A Bridge, a Barrel, and Bakersfield

We said goodbye to Ukiah and the (best yet) Comfort Inn before breakfast. We had over six hours of traveling ahead, plus tourist stops, and breakfast wouldn't be served until 7:00 am. Too late! At 6:28 am, the day was already gorgeous and sunny, and we passed one winery after another along 101S, through Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, names we had heard only on TV until then. Breakfast could have been at a Golden Corral for a fantastic buffet, but, alas, there were none to be found, so McDonald's in Windsor it was.

We paid the $6.00 toll to use the Golden Gate Bridge, which had very little traffic that Sunday morning, arriving there just before 9:00 am. After dropping a few quarters in the meter, we followed the rest of the tourists to the viewing area. The day was only slightly foggy, and we appreciated our good fortune in having such a clear view of everything, except Alcatraz, which was slightly fogged in. We walked and snapped and learned that, on a clear day, bridges are easy to photograph. A little shopping for a T-shirt, hat, and a mood ring, and after forty minutes we were ready to move on.

After asking Susie the age-old question, "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" we were off again on 101S, right through the lovely city of San Francisco. We saw cable cars, lots of people, hilly streets, but no Rice-a-Roni. No matter, we were going to see the Winchester Mystery House, which Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester Rifle company, kept in perpetual construction until the day she died. There were crews in the house every day, and as anyone who has ever had any home remodeling, this had to have gotten old fast. Since we chose not to take the $31.00/pp tour, we would never know why she did what she did. We did, however, overhear a tour guide pointing out that Sarah Winchester's bedroom was adjacent to the head carpenter's... The estate was stunning from the outside, and Bonnie and I enjoyed the gardens while Clyde and Donald checked out the small weapons museum. By 12:00, we had seen and shopped enough, and it was 100 degrees. Time for lunch. Cracker Barrel was on the dance card, but we came upon a Marie Callendar's in Gilroy, and couldn't say pass it up. We skipped the pie, however, and got onto 152E, the first step of our journey towards home. It was June 28th, Day 12 of 24.

We reached the Mohave Desert, and watched the temperature gauge rise. There were several signs along the highway that read, "Congress Created Dust Bowl". We saw the Pleasant Valley State Prison, a classic oxymoron. We stopped at a rest area, and saw a family of five in a very small car from British Columbia, with windows wide open, all red-faced and sweaty. It was 111 degrees and they had no A/C in the car, the poor things. What could have been important enough to that family that they subjected themselves to this? Along the way we saw paddle cactus - not the scientific name - by the roadside. I'll let you guess how easy they were to photograph from the back seat of a car moving at 70 mph.

It was 116 degrees by the time we reached the Clarion in Bakersfield (hometown of Kevin Harvick, driver of the #29 Shell Penzoil car). Balmy! Roll those suitcases in with jaunty steps because there IS an elevator. Supper was at the Macaroni Grill on Buck Owens Boulevard, and was fantastic and my favorite meal of the vacation. The restaurant was not very busy, although it was actually a normal supper time, not the early bird time, and our server confirmed that the recession had hit Bakersfield particularly hard. We did our small part by eating, sleeping, and fueling in that city, and hoping that economics would soon improve.

We went to sleep with the realization that, with all that we had seen and done, vacation was only half done.