...Continued:
THIS IS ME...driving through the LIVE tree....YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can you see the kids hanging out of the car...mom's cooler then dad and lets the kids hang out the windows to try to touch the tree as we drive though it!! SWEET!! ha!
Ella yells, "Look, a cart from the older days!"
Another HUGE tree...
OK…so now it was time to grab some lunch and then head on down to the Glass Sands Beach, in Ft. Bragg, CA. This was going to take us south (on the way back home) but it also puts us back on highway 1 which is that same highway Grissom threw his cookies!
But this time I was the one driving…lets just say Mark taught me a few new things about driving a stick shift…I had to again stay in 2nd or 3rd gear just to keep the car slow enough to take all these curves! Holy Stress!! I do better telling Mark to slow down and be careful, etc! Mark even took video of how crazy curvy this scenic route was.
We looked and we looked and we looked for ANY place to stop for lunch…nothing…and my cell phone went back and forth between having a signal and not so we weren’t even able to search for a place to eat…so we licked the inside of the Frito bag (after eating the rest of course)…and just prayed we’d find something before the kids dies of starvation!!
But God DID show us something miraculous…see the roads are SO curve that they have ‘pull-offs’ for the slower drivers to allow passing. We stopped at one just because it was also a pull-off for the view type side…it was gorgeous! We saw another small black sand beach. As I was headed back to the car after taking a few pictures I saw water shooting up in the air far off into the distance in the ocean. I grabbed the family AND my close up camera lens and there it was…a HUGE whale!! She was out in the middle having a ball…we are pretty sure there were others out there, but she’s the only one who consistently used her blow hole! It was SO fun to show the kids and watch it. I have pictures but I’m not sure you can see her as well as we could!
I can go home now…my last desire out here was to see a real whale without paying for it…I wanted to see one JUST like we got to! But the fun part was that she was heading down the coast line pretty much at the same time we were. So we’d spot her from several others pull-off spots! How cool…THANK YOU GOD for that!!
The other Black Sand Beach Find...
THE WHALE!!
AHHHHH...Beautiful!!
AHHH...MORE Beauty!!
More Whale...
Just a super cool rock...
our road ahead...
Wouldn't this be the coolest house to live in?
Again...I love trees...
We got to Ft. Bragg by about 3-3:30 P.M. still no lunch…luckily we found a Subway…I’ve never seen kids eat SO fast! We ate and the kids were awesome cause they were all ready to go and see the glass sands! I assumed they’d be done by now…or super bored, but no way…they were pumped! So we parked and started down the path…we passed the Government property and saw at least 4-5 squirrels just hanging out on the fence…look at this pic:
We almost lost the kids in the wild blackberry bushes we had to pass by to get to the ocean! Grissom, remembering the picking we’ve done, kept saying, “Top!! See these yummies!! Top!!” (top means STOP btw). Once we pulled him past the berries we caught sight of this part of the ocean…and HOW beautiful it was as well!! We had to search a little but someone else told us to look for the rocky places and don’t be fooled by the ‘rocks.’ And sure enough as we looked closer at the rocks and shells we saw the glass EVERYWHERE! All you had to do was sit somewhere and dig in the sand a little. We found clear, green, orange, red, blue, and purple pieces of glass. And they were so soft and rounded. Nothing was sharp. It was so cool!
Ella was into the search BIG time…in fact after we left she complained that she didn’t get to play any. We told her that was because she wouldn’t stop searching…we’d warned her that if she didn’t stop she’d miss out on the playing, but who listens to mom and dad?!
We were there searching until about 5p.m. we didn’t search the entire time…Keegan and Grissom climbed every rock there and we explored a little as well!
Look closely!
So we took off and started our 4.5 hr. drive home. Not 20 minutes into this journey we hear Ella saying things and Keegan copying her. Frustration was taking over and Ella yells, “Mom…Keegan’s MIM-A-CATING me…again!” then you hear Keegan, “Mom…Keegan’s mim-a-cating me again!!” It was SO funny. I just looked at them and told Keegan to cut it out and I explained to Ella that it’s not called mim-a-cating…it’s called mimicking! Ella got so tickled at herself and the new words that we all just stopped and giggled together! I have to admit…I have to REALLY work hard to think now before using the word mimicking…cause I wanna say mim-a-cating too! Ha!
