We're Back!

Or, as our cats would say, 'oh, were you gone?'

First off, the kittens in the back yard seem to be gone, I'm assuming mama cat took them to somebody else's yard after we found her hiding place.

And, yes, we were gone for 3 days on a little vacation, the first vacation we've had in a long long time, and we are totally exhausted. I don't think I'd make much of a world traveler, I really like the comforts of home, and 3 days in the car was definitely long enough.

The cats seemed a little confused to see us, kind of blink blink who are you, and the three litter boxes were TOTALLY OVERFLOWING AND THE HOUSE STUNK! Really. Stunk.

We had left them with three of the self feeder things where you load them up with food and it continually falls down into the bowl, so they got plenty of food, and one of those water dish things that continually fills itself back up again, so they had water even if it wasn't freshly poured like they're used to. So, other than the cat box thing they hardly even noticed that the humans were missing.

Anyway, here's what we did on our little trip on day one. The original plan was to go up the 99 to Sacramento and the train museum. It took us 30 minutes just to get on the 99 because we had to stop at walmart to get another bra for me because I thought I had enough clean ones but of course I didn't, so walmart first, then the back way to the freeway which we thought would be faster than going all the way down Rosedale Hwy. But, Keith hadn't gone the back way to the 99 before and got confused because the roads here are really confusing anyway and the signs aren't very clear and we ended up on the wrong side of the freeway so we had to turn around at the next exit and get back on the right side of the freeway so we'd be heading towards Sacramento and not Los Angeles. So, we finally get on the freeway going in the right direction a full 30 minutes after leaving the house.

After driving for a while we thought why not reverse our plans and go up the 49 through the gold country that day and go to Sacramento the next day? So, that's what we did, crossing over to the Sierra side of the valley at Merced, going through all the rolling hills to Mariposa (the gateway to Yosemite), stopping for lunch there, and then up through all the little gold towns to Placerville.

Where we stayed here:


I had done a little googling for motels and picked this one based on the sign alone (and the fact that the rooms were only $50.00). Old but clean although very hard pillows and mattresses. And the pool was closed for renovation. But it was quiet and surrounded by trees.


It was like 7 by the time we got to the motel, so we checked in and then went into town to find a place for dinner and when we saw this sign we knew where we were going to eat.


For those of you old enough to have seen the movie American Graffiti, this is the real deal, the Mel's diner from the movie, albeit not THE Mel's, that one is in San Francisco.

Anyway, good diner food and we got dessert, too!

After dinner we took a little walk around the old downtown, the buildings all have that Old West feel to them, like this one.


We really liked the way the side of this building looked.



The next morning we met up with Meghan and Ryan, who drove down from South Lake Tahoe and had breakfast at the Waffle House. Sorry, no picture, but we picked that restaurant because how could you NOT eat breakfast at a Waffle House anyway?

Tomorrow, day two.