Last week we took this speed road trip north to visit the Navy Post Graduate School in Monterey.
We had to plan our driving around the boys' schedule, which mean we had to hit the road between 4 and 5 a.m. while they were still sleeping. Our other goal was to get ahead of LA traffic as fast as we could. The boys woke up at their regular time around the time we neared the Grapevine, so we stopped at McDonald's for breakfast. We even bought a lottery ticket at some quick mart/liquor store in the middle of nowhere because that seems to be where winning tickets are bought...
I got to drive from the Grapevine to Fresno. It's straight, flat, and boring. We also had to pass a couple of areas with tons of cows; very smelly. James took a quick nap so I was also entertaining the boys (who are self-entertained by K-Drama soundtracks anyways.) When James woke up we were somewhere in Modesto County. He got the wheel and said to look for the junction west...I looked at the directions and saw "Paso Robles." I told him I saw Paso Robles when I was driving -- about an hour ago! He said "WHAT?!" I said "yeah, when I saw the sign for Paso Robles I thought about an earthquake that hit there a few years ago and how a lot of the historical building got damaged." He asked why I didn't wake him...I said I didn't know!
Still with the minor detour north we got to Monterey by 1:30 p.m. Not bad for such a long drive at such an early start! I made the comment that if we were driving all these hours in another part of the country we probably would have gone through many states. Of course only in Texas would this much driving not make much of a dent...
We visited the grad school, Navy Housing office and both housing communities. The Navy Lodge is nice; not 5-star, but more like 3 3/4-stars but each room has a kitchenette and there's a laundry facility downstairs. James met a family who'd been staying there for 3 weeks before Navy Housing got them into a house. We also found a strip mall that has Target, Albertsons, Boston Market, Borders, a bagel place and coffee place. Down the road is Costco and Home Depot...knowing those places are close by will make it a lot easier to move there!
We also visited the preschool that Noah might be attending. It's for military kids govt. employee kids...the schedule seems really close to what he's used to now. I hope he will like it. We really like our current preschool that I'm already missing it and we've not moved yet.
At least we have this advantage of getting up there to look around and get the lay of the land. We were totally at loss when we got to Hawaii - and it didn't help that within a week after getting to Hawaii James had to go out with his ship for a week! Hawaii had mosquitos and geckos...both totally gross!!!! In Monterey we saw wild turkeys and deer. That was really surprising, but looking around, on one hand it's a seaside town, but on the other hand, there's wooded areas too. At least turkeys and deer are easy to spot. I hated getting bit by mosquitos and finding geckos in the closets and outdoors. (I shudder at the memory.)
The day we left Monterey, we got in the car at 4:30 a.m.! We decided to take another route home, the 101 south (the one that was on the directions) That was so fast! It was mostly downhill and there were signs of "wind gusts" so that help us go even faster, even if we didn't want to. =)
We capped off our road trip with a visit to James' parents, a stay at the Holiday Inn in Anaheim -- with James' Priority membership we got a $150 hotel room for just $79; that was awesome! Then we took the boys to Downtown Disneyland -- which now Noah thinks he went to Disneyland!!! and then on Saturday we went to a poolside birthday party.
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