Tired

This morning we drove down to brother in law John's and nieces Caitlin and Evann's house in Castaic for an early Father's Day brunch. Other niece Meghan, who recently moved to Tahoe arranged the whole thing since she was going to be in town for a wedding. She decided on brunch because she and her boyfriend Ryan had to drive back to Tahoe today-a long long drive from Castaic. It's only about an hour and a half drive from our house to Castaic but it's an incredibly boring drive-thirty miles of straight flat freeway, then up up up into the mountains, most of which are bare and brown this time of year, then lots of mountain driving, then down down down into Castaic. There are only two little towns and a rest stop up in the mountains, so not much to look at. The signs say you are in the Angeles National Forest, but there are no trees along the freeway, I guess the tree part of the National Forest is up higher in the mountains where you can't see them. I've always thought it odd to see forest signs when there are no trees near the forest signs.

So, we brought a huge amount of pastries from a local bakery, sister Linda brought croissants, Meghan brought bagels, Mom brought fruit plates, Jennifer brought bacon, eggs were scrambled, coffee made, juice poured, and we all ate too much. Do you think we had enough bread products or what?

Then, time to drive back to Bakersfield, a reverse of the boring drive, looking at the same brown treeless mountains, and the same straight boring thirty miles of freeway before getting back home. What is it about driving that makes you so tired? It's not like you're exerting yourself or anything, you're just sitting there. We were both just exhausted when we got home, Keith went to take a nap with Buddy, and I tried to get a little work done, but just didn't feel like doing much.
It was nice to see everyone, we don't see each other that often, even though we really don't live that far away -guess it's that boring drive plus the 4.00 a gallon gas prices that keep us from driving down on a regular basis. Either that or we are just too too busy with our glamorous lives here in the lovely smoggy hot Bakersfield.

Road Trip Part Two

No more Motel 6's for us! Maybe they should be called Motel 666's since you are surely spending a night in hell when you get a room at Motel 6.

We stayed at the Marriot a few blocks from Ventura's beaches in the Pierpont/Seaward section of Ventura, just up the road from the harbor. It's a real resort type hotel with valet parking and the boys who will actually load up your luggage onto one of those gold colored luggage cart things. They even had a jug of lemon water by the check in desk if you were thirsty after your long trip. The restaurant looked nice, but after checking out the prices we decided to go to Snapper Jack's Taco Shack for dinner, one of the many things we miss about Ventura.

Our room was nice, with two big comfy looking beds, lots of pillows, a coffee pot in the TV armoir, a chair for reading, desk for internetting, and even an iron and ironing board in the closet. The only thing I didn't like was if you left the bathroom door open, you could see yourself sitting on the pot in the big huge mirrors on the closet doors. Not a pretty sight.

Keith can sleep anywhere and was out in about 3 seconds. Me, I don't sleep well unless I'm in my own bed, and even then have trouble sometimes, so I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked. But, if you liked your bed, linens, mattress, shampoo, coffee, or whatever, you can order genuine Marriott linens, mattresses, coffee, shampoo, or whatever, from their full color catalog available in every room. The mattress is only like $1200.00. Then you could feel like you are living in a Marriott!

We were going to try and hook up with Keith's kids for breakfast, but I wasn't feeling real good and Keith kind of wanted to just get back home, too, so we left town after checking out. We stopped in Frazier Park and went to Rocky's Bar and Grill for breakfast. There were already people in the bar for their Sunday morning bloody marys or having a hair of the dog. Not the best breakfast I'd ever had, pretty darn greasy.

We got home to full cat boxes and kitties that kind of looked at us, like 'oh, were you gone?'

Road Trip Part One

Last Saturday we took off for the coast to go to my sister's going away open boat/dock party celebrating their upcoming escape to go live in La Paz-on their boat. How's that for moving, just sail away in your house?
Road trips from Bakersfield to the coast are really really boring for the first hour or so. The freeway from town to the interstate is straight and nothing much to look at but farmlands and the occasional house or cow. Soon after you join up with the interstate you go up into the mountains which for the first few miles are pretty and very steep. The hills are starting to turn green with the recent mountain snow and the pass going up 'the grapevine' as the road is called is narrow and pretty. That is until you get past Frazier Park and the view is just hill after hill. No trees, even thought you do pass through a national forest, just bare hills that are still brown from the hot summer. Once you come down out of the mountains, you get onto Hwy 126 which goes through 'Heritage Valley' with lots of lemons, oranges, fruit stands, ranch houses, and Piru, Fillmore, and Santa Paula, three historic old towns founded back in the early ranching and railroading days of the late 1800's. Much more pleasant of a drive than the interstate.
Ventura is a really pretty town with a mission downtown, nice pretty beaches, and a backdrop of hills and mountains. And trees.
This is the boat that is soon to be on it's way to Mexico, and a view of all the party goers. I also included a view of the mountains as seen from the dock. Notice that most people have beer or wine in their hands, dock people are pretty big partyers and don't need much of an excuse to grab a beer and have a party.
Stay tuned for Road Trip Part Two