Driving the West Coast

Hola all my beautiful readers (all 2 of you)!

We have transplanted ourselves for the next 7 months in sunny SoCal. The past few weeks have been a blur of traveling, packing and cleaning in preparation for our new adventure. Quite like our trip to Japan three years ago, Tim is here for work and I get to tag along.

Our adventures really started on Friday night. Our plan was to pack the car and clean the condo all day and leave early Saturday morning. I was convinced we were overpacking. Tim was adamant that it would all fit. We did eventually get most of our stuff in the car, but it looked something like this...

I had to leave behind a few kitchen items, but other than that we stuffed it all in there. Literally. 

Sidenote: This was an extremely frustrating time, but when we realized that we could save a lot of room by cramming our shoes in to all of the little gaps between luggage and boxes, I went berserk. I probably sounded like a crazy person with all of my laughter. The joke: "I'm wedging in my wedges!" 

We managed to get 99% of our stuff done and went to bed much too late. The next (early) morning, we finished the last 1%, squeezed ourselves into the stuffed Rogue and headed South. 

 Our wonderful Sherpak Cartop carrier - I would HIGHLY recommend this beauty for anyone who's going on a road trip and doesn't want to invest in a hard carrier. 

The first day we drove to Oregon...

Crossing the bridge from WA to OR

and ended up at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. I've been here before and I basically begged Tim to stop here for a night and see a show. Thinking that the weather was going to be nice and clear, I bought tickets for the Elizabethan Theatre, an outdoor venue modeled on the Globe Theatre in London. It was raining as we pulled into Ashland and didn't stop until the next morning. Yeah.  

THANKFULLY, we were under the balcony and never got wet. The rows and rows of people in front of us weren't so lucky. At the start of the second act, I would estimate that over 1/3 of the audience had left. I felt bad for them because the show was actually very good. Plus, how can you not love a cast who literally embodies the phrase "THE SHOW MUST GO ON!" The actors were soaked from head to toe, but kept it going like nothing was wrong. It was awesome. 

The set of "As You Like It"

The next morning was substantially better for us. The weather was great! We left Ashland and headed South in California. 

We passed Mt. Shasta...

and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove...

California is a looooooooooong state. I took over driving somewhere around Sacramento and was going a little cuckoo around Fresno. Did you know that Selma, CA is the Raisin Capital of the world? You know what they have there? Farms. Lots and lots of farms. ::cuckoo::cuckoo::

Our night in Bakersfield was completely uneventful - we were exhausted. But all of that hard work paid off, because the next day we were only a short 4 hour drive to San Diego. 

Our plan of driving to our limit on the second day worked, because we got to San Diego a little after lunch and were able to spend the entire afternoon unloading the car and unpacking. While we're not completely moved in - the kitchen is a hot mess - things are progressing well.

Stay tuned - being away from home and family, I might actually be motivated to blog again! :-)