A Trip Well and Flawlessly Planned

It was lacking somewhat, however, in execution.

It was my job to plan the first 4 days of Stephanie's vacation; the portion for which I would be traveling with her. We were to leave San Diego Friday, arrive at her friend's house in LA before too terribly late at night, and then set out on a meandering drive up the coast, ending up in San Francisco at some point so that we could enjoy the city and she could do a little networking. I should have guessed that things were to go amiss as soon as we discovered that her friend was, in fact, out of town this weekend, and we had to re-think the Friday part before we even left. I think though, that we were so excited, after a long work week, to have an extra day to pack and plan, that we actually took it as a good omen. Oh HO! How wrong we were.

The drive up to San Louis Obispo was nice enough, and we even managed to find the local sea food restaurant off the coast highway, located on a pear, perched at the dead end of the road that led from the highway, down to a little tourist town and out into the bay. We arrived precisely at dinner, found easy parking and had no trouble getting a table. We were golden. We were the gods of planning and the plunders of fresh seafood and local wine were ours for the taking.

After a brief walk to aid the digestion, we got back in the car and headed north to find a good stopping point and a place to stay. We had been assured by those in the know that this was the best way to handle accommodations, rather than making a reservation and struggling to arrive at exactly that coastal town by bedtime. Those in the know, however, were not in the know about the Grand Prix in Monterey nor about the convention in Santa Cruz, nor the one in San Jose. We drove north and north; along the coast; and north through Big Sur (where we started to see cars pulled over on the side of the windy mountain roads, presumably sleeping families within) and north through Carmel and Monterey, and North and North (and then a little bit east just for good measure) until it was 2:00AM and clearly time to pull over at a rest stop called Casa de Fruita (more on this later) and get a little sleep ourselves. Luckily, no one killed us in our sleep. I rested fitfully, nonetheless and-- ever vigil-- awoke at nearly every sound, arms flailing and ready to defend Stephanie against the insane dwellers of the north central California Valley desert (but instead mere bonking Stephanie in the head with an elbow in the process. She barely stirred we were so tired).

The rest of the trip planning went well. My exceptional idea of driving up to Long Beach separately so that I could leave my car there and pick it up Tuesday when I flew back from Oakland would have worked too, had I not left my keys in Stephanie's car in San Francisco...

doh.