Across Country: September 2011

I had planned to make Tim breakfast in bed on his birthday, but I was compelled to be a grown up and go to an interview instead. Luckily, the interview was not a waste of time, as I did eventually get the job. Tim also behaved like a grown up that morning, by going to the DMV and renewing his license. I gave him all of his gifts before I left: a new leather belt, a green travel coffee mug, a 3lbs bag of Haribo gummi bears, a new wallet, and a dozen Voodoo doughnuts (to make up for the no breakfast in bed thing).

Once we had finished being adults, we packed up the puppies and got in the car. For lunch we had big ass sandwiches. Literally. We drove to downtown and picked up a giant sandwich to split from the Big A** Sandwich food cart. We then attempted to get ourselves to Sauvie Island without the aid of a GPS. We failed and ended up crossing the St. Johns bridge instead. After we whipped out the geepee, and were quickly back on course. This was our first time back to Sauvie Island, after our accidental visit last year during our trip to Portland. We stopped and got teas, juice box sized wines, and Mexican ice pops from the Cracker Barrel General Store. Then we took a relaxing drive through the country, occasionally stopping for photos and play time. We walked down the beach and showed Newton his first waves. He did not like the river waves, but did enjoy eating lots of sand. After stopping at a farm stand to buy a watermelon, we were on our way home.

Once home we relaxed a bit more before going out for dinner. We went to the Rogue Public House and had a flight of beer. I got baked mac n'cheese with onion rings and Tim got his favorite, fish and chips. When we finally got home for the night, I presented Tim with a chocolate pie, wrapping up our day of eat time. There is nothing quite as nice as a day of snacking and relaxing with the one you love.

Newton had a photo shoot while waiting for lunch.

He is super cute!

Fries, field roast, mushrooms, and onions!

YUM

Nature preserves and hunting grounds on Sauvie Island.

Newton has a giant tongue!

Persie is a trooper, that grass was prickly and tall.

Eating LOTS of sand.

A dirty trash barge and dirty hipsters. That's why I hear you don't swim in the river.

Curious pup.

So many candles for my old man.

The fourth day was the hottest day ever. As we sat in the lobby having breakfast and watching the local weather in Tucson, we saw that the expected high for parts of southern California (the specific parts we would be driving through) was 112°. Not 92°, not 102°, but 112°. We had no idea what this could mean.

It was almost 90° at 9am when we were departing, after loading up our four bike tires, four pieces of luggage, three bags of snacks and books, two cats, one dog, a quilt, a pillow, and a half bag of cat litter. The going was good until we hit California. Every other time we crossed into a new state, the scenery would flip and we would be looking at a completely different terrain. This was no exception. It went from what we considered the desert, you know, plateaus, big tall cacti, and tumble weeds, to dunes. Nothing but big long orange dunes. It was the type of desert where you die. The type where you get so hot and dehydrated that you start seeing mirages of palm trees and watering holes. Luckily we had air conditioning. But just wait.

Since leaving Texas, we had grown accustomed to being stopped at Border Check Points. They were always very randomly set up about 30 miles outside of a major city, not necessarily anywhere near the actual border. These were fine when the temperature was in the 90's. But now it was over 100° and the thought of rolling down the window was unbearable. I'm sure the border patrol guys found us odd. A couple from Virginia with a car full of stuff and a chihuahua in the front seat. They would always ask us different questions such as, "Are you traveling with any fruits or plants today?" and "Do you have any other living things in the car?" or "What are your intentions in this state?" They never asked what I thought would be the obvious question, "Are you hiding someone or something illegal in that pile of junk you have there?" Once I had to lie to the man just to save everyone about an hour of unloading and loading. It was the guy who asked about the fruit and nonnative plant species. I had only brought one house plant with me and it was my foot long cactus, and of course he was at the bottom of the pile. I also had an orange in my purse, but I didn't show him that either.

It was about two o'clock when the air conditioning couldn't take it anymore. At full blast the vents couldn't even cool the air right in front of them. We were in direct sun and were beginning to see our skin burn. I actually wore a hoodie to cool off. Persie tried to get lower in the car, but it did no good. The whole car was baking. And somehow it was still hotter outside. At each check point we rolled the windows down and let in the dry hot air. I was worried that the records were melting at first, but then could only worry that the kitties would melt. I knew that the car was struggling, what with the maximum weight limit being exceeded, the air conditioning running, and the nonstop travel we'd been doing for days. It couldn't continue to cool itself and us, so we shut the air condition off. The first city after the dunes was our pit stop. I think it was somewhere near Coachella. They had a taco place. We got Arizona iced teas and gatorades and gave the car as long of a break as we could afford. The cats were panting in their cages. We needed to get going. We knew that the temperature at our destination, Santa Clarita, was in the 60's and 70's that day. Once we could get over the mountains, it would be cooler near the coast.

We drove through all of the places that we had heard of in movies and in songs like Pasadena, San Dimas, and San Fernando. We were so close, but no, we didn't drive through Los Angeles. We'll be back though. It was a hot day, but we had reached the best state of the drive, and once we got through the dunes, it was amazing. The snow topped mountains and the rolling hills were exactly what I had pictured. And we had a whole day of it ahead of us. And the coast, oh my, the coast. We were thrilled for the next day.

We arrived at the hotel early, around 7pm. We ordered a pizza and bought some good beer. Too tired to go out(and fearing what the cats would do if we left them), we watched some TV and went to bed early, in preparation for the most spectacular and longest leg of the trip.