Quick! Back to the Blog!

I've just finished something like three weeks ashore and realized almost too late that I haven't really managed to update my blog in all that time. Oops.

To make up for it, I'm blurting out a small splattering of writings that I've halfway thought out and a few pictures that I took despite the fact that I was without my camera for most of the time in question. I will begin here with....

The Road Trip to Kick Off Vacation

When last I wrote, it was all about the New Year's Eve party. The next day was mostly spent waiting for my designated driver to recover from her hangover. We got a slow start much later than planned, and the big concern was going to be the weather in the mountain passes we'd have to drive over on Interstate 5 as we headed south.

Along the way, we stopped for a quick lunch and some time to catch up with my mom's friend Joy. She's been living in Washington state for some years now and this is only the second time I've been able to visit her since I started high school. Unlike last time, I managed to take a picture this time:


At the end of a thoroughly enjoyable visit, we set out in earnest. As we headed toward miserable weather, at least one little dog viewed our departure with concern:


Heeding that concern, we decided to head West once we were South of Portland. This meant avoiding the snowed-in passes and getting some great views of the Oregon coast:


It also meant adding several hours to our trip, so by the end of the first day we still hadn't made it to California and we were both too tired to drive.

The next morning we started out bright and early and quested our way South along Highway 101. Along the way we found a garden gnome:


I wanted to keep it, but Ana wouldn't let me. This probably had something to do with the potential trouble we'd've had fitting it into the car:



While we were gnome-shopping, the little dogs were finding trouble in the car:

Poor little rat dog still looks worried, doesn't she? I suppose she was right to be somewhat trepidatious though. Later that afternoon was the first time Ana's little, bite-sized-snack dogs would meet my larger, hungrier, highly predatorial dogs.

Fortunately there was no blooding of any kind. After the obligatory butt-sniffing, my two crackheads went back to their own business and let the little dogs alone to cower. It all went pretty well.