las Vegas on a Friday night.
13. Take your own pillow; hotel pillows always suck.
Wow, that all sounds very negative, doesn�t it? Unfortunately, most of our life�s lessons are due to a negative learning experience. I also forgot to mention San Francisco in that list. How sloppy of me!
Yes, I fell in love with San Luis Obispo. It�s a smaller town, but very vital and youthful and energetic because of the college kids. But such a lovely town! Flowers everywhere, beautiful houses. And lots of lovely pub and grubs. Gotta love it.
San Francisco, of course, is lovely and it�s also very necessary to spend more than an afternoon there. We spent a bit of time looking for the shop featured on Mythbusters, which made the Hubster experience some of those streets that seem like they just disappear and then you�re going down at a 30 degree angle � eeek! We found M5 Industries, but . . . . I think it�s a front. The look of the parking lot looked nothing like it does on the show, and it�s crammed up with some other businesses. How could they film there? I think it�s a conspiracy to protect Jamie and his precious handlebar moustache from crazy married redheads like me!
Ahem. Anyway, we then went to Fisherman�s Wharf and Pier 39 (of course) and saw the sea lions and ate crab and then we drove the Golden Gate bridge and went on to Napa, where we stayed in the lovely Hotel Gaia and Spa. I really recommend it. It�s a bit out of town but it�s worth it. And about 30 bucks cheaper! And yes, drinking wine at Peju Provence Wineries is the best thing to do first thing in the morning. Especially if you eat half a jar of their Chardonnay Chocolate as well.
Placerville and Pollack Pines (where the ILs and the Bossy Boss SIL and BIL live) is also very lovely too, but a bit too small-town for me, although I was enthralled with Sutter�s Mill and especially the docent, whom I think was thrilled to talk about the area prostitutes. When you have to talk to schoolkids all day long, I guess adults who ask naughty questions are interesting.
So why was the SIL a Bossy Boss? Because she made us work, that�s why. Well, okay, actually, I knew that we�d have to do a few chores (they�re in the process of finishing the manufactured house that they all share while SIL and BIL build their own house up the road) but SIL was all over us about how we�d do the chores as opposed to just letting us do them. And in fact, I think that if you and your Hubster are the ones who have to roll a hot tub down some stairs and out to the road, then you and Hubster should be the ones who say how it gets done! So there! But Hubster got to ride on a big CAT thing and play with disreputable power saws, so he was happy. And I got to go to one yarn store, but I wasn�t thrilled. And then I learned that there are about half a dozen alpaca farms in the area where I could have loaded up on alpaca yarn . . . But SIL didn�t mention this until, oh, about 9 pm on our last night there!! Humph. Bossy Boss. Oh well.
On the trip, I managed to get to a Weight Watchers � can you believe it? And now I�ve officially lost 26.2 pounds! I got my 16-week charm and a 25-lb weight charm for my 10% keyring! Yay me!
And although I do mention that driving back south was deadly in its ennui factor (neener!) there is a neat place to stop, a big salt lake known as Mono Lake:
Those sticky-up things are tufa, big stalagmite-type things made out of calcium carbonate and sodium deposits. However, they didn�t always stick out of the water like that � in 1941, Los Angeles decided they needed water more than the lake so they took out about oh, a � mile diameter�s worth of water. And these things showed up. It�s a bit depressing in its own way. Since about 1980-something, there�s been work to restore the lake, and now it�s about 19 feet deeper than it used to be. That in itself is a bit of a coup because of water shortages, etc.
But at what cost? Sigh.
Moving on.
Hubster and I decided that we never need to go to Las Vegas again. Hubster however, went on to say that Al-Qaeda are going for the wrong target if they want to destroy the decadence of America, and Vegas should be the target of terrorism. I thought that was a bit much, but then he had been driving for 11 hours through the deadly boredom of Nevada (and the scary bits of the crazy half-dead mining towns) and we then discovered that he had a big ol tick on his side that I got to yank out. Poor guy.
But now we�re home and back with the kitties and the puppy and Hubster�s got his salt water tank to work on and I�m back to knitting and watching bad movies.
And thinking about our next road trip.