Spring Break - Road Trip

I am an event coordinator, for Oregon's largest alcohol catering company. We provide beverage service for essentially all of Oregon's largest events, as well as 90% of the fairs, and festivals. In addition to that, we also handle corporate parties and weddings. If there is alcohol, we do it! We also have several large events in Washington.

Therefore, I manage all the details, and licensing for these very events. So, by nature... I plan. That being said... my husband said to me "Lets take a road trip down hwy 101, and make no plans". UMMMMM WHAT!!!!! No plans?!?!

Apparently this is one of his childhood memories, where his family just hopped in the car, and drove. Where ever they ended up, is where they ended up and let the chips fall where they may. That is pretty 1000% not me!

We merely had a departure day, and no return date. I was NOT allowed to make any hotel plans. Now, I am one of those people who worries about the "good" hotels selling out on holiday's and peak season travel. So the whole ideal of not having a hotel booked.. KILLED ME!

Phil assured me that we would be fine. But just to be safe, he would pack sleeping bags and a tent. Yes... a tent. Now you may not have gathered this about me yet, but I dont exactly "camp". I used to camp, before kids.. and when I simply didnt wake up feeling so old. But I do not camp any longer. I dont like the idea of dirty children, nor running them to a bathroom in the middle of the night. I dont like the idea of having to roll off a half inflated air mattress in the morning.. feeling cold to the bone, and then ungracefully getting up off the ground.

None of that really sounds all that appealing to me any longer. I do think I could camp in Hawaii, as I know I wouldn't get cold and basically everything there is associated with amazing. But it is still a stretch.

Anyway, we headed south from Salem and took the back roads through Kings Valley to head to Newport. From there we headed south on Hwy 101. We made a few stops and picked up lunch in Coos Bay. Above you can see some beautiful pictures of the glorious views we had as we drove.

Now, being that I am not a fan of Oregon and I associate rain and cold with here. My goal was to drive until we hit Cali. My husband knew this, and really wanted it all to be impulsive. We discussed staying in Brookings. This was likely as close to Cali as I was going to get.. so I rolled with it.

We stopped at the Dinosaur place. Jaxson was not interested in walking through, so Phil and Brady did. We just kept on plugging along. This worked great for me. I feel guilty saying my home state doesn't offer much, because it is beautiful. But, I really am just not an Oregonian at heart.

I was looking at hotels online as we drove, there in Brookings. Our goal in part of our trip was to keep it relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, Phil wanted to push my comfort boundaries. I was willing to give that to him.

So as we entered Brookings, I had found a few hotels with reasonable prices and at least from the pictures online, the rooms seemed decent enough. We agreed to a place and pulled in. He sent me in to book the room, and I made sure to negotiate the price down. I get the key and walk out. Phil asks me if I am sure about staying there. I am like.. Yep.. we are good. So as he drove the car towards the room I walked.

THIS is when I walked past a room with two vans, they had two six foot tables out front with large bowls and scales. This should have been a sign. But this is a fishing town, so..... ya know. I am trying to be open minded. We walk up to the room and I unlock the doors. The boys go to toss their items down on the beds and I instantly say "no.. not there. Place them on the table for now." That should have been a sign. All the same, I strip the beds, as I usually do in any place. I realize I really need to use the bathroom, so I go in there and the bathroom is dirty. Like visibly dirty. So I grab my cleaning wipes and clean off the toilet and areas which I may touch.

As I am in the bathroom, Phil says to the door "We are not staying here. When you get out, grab your stuff and go to the car." and I am like "Ummmm ok, are you sure?" (this is me trying to "rough it") and he is like "Yes.. we are NOT staying here. I will tell you about it once I get our money back". I try to tidy up the room and put the bedding back on the beds, grab our bags and head down. Phil was given the refund and as we pulled out.. he looked at me and said "Those people were doing meth. I could smell it, and no way will you and my children be staying there. If I could smell it, it would effect all of us."

The news of this make me feel absolutely sick. Like I literally feel like I want to vomit. A headache sets in, and he heads south. At this point, I am like.. I just want to leave Oregon and leave this horrendous town!!!!

We quickly arrive in Crescent City, and our options are pretty limited there as well. So Phil suggested we drive until we find the newest hotel. We came upon a Best Western, which looked like it was newly built. So Phil says... let me go check it out.

He comes out smiling, and said.. the lady gave us a key to look at a room. As long as we are happy, then it is ours. I told her about what happened and she thought we would be happier if we could see the room first. I agreed. Then he smiled and said "Hey... it can't be too bad, because no one is smoking meth outside!" --- I couldn't help but laugh a bit. We were out of Oregon, we were far away from that town, and this place seemed nice enough.

I do have to say, I am used to Hilton, W, Westin, Marriot, you get the picture. This was my first Best Western experience. It turned out, and maybe because of how horrible the last room was.. but it was really quite nice. I have found a fondness for the Bestie.

