Life in the Slow Lane

Fern Canyon is about an hour north of Eureka. That is, it would be an hour out of Eureka if the roads were not flooded, potholed, and occupied by the stray elk and/or tourist. What with unruly tourists blocking the road with their car to idly wade in the middle of the creek (which coincidentally is also the middle of the road), you'd better plan for at least an hour and a half of drive time. But once you get there, it is like stepping onto the abandoned set for Jurassic Park. Oh, that's because it is the abandoned set for Jurassic Park . Funny thing about that. We'd been warned that we were coming too early in the year to see the canyon at it's peak, but oh. my. goodness. So beautiful. Also, very wet. Like dew lingering on plants in the mid afternoon wet. Like tromping through the creek wet. Like waterfalls oozing from the canyon walls wet. Like CutieLittleBoy falling in the creek wet. This was another one of those adventures where I won...

Besides taking our requisite photo along the California/Mexico border, our planned San Diego activity is staying at the iconic Hotel del Coronado. Or, as people in the know say, “Hotel Del”. Between my knowledge of Spanish and my involuntary editing twitch, I’ve been twitching a lot. Hotel Del is a luxury hotel dating from 1880s. More than a century later, accommodations are still highly sought after, with prices to match. Which is why, our budget being what it is, our stay lasts all of 45 minutes… just long enough for our drinks to be served.  (We intended to order something more substantial at their restaurant, but with 45 minute wait times for simple drinks, we give up after the sunset and find an emptier spot down the street. We also intended to treat the kids’ Aunt Angie for her birthday, but she ends up treating us at a place so fancy they line their trashcans waste receptacles with linen rather than plastic bags. Thanks, Auntie Angie!)   ...

We cheated. On a day not overburdened with practical actions, we did do one small act of practicality. Our vacation plan is to follow Pacific Coast Highway from the Mexico border to the Oregon border. Calculating drive times, we realized that heading south before turning north could add quite a bit of drive time… too much to make our one week of vacation as restful as we might hope. The solution? Do a round trip to the border as a Sunday afternoon drive. Like I said, low in practicality. But if we are going to spend too much time on the road, we should at least spend daylight hours on the route that inspired our trip. South on PCH, return via inland freeways. So yes, we cheated in not traveling a very literal border to border along PCH, but we traveled every stop-and-go inch of PCH through LA County. We deserve the credit. We begin on a still-raining Sunday afternoon. We grab some lunch, strap the kids in the car and wind our way through the mountain range to the sunshiny...

I am not terribly impulsive. Really. Vacation planning aside, I’m a slow mover. But that is not how we ended up starting our vacation on a Sunday afternoon. SOS and I have been trying to decide whether we can afford a vacation this summer. According to our pattern (firmly established over the first four years of our marriage), we have a vacation abroad, then the next year we stay in the States , and then repeat. Away . Here . Obviously, we’re due for something international. Our 1.5 salary disagrees with us, though. To vacation, or not to vacation? That is the question. Then Boss-man tells SOS, I really don’t need you in the office Spring Break. Why don’t you take some vacation? It’s too late to get SmilesBabyGirl’s passport, so we do the best we can under the circumstances: start our vacation at the border. California border to border, here we go! We had CutieLittleBoy be our Vanna and not SmilesBabyGirl in case there was an accidental border crossing and w...