August 2nd, 2007 The Journey begins to end

Today was our shorter drive day. We didn't really realize this until last night when we were mapping our course for today online. We decided we may want to go further, to Ashland or Medford, but when we called to change our reservation, it was too late. So, we decided this was the way it was meant to be. It did allow us the luxury of making one stop we had run out of time for earlier on the trip. It was in our book about things to do with kids around San Francisco. So, this morning around 10:15 we arrived at the Burlingame Museum of Pez. Yes, Pez. You know, the little candy that come in dispensers with heads? That's the one. We got lots of pez-ucation. For example, Pez are not actually from the US. They are from Austria. Also, the first Pez dispensers came out in 1950. And, they did not originally have heads. They resembled a cigarette lighter. So funny. Everyone got to choose their own dispenser. Jacob got Darth Vader (retired, but recently enough that it only cost $3). Jonah got a Nascar helmet. Noah got a character from Over the Hedge. Robb got the boy from Meet the Robinsons. And, I got Chicken Little. We did get some other fun things like Cola-flavored Pez. It was a fun diversion.






Today, we drove from Watsonville to Redding, in the heart of the armpit of California. The projected high for Redding today was 104. Right now, it is 8:05 pm and the current temperature is 95. When we got here, of course we headed straight for the pool. We could not get there fast enough as far as the kids were concerned. We played for almost 2 hours before heading back to the room to quickly get dressed and head to dinner.

Noah did take a "spill" where he fell off the floatation device and went under. Reba pulled him out of the water and he was choking and was terrified. It scared us too. Within 5 minutes, he wanted back in the water.

Self-portrait of a man watching his children play at the pool...Nice hair and puffy eyes from too much driving.

We tagged the Marie Calendar's for dinner as soon as we pulled into town. So, Jacob got his Chicken Pot Pie ("This is the best one I've ever had!"), Noah and Jonah were just happy to get food--you can tell by the pictures how tired out they were at dinner. And Robb and I got salad bar--we decided we don't have any good salad bar places at home! It's the simple things...

Noah was exhausted in the booth--yes, that is his shoe on his hand.

How often do you see or hear Jacob get excited about food unless it is at bedtime each night. He wanted to make sure we brought it back to the hotel in a doggy bag. Before bed, he wanted to make sure it was in the refrigerator to make sure it would keep until tomorrow.

So, tomorrow we have our longest drive. We are off to Portland to see Tim again on our way through. We hope to see his girlfriend Carrie, too. Fortunately, the kids have already been to his house, otherwise we would be plagued with questions about the next pool. Fortunately, they get to start swimming lessons again next week after a 2-month hiatus. So, they won't go through too much withdrawal.

Until tomorrow...