Hey kids,
I guess it's too late to do a blow-by-blow, day-to-day account of our vacation to the coast. If it had been a longer, more leisurely trip, a daily blog of the whole affair would've been fun, if a tad geeky.
So all I can offer is a compendium of lists.
Firsts:
• First vacation as an entire family that didn't involve visiting or putting up grandparents. And neither set of gp's didn't even bitch that much.
• Wavy's first multi-day outing that didn't involve diapers, pull-ups OR any accidental accidents. Didn't even think about this until we got back. Good for you!
• A world-wide first, I believe, in amount of vomit two small children can expel on any one trip. You guys have the immune systems of one of those pristine tribes of Amazonians that are felled by a common cold. Seriously guys, really?
• Directly correlated to the above first... the first time I have ever tipped the hotel housekeeping staff. Handsomely. I hope the fact that I have never tipped before does not reflect badly on me. There was an envelope in our room when we got there with a polite note from the staff saying that we were free to tip if we wanted to. I just had no idea whatsoever that such things were done, so I googled it, and yes, it's done. Growing up, I stayed in more hotels than you've had hot dinners, and my parents never once tipped the housekeeping. Ah well. These guys deserved it; they happily kept us in clean bedding and towels when a lesser hotel would've kicked us out and spat on us.
• First trip that your daddy and I didn't have some kind of argument. I tend to get pretty peeved when he gets us lost while driving, which he did on several occasions, but that's about it. Actually, for at least a couple days, it was like separate vacations while on the same vacation. As each of you got sick at different times, one or the other of us would chillax at the hotel with whichever kid was sick, while the other two of us would go out and have adventures. Ideally, no one would've been sick, of course, but at least you guys timed it so that you each managed to have lots of fun.
• First trip with the new camera. It was wonderful and comfortable to walk around all day with a camera that's not your daddy's piece-of-crap Kodak. No complaints so far. Well, just one: Not as Mac-friendly as the first version of this camera. I didn't take as many detail shots as I wanted. You know the kind of stuff I'm talking about... door knobs, peeling wood, shoes, rope... THAT kind of shit. Next time. But I got plenty of photos of the two of you.
• First crack at some of those games I liked when I was your guys' age. Before we left, I had bought Candyland and Don't Spill the Beans and Crazy Eights to keep you entertained in the evenings. Jakob, you like to cheat, but you both seemed to enjoy them, although Wavy is a bit fuzzy on rules and etiquette in general.
• Wavy's first trail pee. I thought we were screwed when were hiking and you said halfway through that you had to tinkle. But I asked if you wanted to pee behind a tree, and you surprised me by saying yes. You're normally very fastidious when it comes to toilet habits.
• Our first banana slugs. I've always envied my coastal friends their close associations with banana slugs, while I have never seen one. We managed to get up close and personal with myriad slugs during our hike in the redwoods right outside of Fort Bragg. So yes, they really do exist. I was starting to think they didn't.
• And of course, Wavy's first glimpse of the ocean.
Highlights:
Day one: Left the house at a sane hour, as we are supposedly only driving halfway to the coast. A half day in the car is kinder on you two, as well as kinder on my poor, aching ass. But daddy read the googlemap directions wrong, and we wound up driving three hours out of our way in apocalyptic rain, and taking a route that had zero to offer lodging-wise. We wound up driving 10 hours our first day, and spending our first night a half hour outside of Fort Bragg.
Day two: Our first trip to the ocean. We walked at least a mile or two down the Ten Mile oceanside walkway. Man, this is some cliff-y terrain. We saw lots of ocean, just couldn't safely negotiate our way down to actually touch it. Wavy starts to feel bad and pukes in the parking lot. And oh yeah! It's my birthday! We wind up having $10 Round Table in the room. I had planned to eat a nice birthday steak at the well-appointed downtown brewpub, but things change, and I wasn't too, too disappointed. Well, maybe just a little.
