Back to school this morning before we hit the road for Char – she is dedicated – I’ll give her that!!! 5am wake up call to get on her classes on time!

When we left Northern California this morning, it was raining BUCKETS – like the raining cats and dogs type rain that you hear about! It made for fast pictures, dodging rain drops, misty photos, white knuckle driving and lots of laughs! We saw amazing redwoods along the way – a drive-thru tree (maybe with a Herbie car), drove a portion of the Avenue of the Giants, saw some elk, dreamed of seeing Bigfoot, and passed through some beautiful wineries on our way to San Francisco.

We arrived in San Francisco shortly after the skies cleared – just like the Golden Gate Bridge was waiting for us!!!! It was my first time seeing it and it was everything I thought it would be!!!! A great landmark to make time to see!

We boogied over to Lombard Street – you know the one? It is the famous zig-zag street in San Francisco… the pictures I took don’t do it justice, but we walked up and down the street, then drove down it! Char videoed the whole thing from the moon roof (don’t tell).

Finally, just after dusk, we arrived in Monterey Bay. We walked around a bit before checking in to our hotel – ordered takeout from Bubba Gump’s (Char was BESIDE herself – she LOVES Forrest Gump) and hit up an old school candy shoppe!

It was 19 years ago almost to the day that I arrived back in Monterey after Christmas break (Exodus) when I was stationed here in the Army. I met up with my new beau for a couple days before we both had to sign back in after our leave was over. We got married 3 weeks later and the rest is history. Monterey is a special place – I hope Char enjoys it, too.

Total Miles = 476

States = California

Hours on the road = 10 including lots of stops and detours

Average Temperature = 55 – getting warmer

Coffees = 2 (I could’ve used one more!)

Playlist = Quite a few chapters of Twilight and Hamilton (surprise!)

Major Landmarks =Giant Redwoods, San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, our old house in Seaside, CA, Cannery Row, Monterey Bay.

People not wearing masks in public places = This is CA – people where them even in their cars…while they are alone!

Gas bought = $37.00

Extras = $80.00 – trinkets

Hotel = Holiday Inn Express Monterey Bay/Cannery Row – a nice hotel – small – but fits the area – also a little dated on the outside, but we had a room with two double beds and it looked like it has recently been renovated – we had a nice stay. $100.14/ night