The Road Trip

The road trip was scheduled to commence on Sunday, August 7th. My friend Lisa, whom I've known a long time, but not quite as long as Judi, lives in Washington already. She had offered to fly down and drive back up with me. At some point, her niece Alicia called her and said "I'm thinking about coming up to visit, when is a good time"? To which Lisa replied, "Kris and I are driving up, wanna join us?" So on Sunday morning, August 7th, Lisa, Alicia, and I, and 2 cats hit the road. But first...

One last trip to Carolyn's. <sigh>

I got there close to 7, as soon as they opened. I was scheduled to pick up Alicia in Riverside around 8:45 so that we could get to Ontario airport and pick up Lisa as soon as she landed at 9:30. So I got to Carolyn's early. I'm gonna miss Carolyn's. (More on my quest to find a suitable substitute later.)

I did manage to pick up Alicia on time, got to the airport on time, and we were on the road by around 10 a.m.

Our first stop was going to be in Williams, California. It's about an hour or so north of Sacramento. We made really good time. We got in and settled into a rather small room in a motel called The Travellers Inn. It was nice enough, just very small. I'll talk more about the process with the cats in a different post.

We had dinner at this happenin' place in town called Granzella's. In fact, it may be the ONLY thing happening in Williams. The food was good. The thing I'll remember most was their yummy potato salad at the salad bar.

On Monday we hit the road again and made our destination for the day Vancouver, Washington. We made good time, again. We stayed at the LaQuinta. VERY nice room. Comfy and large. Especially compared to the room the night before. We had dinner at Burgerville.

The next morning I agreed to sit in on a conference call with my new job, so while I did that, Lisa and Alicia went to a place called Fatty Patty's for breakfast. Alicia found it on her phone as I recall. They brought food back for me. I thought it was really good.

We hit the road once more around 10:30 or 11:00. Destination: a stop for a SECOND conference call with the new job (yes, even though I hadn't officially started yet. Can you say "brownie points"?) We stopped in Federal Way at a Starbucks for the 2:00 conference call. Once that was over we headed to Lynnwood where I got a room at another LaQuinta for the night. Why LaQuinta? Because they allow pets. We got the kitties settled and headed to Mukilteo to get Lisa and Alicia home.

Lisa made dinner (it was really nice to get a home-cooked meal), and then Lisa, Linda, Alicia and I got into our cars and headed back down to the hotel again. One quick check in on the kitties and we all piled into Lisa's car and drove down to check out (at least the outside) my new apartment and the new neighborhood. Turns out it's only about 20 minutes from Lisa and Linda's place in Mukilteo!

Back to the hotel for the night brings us to the end of the road trip.

The trip itself was really rather uneventful. The car did well. I'd had a bunch of work done on it several weeks before the trip, and I put new tires on it the Friday before we left. We got good gas mileage (as "good" as it goes with the Cruiser--it ain't great). We all shared the driving. I had fun. I think maybe Lisa and Alicia had fun. I think maybe Louise even had fun. Not sure I can say the same for George...