Food coma, driving adventures, overweight cats
So, vacation. Is Niiice. I can stay in bed till 11am and not be guilty for not getting anthing done, cause there isn't anything in the "needs to get done" category. All I have to worry about is surviving food coma, fighting for couch space with abnormally large cats, and trying to figure out how to play Risk. (Yeah, I'm almost 30 and have never played, so I have been smoked twice.)
The drive here was, as usual, one of the things I look forward to. I never take the regular straight major highway route. No, that would be too basic, too trivial for me. It's a road trip, and a roadtrip without a timeline just screams for adventure. So, this year I would discover just what was in between 680 between 580 and the bridge and I-5. Can you guess what is there? Yeah, thought so. Not much.
But, even for flat land that weaves along the boarder of a confused river, it was enthralling. A different approach to the country drive that I'm used to. No mountains, no winding roads with cliffs stretching to the skies on one side and down to the beach/ocean/gullies/rocky unknowns on the other. But still beauty. Beauty to the point that I stopped trying to keep an eye out for where I was going, and ended up missing my turn and getting lost. Once I figured that out, I should have turned around. I mean, a normal person would have turned around. I do want to get to my destination someday.... But then again.... Where does this road go? I think I want to know! I'll just drive a bit further and find out! Eventually I had to pull over and pull out a map, but by that time I only knew what road I was on, I had been following this silly little river for so long everything started to meld together, and nothing on the map made sense. I could have been basically about 20-25 miles west of I-5 anywhere between Stockton and Sacramento. Sounds good to me, looks like I can just keep going and this silly little road and river combo won't do something silly like turn all the way around and head back to my strting point. (That would have made me laugh. And then turn around...)
Fast forward about 30 minutes, and here I am! (Or there I was?) It dumped me out right onto I-5! Talk about door front service; no side road, no town, no middle man what-so-ever. But then again, that means the adventure is over.... (For now, anyway)
So now I sit here at my mom's house. Never really got over yesterdays food coma before attacking the leftovers today... Now it's back with a vengance. The house smells of a mixture of post-Thanksgiving meal and mom's homemade pasta sauce being prepared for tonight. (That's probably why the meter says I've gained 8 pounds since I got here....) (I'll just have to stop reading it....)
Tomorrow will be fun as well. I'll have to say bye to mommy, but I will get to drive home! And what better route than the coast? The same route I tried 2 years ago, but appeared that the mountain was snowed over and the pass closed. Maybe this year will be different. I'll justs have to find out.
That's all we can do, right? Try and find out? Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, but if we don't try in the first place, we have just decided to fail without even the attempt. Hell, two years ago when I tried to make that mountain pass and didn't make it, turned into the largest adventure ever. Long story short, a failed route turned into 3-4 hours of dirt roads, mud, country roads not on any maps, just a curious mind and a long road. Time to try!
p.s. Yeah, the cats really are large. Seriously. Buddy would put up a gallent fight, with a realistic chance of failure, trying to fit into a 5 gallon bucket. Thought you would want to know.
Now for that nap.....
So, vacation. Is Niiice. I can stay in bed till 11am and not be guilty for not getting anthing done, cause there isn't anything in the "needs to get done" category. All I have to worry about is surviving food coma, fighting for couch space with abnormally large cats, and trying to figure out how to play Risk. (Yeah, I'm almost 30 and have never played, so I have been smoked twice.)
The drive here was, as usual, one of the things I look forward to. I never take the regular straight major highway route. No, that would be too basic, too trivial for me. It's a road trip, and a roadtrip without a timeline just screams for adventure. So, this year I would discover just what was in between 680 between 580 and the bridge and I-5. Can you guess what is there? Yeah, thought so. Not much.
But, even for flat land that weaves along the boarder of a confused river, it was enthralling. A different approach to the country drive that I'm used to. No mountains, no winding roads with cliffs stretching to the skies on one side and down to the beach/ocean/gullies/rocky unknowns on the other. But still beauty. Beauty to the point that I stopped trying to keep an eye out for where I was going, and ended up missing my turn and getting lost. Once I figured that out, I should have turned around. I mean, a normal person would have turned around. I do want to get to my destination someday.... But then again.... Where does this road go? I think I want to know! I'll just drive a bit further and find out! Eventually I had to pull over and pull out a map, but by that time I only knew what road I was on, I had been following this silly little river for so long everything started to meld together, and nothing on the map made sense. I could have been basically about 20-25 miles west of I-5 anywhere between Stockton and Sacramento. Sounds good to me, looks like I can just keep going and this silly little road and river combo won't do something silly like turn all the way around and head back to my strting point. (That would have made me laugh. And then turn around...)
Fast forward about 30 minutes, and here I am! (Or there I was?) It dumped me out right onto I-5! Talk about door front service; no side road, no town, no middle man what-so-ever. But then again, that means the adventure is over.... (For now, anyway)
So now I sit here at my mom's house. Never really got over yesterdays food coma before attacking the leftovers today... Now it's back with a vengance. The house smells of a mixture of post-Thanksgiving meal and mom's homemade pasta sauce being prepared for tonight. (That's probably why the meter says I've gained 8 pounds since I got here....) (I'll just have to stop reading it....)
Tomorrow will be fun as well. I'll have to say bye to mommy, but I will get to drive home! And what better route than the coast? The same route I tried 2 years ago, but appeared that the mountain was snowed over and the pass closed. Maybe this year will be different. I'll justs have to find out.
That's all we can do, right? Try and find out? Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, but if we don't try in the first place, we have just decided to fail without even the attempt. Hell, two years ago when I tried to make that mountain pass and didn't make it, turned into the largest adventure ever. Long story short, a failed route turned into 3-4 hours of dirt roads, mud, country roads not on any maps, just a curious mind and a long road. Time to try!
p.s. Yeah, the cats really are large. Seriously. Buddy would put up a gallent fight, with a realistic chance of failure, trying to fit into a 5 gallon bucket. Thought you would want to know.
Now for that nap.....