First RC Thanksgiving

Arrived in Redwood City safe and sound, and I finally got a good night's sleep!

Oh and Thanksgiving went off without a hitch.

The Road Down

Yreka was snow covered in the morning. We had our hotel breakfast and headed down in a straight shot. Almost straight shot. The weather got warmer and the roads cleared and mom failed to buy me candy at a rest stop. We arrived in Redwood City an hour ahead of schedule, so we got sushi at Sakura 2.

The AirBNB

The AirBNB is a house boat...a very small, shabby, bare bones house boat. Not many amenities, or soaps, or space. I'm not sleeping there. Ma and Pa are sleeping there. It has it's charms...kinda.

Nate & Helen's House

After settling in to the AirBNB and taking a nap, we headed over to Redwood City proper to see Nathan and Helen's new house. It's cute. Two bedroom, two bathrooms. Back yard with a pool. Front yard with a yard. We five went out to Vesta for dinner. Fancy pizza place! We had this good pear and cream appetizer and brussel sprout thingy appetizer. The pizzas were sausage and honey, and marghereta, Very delicious! We ate them all with vigor and cleaned our plates.

Back at home, Ma and Pa returned to the houseboat and Garth (who lives with N&H) and I walked downtown to have a few brewksis.

Thanksgiving Day

I was first up at the house and I got my potatoes peeled ahead of schedule. They made it into the crockpot with garlic and milk and butter to turn into mashed potatoes early in the game. But they had a while to go. The turkey was prepped. Helen made two kinds of stuffing and a yam dish and a green bean dish. And bread was toasted. And our apple juice was decanted. And Helen's Dad came over, and Helen's sister and husband and kids stopped by for a little bit. 

The table was set and it looked lovely. My potatoes mashed up great by the way. And were quite the pile of taters. Oh and there was cranberry sauce and gravy too, but were premade by other people. Still very delicious! We sat down and ate heartily. We sat around for a bit, digested, talked, and then had Nathan's apple crisp and some pecan pie for dessert. Then we were totally stuffed. We watched some Netflix then we to sleep. Well, Nate and I stayed up and watched some One Punch Man.

Such a good pile of food.

The Day After (Today)

Ate left overs, then Ma, Pa, Nate, and myself went on the Stanford Dish Hike. A nice long one with hills and a paved walk way. Some nice vistas of the city and mom saw many birds. I was attacked by allergies the whole way through. Not fun. We made a coffee run and returned to N&H's house to chill. I talked about flags, people watched stuff on tv, we had leftovers for lunch. In the early evenings, Ma decided we'd all watch Frozen. So I took a walk by myself around the neighborhood. I'm not a fan of Frozen. Back at their house, we chilled and watched TV and now Nate and I are watching some more One Punch Man.

Tomorrow it's back north!

cold feet

I didn't get much sleep due to Dad's snoring. Tried to go to bed early but my body clock is so set to going to be late. Bad combo.

I had breakfast at the hotel breakfast place. Sausage, eggs, juice, biscuits and gravy. The coffee upset my tummy. I can't drink coffee with milk. Only two sugars for me.

From check out we went to this carousel museum in Albany, OR and it was so cool! They are building a new one from the ground up with basswood animals that are hand carved. Each one is commissioned by someone and they have a say in the design. There's foxes, elephants, unicorns. Some are done, some are still to be carved. It's a few years out from completion but damn that's a cool thing! We talked to this guy that commissioned one, and it turns out he is from Silverdale and the Mickelberry Road is named for his family! Wow!

We walked along the river and I showed Mom how to use her camera and we saw some ducks. From there we drove down to this historic mill and got a guided tour! Which ended up being almost TWO HOURS! And it was super cold. We were all bundled up but I was still super cold. Next time we need to ask how long a tour is to take, because that really ate into our day. We did get to see how the gears still were turned by the water, which was cool but not exactly worth being chilled for well over an hour. Argh.

At least I got to feed the chickens.

From there we just started driving south. It got dark. We listened to Harry Potter. It got cold. We got McDonald's. We decided on Yreka being our stop for the night. Just a bit over the border. Start early.

Now I shall shower so in the morning I can just get dressed and get going. Still have about 6 hours left in the car.

Not New York

I am in Albany! Oregon, not New York. No wrong turns here. Pretty light day of driving. I got up around 9:20, showered, had breakfast, packed up. There was a bit of a delay where we had to jump the battery because it had died. Hopefully it hasn't died in the morning. If it does, we'll jump it again.

We got through about four chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban. Harry Potter are our go tos for road trip audiobooks. We listened to Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets on the last trip.

The nature reserve for today was the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge Area. It was pretty gray and misty but we saw some egrets and tundra swans and other birdies.

We landed in Albany and got a hotel room and got dinner at Elmer's. I got a monte cristo which was kinda squishy with no indistinguishable flavor, but Ma and Pa seemed to like their food.

Before food, we watched Chopped on TV. After food we caught the last hour of The Fifth Element. Now I guess I'll tuck into bed even though it's only 8:30pm.

Beck

I'm in Seabeck in my old new bed. This is such a squishy mattress. Kinda miss the squishyness because the main one is a bit stiff. Hmmm.

Anyway, pretty easy going day. Slept in. Talked on the phone with Ma. Tidied up the house. Then I got to packing up. Clothes, toiletries, makeup, entertainment, technology. One big bag, a backpack, and two totes with my purse. Not all that bad? Also my cooler, because it's a good medium sized one. That cooler is more well traveled than the majority of Americans.

Listened to Emily Heller's excellent album on the way over. So good. Had a nice easy drive. Took it slow, cuz it's cold. Around freezing. It's not supposed to get over 60 in Redwood City for the following week, which is a bummer. I'd like a hotter Thanksgiving.

I finished up my yakult. Damn I love that stuff. And while I bought Yan Yan, I haven't eaten it yet. I'll save that for the road.

So now we shall be off for two and a half days of driving. Hurray.

have a happy Sunday :)

Hey look! I updated yesterday AND I'm doing it today! How 'bout that. Going to try and be better about being regular, because if I do too much of nothing I forget what I've done.

I did my last chunk of work later tonight. A new batch for eBay.

I also vacuuming and did three loads of laundry. One big delicates load, and two smaller heavy loads (one light, one dark). I like to break up my laundry. Every now and again something wedges in the dryer and doesn't dry as it tumbles. Like it doesn't blog the tumble, it just gets stuck between the paddle and side.

Had noodles and yakult. Not together. Put cut avocado on creme cheese on toast for breakfast.

Watched Jessica Jones. Drank cocoa. Tidied up the house more. Tomorrow I pack up for the trip!

Note to self: pack board games, cooler, and clothes. Most importantly board games.