Scary...I know!
Then to add to the craziness…a good 30 minutes later Ella screams, “Grissom…NO…Dad…Mom…it’s broke…G-R-I-S-S-O-M!!” After the screaming dyed down we found out that Grissom slammed the door of the DVD player shut…he did it SO hard that it broke the corner off and wouldn’t play unless Mark held it shut! After a second of mommy’s quick thinking I pulled my hair band off and Mark was able to use that to keep the door shut…SO the kids got to watch CARS over and over and over again! Yeah! They only watched it 1.5 times.
We stopped at a Berger King and because of the coupons I’d grabbed (my Nana would be SO proud!) as we ran out the door we ate like real KINGS for only $13.00. It was like 7 p.m. and we were super hungry! Everyone had a huge burger, fries, drinks, chicken nuggets, AND apple pies!! We used 3 different coupons to get this Thanksgiving feast! YES!! After dinner we took a nice 10 minutes to unpack the back and pull out jammies then RE-pack the back so it would be easier to unload when we got home. We were about 45 minutes north of San Francisco, so I napped until we got there.
See we had a little issue on the way up in San Francisco. I missed my exit and ended up having to pay $10 in tolls AND we added a nice 45 minutes to this drive. I wasn’t stressed but it was frustrating! So Mark wasn’t so sure he wanted to take on the highways there while I slept…we needed teamwork! We seriously navagated through 9 different interstates in approxamitely 8 minutes!! Talk abotu stress...it made St. Louis look like a walk in the park! SO the plan was for him to wake me (gently!) when we got there…I got a huge slap on the leg and he yelled, “Get-up!! We’re there…help me!” I jumped SO high I thought I was flying! It freaked me out…I love HOW gentle and loving he can be!
We had tons of time to chat the rest of this drive home…we got to talking about our time in Humboldt and I’d made a funny. I said, “So instead of a Bonfire like the rest of the world has…they have BONG-fires!!” hahahahahahahaha…get it!! Cause they ALL smoke Marijuana?!?! I crack me up!! Go on…you know you want to laugh!
A BONG-fire! Ha!
Mark only had to stop 2 times to go potty while me, the prego one didn’t have to stop until we got home…and we’d drank the same amounts! But it was nice to get to stop and just look up at the sky and see just how big it really is and how FULL of stars it really can be! Indiana is SO lacking in amazing stars…at least it is when you have this sky to compare it to…amazing!
As we passed through San Francisco I saw the COOLEST exit. It was called A Street! I got to thinking about that and laughing SO hard that I almost couldn’t stop to tell Mark my thoughts! By the time I’d gained enough control to tell him he’d gotten to laughing at me that we had to wait even longer to explain it! Once we both calmed down (I do think slap-happy could have been a part of this) I told him I could just imagine how this street got its name…and here’s the story I had in my head:
Just think there were a few guys having a ‘BONG-fire’ up in Humboldt and these guys had won a contest which allowed them to name a road in San Fran!! So they are hanging out trying to come up with a good one. But as they sat around their fire talking and throwing out names things mellowed out a bit and one guy, Frank says, “No guys…I got it…man, it’s the perfect name…how about we call it ‘A STREET!’ Get it…cause it’s a street, man…yeah, peace…that’s rocks!” And then they all just hung out laughing and saying A STREET over and over again!
I mean can’t you just imagine?
HOW FUNNY!!
A Street!
Someone HAD to be smoking something to have come up with such a name!! Again we cracked up forever…later we passed Y Road…and I simply said…”Y road…not interstate!” I got it and laughed but I had to explain once again to Mark…man, things ALWAYS seem funnier IN my head…it’s when they jump out without permission that I get in trouble! I was pretending to be an Indian…I mean Native American!! Now it’s funny, right? Ha!
Anyway, needless to say, we had a GREAT weekend! Full of travel, fast food, heartburn, love, and laughter!! It can’t get better then that! It makes me feel very VERY sad inside to think about leaving my honey here soon…so I’m trying not to think about it and just keep laughing WITH him! It’s SO nice to see him laugh…it’s been such a long time it seems!
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