Vacation!

Keith is taking a few days off next week, his birthday is on the 16th and he vowed a few years ago to never ever work on his birthday again. Hence the days off. Last year for his birthday vacation he got a colonoscopy. Earlier this spring he took a few days off and got two crowns done at the dentist. Fun, fun, vacations, those!

So, this year I told him to never ever schedule doctors or dentists or whatever on his vacation days again. Ever. Leave work early, take an unpaid day off, but never again have colonoscopies or crowns on your birthday vacation. Unless it's a birthday crown complete with noisemakers.

And what are we doing on his vacation next week since he's not getting a (fun) colonoscopy or crown? Well, even though we can't afford it, we are going on a little road trip!

We were thinking of taking the train up to Sacramento and going to the railroad museum there, then coming back that night on the train. No spending $200.00 on a hotel room that way, the train is only 86.00 for two round trip tickets, and we get in free at the museum since we have a membership. A membership that we've never used since we've never been able to afford to get up there to Sacramento.

Well, the only direct train to Sacramento leaves at 7:15 in the morning, doesn't get to Sacramento until 12:30 pm, and then the direct train home leaves at like 6 pm and doesn't get home until late late late. So, we'd be on a train for about 10 hours total and only have a few hours in Old Sacramento. You can take a little later train in the morning but you have to get off in Stockton and take a Trailways bus into Sacramento. Um, no thanks.

Keith wanted to take the train 'because it's fun!', but I think I'd rather drive up there and not be on a schedule where if you don't get back to the train station on time, you're stuck and will still have to spend that $200.00 for a hotel room. Seriously, all the hotels near Old Sacramento are RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE! So, I convinced him that we should just drive, spend the night outside of Sacramento where the motels and hotels might be a little cheaper, and then the next day we could drive back along route 49 through all the gold rush towns, also making a stop in Jamestown where they have another railroad museum.

I took son Joe on a trip when he was 9 (20 years ago, eek!) and we drove up 395 through Carson City, down past Lake Tahoe and down through gold rush country, then through Yosemite and Kings Canyon. I still have fond memories of that trip, especially the part where we saw the bear while driving out of one of the parks (just a baby bear, but a bear!), and the peaceful drive through the rolling hills of the Sierras, stopping at all the quaint little towns, and panning for gold at Sutter's Mill.

So, road trip it is, we'll leave Monday and either come back Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how long it takes us to drive down 49 what with all the great places to stop and beautiful scenery to see. Our credit card will be hurting after we get home, but we are really tired of never being able to go anywhere or do anything, so we'll just put the hotel rooms on the card and do the old buy now pay later thing.

I'm looking forward to it, especially after this weekend when Keith spent two days messing with the living room ceiling fan trying to put in a new switch so that it would work right, and not being able to get the right switch and getting totally frustrated and wasting two days fooling with it and vowing to never ever buy crappy cheap fans from walmart again!