Day 94: San Francisco and Santa Rosa
Mondays are still super busy with calls and meetings, so we made it a super drive day with a bunch of stops for important calls. The drive along the coast was breathtaking. Our stop for the morning included a view of the ocean.
I won’t miss the tunnels and height warnings and the panic that sets in when we see the signs out of the corner of our eyes. In California they said tunnel ahead and then listed codes for the rules that applied. Often propane is not allowed in a tunnel, but who has a way to decipher codes while driving? We made it through.
We headed through San Francisco on the drive and got to see where Rob’s office is when he comes here for work. Traveling over the Golden Gate bridge was another highlight. The crazy weaving drivers passing in all directions while on the bridge was not a highlight for me, but fortunately Rob was driving this portion. We stopped on the other side for a couple of pictures and then hit the road again.
Our next destination was Santa Rosa, mostly because Rob wanted beer from the Russian River Brewery. We were parked in a rougher part of town, so Rob opted to walk to the brewery while the rest of us stayed back with the RV. The smile on his face when we picked him up with two cases of Pliny the Elder in his arms was priceless and made this stop well worth it.
Cooper had been begging to get In-N-Out while in California, so we made that our take-out dinner stop. Since it was already 6 p.m. we knew it was going to be a late night of driving, so we had the boys change into jammies and brush teeth before hitting the road.
I had just told my sister the night before that night driving on windy, 2-lane roads wasn’t my favorite. It turns out I would get even more practice today, driving 2.5 hours in the dark to get us from Santa Rosa back east to our stop along I-5 for the evening. Not knowing the shape of the curvy road ahead or being able to see anything just a few feet off the road is always a bit unnerving to me, but we made it safely, again. Cooper was my copilot, while Rob worked at the table and Nicholas relaxed buckled into the couch. At Cooper’s request we listened to Christmas music the entire time. At one point Rob asked if Cooper wanted to come lie down at the table, but he sweetly said “don’t try to take away my Mama time.” That kid loves a captive audience, and I love it too.
Rob found us a stop at the Colusa Casino, 15 minutes off the freeway. I pulled through a Love’s gas station lot to see if we wanted to stay right off the freeway, but there was no good place for us, so we continued out to his destination. It ended up being super quiet, giving us one of the best night’s rest we’ve all had.