The Wood Between the Worlds

After Disneyland, we had a great itinerary planned.

Saturday: hang out with some old friends in S. Cali
Sunday: go to church in San Luis Obispo, where Brent's parents grew up and met
Monday & Tuesday: camp at Big Sur (Redwood Park) and visit San Fransisco
Wednesday: visit family in N. Cali and drive home

Well...as things often go for us, something happened and we had to rearrange our plans.  And this time, the thing that went awry was the weather.  Ummm...excuse me??  We picked S. Cali for spring break because everyone always gushes about how nice the weather is down there?  Guess what happened??  A monsoon blew through S. Cali.  It was blowing the trees sideways AND it even washed out the road to Big Sur.  There were a lot of things to be grateful for though...like that we weren't AT Big Sur when the road washed into the ocean, AND that we got to spend more time with our old friends in S. Cali.  NICE!


Saturday:
We had nice weather.  We drove up the coast from Anaheim along the charming and sunny route of Hwy 1 through Santa Monica and Malibu and then inland a bit to go visit our friends.

looking down toward Malibu

Here's the best story of the trip: We were driving through Malibu.  It's this super ritzy neighborhood overlooking the sea.  EVERY house has a mercedez or the like parked in the driveway...and Toby is about to pee.his.pants.  What to do?!  We had no choice but to pull over and let him pee!  Sorry residents of Malibu.  Sorry Malibu Barbie!

We met up with our friends and did dinner and the beach.  We then decided to stay at their place for the night, so we could spend more time visiting...instead of getting a motel northward in San Luis Obispo.  Emi is one of my BFF's from high school and she is one awesome woman!  I enjoyed spending time with her (and her husband and kids) SO much!  And as an extra special treat, her sister Amy was in town visiting.  It was nice to catch up.  Saturday night Emi gave me a rad new hair cut!!  Emi is a super talented hair stylist, in addition to all of her amazing talents.



Sunday:
We woke up to pouring rain.  Seriously.  A lot more than we get in Portland.  We went to church with Emi and her family, then came back to their house.  Still pouring.  The palm trees were blowing sideways.  I wish we took pictures.  It was amazing.  We hung around for a few hours until it let up enough to get through on the coastal highway.  We left to drive to our motel in San Luis Obispo.    It was scary.  REALLY scary.  Flooding everywhere.  Torrential downpours.  Slippery roadways.  Crashes.  But we made it.  (SLO is about half way between LA and San Fransisco).   



Monday:
We woke up to a soggy world, but the rain was gone.  We drove around San Luis Obispo and checked it out a bit.  We drove down to the beach, drove back to town, found Brent's parents' houses (where they lived as teenagers), we drove past the church where his parents met, we visited bubblegum alley, and we hiked the tall mountain right in the middle of the city.  And...we pretty much fell head over heels for San Luis Obispo.  What a GREAT little city!!  It's a college town (Cal Poly).  It is cute and little and charming.  It has lots of open spaces.  It's inland a little bit, surrounded by tree dotted hills and mountains...about 15 minutes away from the beach.  AH!  Perfection in a city.  We seriously would not mind living there someday.  Maybe when Brent decides to switch careers and become a college professor we will move there!

Toby pointing out some poison oak!

The view of San Luis Obispo!  BEAUTIFUL little city.

The hills are alive...

Then we took off to visit San Fransisco.  We did a quick driving tour for the boys' sake.  The last time we went there Joshua was 14 months.  So we drove around town, to Golden Gate Park, to the wharf, to Chinatown, to Coit Tower, down the crookedest street, and then over the Golden Gate Bridge.  We stayed in a {VERY} cheap motel that night in Vacaville.  We'll uh, skip stayin' in that town next time 'round {scary!}. 
 
  




Tuesday:
We simply cut our losses and drove up to the Mt. Shasta area to visit Brent's brother and his family.  Then we drove home.  No big sur :-(.  No camping.  :-( 
But we still had a pretty amazing time!