Driving along in California

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Day 5
After breakfast, Brian kicked my ass at Gin for awhile. It was a continuation of him kicking my ass at Cribbage. I thought sure I couuld beat him at my favorite game, but no luck. I'm into him for like 12.70 now (10 cents a point). Bob said if we gambled on the train, we had to give him half. But, we gave him a nice tip instead. You couldn't have asked for a better car attendent. He'd been a railroad man for 35 years. When Clinton did his train tour, Bob was on the car with the Clintons. He said there were two other "dummy trains" and helicopter gun ships flying above. Reminded me of the gunboats I've seen at Kennebunkport near the Bush estate when we went whale watching out of there.

After lunch, we went to the observation car. We were going through the Sieras. This time we were up in the mountains instead of down in the canyons and gorges. It was very pretty, but I think I liked the Rockies better. We sat with a man from Perth. He was very friendly and we learned all sorts of things about Australia. For examples, he said everybody gets 4 weeks of vacation and 21 sick days a year per government agreement. We learned all sorts of things about Australian football and government. He was well traveled in the states and had hoped to live here, but couldn't get permission. He was told he couldn't contribute enough, but it was mostly about him not being able to work enough to contribute to Social Security. He was pretty interesting and he's in the states on a visa for months at a time. I think his hobby is collecting American friends and we stopped short of giving him our address cause I know he's show up on our doorstep.

At lunch time we sat with a couple from Holland. They spoke English pretty good, but were kinda quite. We got talking about kids, they had some the same age, and that opened them up. We're learning that kids are the same the world over. All of the recent empty nesters we've talked to have said the same things. The folks from Holland told us about their farm and their trip to Yellowstone.

When we got to Sacramento only a half hour late, it was 95, but not too humid. We claimed our baggage and found a taxi. The taxi driver was very friendly, spoke with an accent I didn't ask what was and told us about the city as we drove across it. It was rush hour, so we took side streets and it took awhile to get to the hotel. During the ride, while stopped at an intersection we were next to a car with loudly thumping Latino music. When I looked over, a boy or 9 or 10 was in the back seat "car dancing." He kept motioning me to join him. He was such a player and cutey, but I just waved and turned my head to laugh. Brian was trying hard to get me to join him. The hotel was fine, and later when we walked out for supper, the cab driver was passing through the parking lot and waved to us like we were old friends.

We had supper at a Chinese place nearby. It was kinda hot, but yummy and a change from train food. We walked to find the Hertz place as well.

Day 5
Brief rant about stupid people alert: Some people are stupid for no good reason. We walked to the Hertz place in the moring. Only about a half mile away. Hard to get across the busy street, but there's a button to push. I had called this office, they told me they ALWAYS have cars, no reservation necessary, I hate the Hertz website, so I didn't make a reservation. We get there. They tell us they have no cars. We ask him to check for later. Nope, they have no cars, I should call National reservations and see what they can do for me tomorrow. Great. We walk back to the hotel. I call national and I have a reservation for a half hour later, same place, she says they have plently of cars. Great. We call the local place to confirm they got the reservation. Yup. 8:15. We walk back to Hertz. They treat us like human beings this time, but don't have a car there we can take out of state. Great. They call the airport branch and say they'll go get us one. Ready at 9. We go to Target, it was 10 before we finally got the car. But, at least we got it I guess. They took 25 bucks off the bill for us waiting. What a stupid waste of my time.

We're out of town on 80 west and into farm country. We saw olives, grapes, sunflowers, pears and some types of citrus growing. Lots and lots of it. We saw several processing plants but couldn't tell what they were processing.

When we got on CA-20, the scenery turned gold and hilly., It's drier than you can imagine. No wonder they have trouble with fires. We saw a huge encampment of fire fighters along the way. Pup tents in the middle of a dry field and other support structures. There was a lovely lake along the way and some road construction that slowed us down as well. Once on 101 we followed the Eel River and after awhile entered the redwoods. They redwoods are just beautiful. So tall and majestic. We saw several groves and took pictures. We'll go up into the Redwood State park tomorrow and hope to see elk.

We went along the "avenue of giants". There are several kitchy tourist traps along the way, including a BIg Foot museum and gift shop. (I couldn't spot him through the big trees). We stopped at one, and I bought a T-shirt (Ha Kelsie, 5 days and I've only bought 1 t-shirt!) We had just commented that we didn't want to stop at any place there weren't cars, because we'd get the hard sell. We got it at this place anyway. Guy was moaning about loss of buisness. I think 101 has passed them by. The older road we took was two lanes and about like route 26 in Newry only lined by canyons of redwoods. But he was nice enough in a weird way.

Tonight we're in a comfort inn in Eureka. I saw the Pacific. Hope to see more of it tomorrow. If you don't hear from me again, I did see the sign that says we're in a Tsunami warning zone. California is big on signage. They tell you about everything. The town of Newry would go broke.

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