We spent some time in Crescent City exploring about the town, and the boys decided to eat at IHOP. Honestly, aside for dining of that nature, I am not sure what else that town had to offer.

Crescent City was really a beautiful little town, and if I had to live on the mainland... I suppose it would be an ok place to be. It is small, lacks most amenities I prefer. But I loved the older cottages close to the ocean and the sense of community in that area.

The following day we left and headed south for the Redwoods, and to drive through a tree.. and onward to Fort Bragg.

After the Trees of Mystery, we hit up Arcata to see the President McKinley statue. He is a Great X Uncle, and I thought my grandma would enjoy me taking a picture of good ol Uncle Bill.

Then we stopped at Left Coast Brewery to grab lunch! Then we drove through The Avenue of Giants, and one of those drive thru trees.

We went from 101 and cut across to Hwy 1, to come in on the north side of Fort Bragg.

I can say, it is one of the craziest roads I have ever been on. I was happy to see the ocean once we finally emerged. Again I searched hotels and found a good ol Best Western on the north end of town, which also had an indoor heated pool. So, we figured we would try there first. We settled on the hotel, took in our bags and went out to explore.

My big reason for wanting to go to Fort Bragg, is to see the glass sand beach, which eventually will no longer be, through time. So this was a good time to check it out. The story of WHY it is, is really disgusting and sad, but all the same it was truly beautiful!

We decided to hit up the grocery store for dinner. We like to eat out, and we do it often. But sometimes, we just really want some sort of normal food. The boys chose something from the deli, and I found a delicious salad! We were all happy!

The next day, we took off and headed south. We figured we would drive Hwy 1 south until we decided to cross. We had considered taking 1 until we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, but again. No plans.

Now little did Phil know, I had made plans. The following night we were going to stay at my friend Lori's house. The boys are friends where her kiddos JJ and Julianna, and she is one of my best friends. I know he didnt want plans, but I had to make the executive call on this one.

My hope was to get to San Fransisco, that just meant the closer I was to warmer weather, sun, and my friend!

As we proceeded down Hwy 1, there was very dense fog. At one point were were driving 15 miles and hour, and basically I was pretty sure the way the road was.. which I am certain was a cliff on each side. I was driving, and I usually dont get freaked out easily in those situations. But I felt like my heart was going to pound out of my chest.

After we made it out of that, we both decided we wanted to head inland as soon as possible and get out of this horrible and scary fog!

So after Bodega Bay, we cut across to Santa Rosa. The boys were getting tired of being in the car. Well despite no plans, I had researched pretty much every single little thing there was to do at every potential stop along the way. So..... we found the Peanuts statues in Santa Rosa!

After that, and some delicious In And Out Burger.. we headed south to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Again, no specific plans, no hotel... just driving.

The boys were really excited to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and while we were in traffic, and waiting. We had some little boys who needed to use a bathroom badly.

Once we made it across the closest thing, that I assumed would have bathrooms available to us, was The Palace Of Fine Arts. Lucky for me, that was on my list of places I wanted to go. So I find a spot close by, and Phil and Jaxson book it towards the palace to find bathrooms. Me and Brady leisurely make our way while trying to keep an eye on where they are going.

Naturally I can't stop taking pictures, and I am taking in the architecture and beauty. We realize we lost the other two and finally find them inside the exhibit hall in some Kids Tech thing. We pay to go in, and it was super cool. Brady was using an iPad to drive around a robot and talk to people and navigate the area. There was virtual reality games, and all sorts of stuff that Brady went crazy about. After we left, we wandered around and took it all in.

We were realizing that it was nearly 4 pm, and we wanted to get out of the city before the traffic got too bad. So we made our way back to the car, to head south and see about finding yet another hotel.

Yet again we found another Best Western. We had some food with us, and really didnt feel like eating out again. Eventually we went to Target.. sounded like a good place to buy clearance booze, and a bunch of crap we didnt have room for or need! I decided I did however need Animal Fries again, so a pit stop through In and Out again.

The next day was the day we got to see Lori, however... her kids have school, so we decided to head over to Santa Cruz. We hit up the boardwalk, played some games, did some shopping, had some fish tacos, and when we got the heads up.. headed back to Sky Londa.

We arrived at Lori's and it was just one of those moments were you are like "I'm Home". It was comfortable and I was with my friend whom I love dearly. The kids were happy, and Phil and Lori got into a groove when they both realized they were wonderfully sarcastic.

OMG I love them all so much!!!!!!

Unfortunately for me, the fish tacos that I said didnt taste so amazing earlier in the day.. decided to wreck havoc of me for the rest of the night.

After I was able to get a little bit of sleep, we packed up, said our goodbyes and decided to head back home to Oregon. I was not feeling all that amazing and was really tired after being up all night. My excitement for travel was pretty much over. Had we had more time with Lori, I would have stayed longer.. but we all had our lives to get back to.