Road Trippin - Itinerary and Getting Started

Late last week we headed out on a week long road-trip... Eight days and seven nights. Leaving on Thursday, Day one - driving from Southern California to Sacramento.  With the traffic and pit stops it took almost 9 hours on this first stretch of the trip just to get to Sacramento.  Although I had planned on blogging daily on this trip, with so much driving, I was completely exhausted and collapsed once I got to the hotel!

So here I am days later (still on our trip) and finally sharing the beginning of our trip with you.  I've actually tried to a couple of times before but the "FREE" internet access at a few of our hotels has had about the equivalent speed of dial up and kept crashing... and honestly, I just couldn't deal with it!  

Normally I am not a planner, I don't like lists and usually I just go with the flow.  But for this trip, I planned it down to almost every detail.  God willing, all will go as planned!  Here is a quick overview of our trip itinerary. 

Itinerary

Day 1 - Drive to Sacramento (hotel for the night)

Day 2 - Drive to Medford, Oregon.  Upon arrival visit a store that I've been super excited to see (for those of you that follow the blog "Pretty in Paint", it is her amazing new store).  I will share the store and several photos of it in a future post).  Stay the night at a hotel on the Rogue River

Day 3 - Hubs and I go rafting on the Rogue River with family... Then we drive back to a hotel in the Redding area that night.

Days 4 through 6 - Spend enjoying the Central California Coast... And some of it's most beautiful spots and towns... Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Morrow Bay and everything in between... (and taking tons and tons of pictures).  While staying at coastal hotels each night...

Day 7 - Visit and tour the Hearst castle, then drive to Solvang, California (charming Danish town in Santa Barbara wine country) and stay the night in a European Boutique Hotel... super excited for this!

Day 8 - shop in Solvang, drive to Laguna Beach and have dinner with our daughter, Britney, for her 24th birthday. Then drive home.

Note - All of our hotels were booked in advance via Priceline or Hotwire (saving us about 40% on average for 3 star hotels), so sticking to our planned itinerary was super important.  

Our trip will cover a total of about 1700 miles... Seriously, 1700... and did I mention that I hate long car drives.  It's true... but other than the first two days (800 boring miles), the remainder of the daily planned drives are a bit shorter and are very scenic.  

Back to the beginning of our trip...  While driving to Sacramento I saw so many big rigs.  I found myself counting some of them.  I passed six of them that were completely full of lemons...  and I saw so many trucks full of tomatoes that I stopped counting at eight (but saw a few more after I stopped counting).  I told you it was a boring drive :)  It's funny the things that go through your mind while driving for so many hours.

For instance, all of those lemons, thousands of them in a truck... I could understand and really didn't give much thought.   However, my mind could not grasp how all of those tomatoes could be transported on top of each other.  Think about it, all of that weight???  Wouldn't the tomatoes on the bottom be totally and completely squished?  Like ready for soup or sauce?  I mean really, if I sit on a tomato it would pop... wouldn't it?  All that weight has to be more than several people sitting on top of the tomatoes.  Yes, that is how my mind works ;)

A bit later, as I was driving on I-5, in what felt like the middle of nowhere, I saw this yellow plane flying back and forth over the freeway.  I think it was a crop duster.  But he appeared to be just goofing off buzzing the freeway.  I can admit that it freaked me out a little bit.  But, not too much since I found time to pull out the camera and start snapping pictures. Yes, I was driving at the same time (and I don't recommend it), but I was careful, I promise!

I have taken many pictures and have lots to share.  I will post again soon, assuming I can find good internet access.

Until next time...
Blessings,

Diana