Day three: Jakob has puked all night. It was Exorcist-like. He's too messed up the next morning to go whale watching on the charter boat. But Wavy has perked up a bit, so she and I go while daddy and Jakob stay in the room and watch movies. Only saw a couple of whales from afar, but it is a beautiful day on the ocean. Huge swells, though, and it could've been ugly. You've never been on a boat before, and I didn't know how you'd react. But you enjoyed yourself, kept your breakfast down and said you would do it again. I'm already looking at Santa Cruz and Monterey area boat tours for this summer, as I have promised Jakob a boat ride on the ocean. We also go shopping a bit in downtown Fort Bragg, discover a quaint little ice cream shop on the main drag and have dinner at a divey local eatery. It is weird to be a tourist, as I am actually a townie living near and working in a tourist town, who spends a good deal of time yelling at slow-walking, slow-driving, clueless-seeming tourists.
Day four: Jakob is feeling much better. We drive up and down the coast north of Fort Bragg. Daddy says trips like this are bad for me, cuz I see and start thinking about how the other half lives. You know... the people that have mansions right on the frickin' OCEAN. I am determined to win the PowerBall and retire to one of these cute little artist-hippy enclaves that crowd the cliffsides. We ogle all the nice houses, have lunch at the divey local eatery again, retire to the room to collect ourselves. Later in the day, I take the two of you for a little hike in the redwood forest right outside of town. It's daddy's turn to feel a little unsettled, so it's just the three of us. It's a beautiful afternoon for a hike, but the trail winds on a bit too long, and I'm starting to fear that I have forgotten some of the turns that we have taken once I realize that the trail is not a loop and we will have to backtrack to get back to the car. My fear turns a bit breathless when I realize that we are within sight of a couple of low-slung, dirty tents tucked away, several yards from the trail. Homeless people! Junkies! I'm usually quite amiable with people less fortunate than myself, but when I am borderline-lost in the woods with my two small children, and confronted with what could potentially be a dangerous situation, I'd rather flee than sit down and break bread. Without alarming you (hopefully), I whip us around in the direction from whence we came, miraculously take all the right turns and eventually dump us back out at the trailhead. Ice cream at the quaint little ice cream shop again! Then back to pick up daddy and an easy, cheap dinner at a fast-food establishment that I had vowed we would not patronize during this trip.
Day five: This is the day that we explore the coast south of Fort Bragg. We drive to the
Day six: Wavy has spent the entire night puking and dry-heaving and dozing off, then waking up and doing it all over again. At least she is a neater and more organized puker than Jakob, and will spew into the toilet, or a sink, or even into a cup when instructed to. Jakob on the other hand, will jettison his lunch wherever and whenever, and -- scarily -- will even puke in his sleep. But today is a travel day; we have to get going. Wavy insists that she is fine. We prop her up in her car seat, give her a cup to puke in and hit the road. She and daddy -- who stayed up with her most of the night before -- slept all the way through the Napa Valley route home, and Jakob played his PSP. I had plenty of time to contemplate the extraordinarily beautiful vineyards and landscape, and to figure out the name of my future winery: "Rowan Wolf." I also constructed a wine label in my head, which I will commit to paper one of these days. The plan was to drive as far as Fairfield and go to the Jelly Belly factory for their free tour and samples, but we got to Fairfield, checked into the hotel and crashed for the rest of the afternoon. Later that night, I took Jakob out to a nearby theater to see Alice In Wonderland in 3D, which he loved more than I thought he would. He recounted the entire movie to me, almost scene by scene. Good thing he liked it, the whole evening cost more than a weekend at Disneyland. IMAX 3D movies are insanely expensive, plus popcorn and drinks? Yowza.
Day seven: Everyone seemed pretty healthy, so we decided to give the JB factory a try. It went fine, we got plenty of samples, although at this point in the trip, I was starting to feel a bit queasy myself. Jakob and daddy decided that they wanted to go to the Air Museum, and we spent an insane amount of time getting lost trying to find it, and finally scrapped the whole idea and headed home, which was only about two and a half hours away.
So home now. Back at work. Planning on playing lotto a bit more frequently. Thanks for... well... for being you! Sorry you guys didn't feel better. I'll try to make it up to you. Love you, good night, and sorry this was so much longer than I had at first intended.
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