After our fun bicycle ride in the morning to the Capitol building, the Olympic Game Murals, and the STOCKTON and MALONE statues outside the Jazz's Arena, we washed up, packed up, ate the FREE breakfast (you bet) in a nice little breakfast room.
Then, we headed for CALIFORNIA-- the UPS Store in Grassvalley, CA, to be exact. That is where Cara got her fingerpints taken in order to get her California RN Licensure. After a long, long drive, only stopping for gas (where we did manage to take some good pics of the salty landscape) we got to the store with not just 6 or 8 minutes to spare, but a full TWELVE MINUTES before closing time!
We'd checked, though, before that point with the nice UPS worker there, and he said it'd be quick and didn't mind.
So, we made it! Over 2300 miles in 3 days! Here's the proof, with other neat facts about the trip:
And Cara, with her electronically printed fingers:
So, boy that was fun, but that was only the beginning. That night, we stayed at a little Reservoir (see me and the cheesecake in the last post) called Scotts Flat. Our UPS friend said it was pretty nice, and we had no other ideas, so we went for it. Boy, were we thrilled when we saw our camping spot-- just beeeeautiful:
The whole layout, and our chariot with Xcargo:
Some real, lovely Bob Ross stuff. It was truly hard to believe. And all these lovely shots are brought to you by Tripod 2000 XL-- here I am happy to have him (thanks Uncle!):
This was a pretty neat view, too:
So of course all of this was a great start to our three-day waiting period (how long it takes the Board of Nursing to process the fingerprints, supposedly). We were having a great time, and I was especially engrossed with my tripod set-ups when Cara snapped a shot with her camera:
No-- that is not just a picture of a Ziploc bag on a tree stump... See the little thing behind it?
This may help:
Ta Da! Yep, that's right, it's a squirrel. And that's not just an empty Ziploc bag-- it's the bag of GORMP given to us by Aunt Kathy before we left! He really is trying to get into the Peanuts! (and raisins and M&Ms)
Sadly, I missed this little guy, whom I would have loved to have seen since I always like seeing little squirrels and chipmunks running around. They're fun. Although, they're more fun when they're not tearing holes in your GORMP bag and making off with it.
So, after that little episode and the tent set-up, we bought a few supplies at the store up the street and enjoyed a nice little campfire that night. We cooked up some tasty hot dogs and mallows then slept under the stars.
In the morning, we cooked up some eggs over a new fire-- which by the way was started with one match! I even skipped the newspaper!
Of course, this is less impressive considering that I had all those highly flammable pine needles everywhere.... hence the terrible natural disasters going on all over the state : (
Still, it was neat having our little hot meals. Then, we took down the tent, which brings me to my next bragging point: I fit it in its original bag, no problem... yep, I know! Awesome.
We loaded up the car, said goodbye to the site and to our gormp-eating friend, and headed out. About 4 minutes after leaving the gate, Cara fortunately realized she didn't have her camera. So, we pulled over and looked in her purse, in the bag of stuff, in the other bag of stuff. Still nothing, so we searched in a few other spots and then began to panic. We went back to the campsite, searched the table, ground, bushes, tree stumps, etc... nothing. I even ran up the road, just in case we had done the old leave-it-on-the-roof thing. Nothing. So, the last resort was to unload EVERYTHING out of our packed car. We did. And we searched every bag, under the seats, etc. It took a while. Then we began to come up with suspects:
A. the only other campers, who were 4 sites down
B. the trash guy who had come earlier
C. That dog-gone SQUIRREL!
Well, the other campers were gone, so we couldn't ask them; a worker came by and he hadn't gotten word of a found camera; and we couldn't track down the squirrel. It was hopeless. Then, Cara, with tears in her eyes (almost all our videos and pictures were on that camera, plus it was a great camera) asked me to open up the tent, which I had earlier told her "There's no way. That things packed tight. I would have felt it..."
But, since there wasn't nothing else to do, we opened it up, and what did I feel? A lump! Unbelievable! (Guess I shouldn't have been so impressed by my tent packing, eh?)
Here she is clutching her wayward camera:
Sweet relief. But, it did set us back and hour and a half. So, we left for San Francisco a little later than expected.
So, that meant we got to SF in the late afternoon, and just had a nice seafood dinner at a restaurant near our hotel, the Castle Inn. It was actaully a motel, I guess, if Motels are the places where rooms open to the outside, but either way, the best part was the elevator, which was really old fashioned and had a regular, hinged door on it! Prrrrretty neat:
The dinner was very good. It was a place called Yabbi's, which we stopped in after taking a walk down a few blocks past a bunch of restaurants, bars, and shops. City nightlife--almost as exciting as old-fashioned elevators for people from NE Ohio!
It was a nice stay, althtough the most surprising part was the ICY lady at the front desk. I wouldn't usually bother telling the story, but she was a real doozy!
The first moment was when we were checking in. We had booked on hotels.com, and they had told us we had a King room. The guy at the front said, "Oh, well sure, you want one, you can have one." But this lady, standing behind him looking at the books, DID NOT THINK SO.
"NOPE. One queen room." The guy kind of joked and started talking about something else... she, grouchy, was still mumbling, "At that price, one queen is it..."
Clearly, she was born to be in customer service. (This all was in response to "Oh, they had told us we had a king." which that had...) We didn't care to fight about it; we were just telling them what the site told us. Guess that was a poor choice!
Then, in the morning got up about 9, I looked on the computer for tourist traps, and we headed out a little before 10. Checking out, I asked her about the breakfast... woopsy!! What a silly idea!
The best part: There was a long silence; I wondered if I had misread the website or something. Or maybe she didn't hear me?
But then I realize the lady's not responding because she's busy removing her spectacles. Hmm, seems odd, I thought. She slowly folds them up, looks me very squarely in the eye, and says, "Yes, there was breakfast... UNTIL 9 O'CLOCK"
"Oh, ok..." I said. "It ended an hour ago." she said.
(Thanks for doing the math for me.)
We got our receipt and grabbed 2 extra-chocolaty Hot Cocoas on the way out the door, requesting that she "Have a nice day." (please?)
Clearly, again, she was born to be in customer service...
(I hoped I've done justice to the removal and folding of her glasses in order to let me know breakfast ended at 9-- one of the most remarkable things I've ever been a part of. Just remarkable.)
So, we headed out with a bikes on the back of our car, ready to ride the Golden Gate Bridge. But, since I trust you got a bit fatigued reading all this about 5 minutes ago, I'll save that--and more--for the next episode, including:
-Wow! You road your bike from down there!?
-Why does that guy have his arm around your wife? And why's he SILVER??
-What's are those blobs behind Cara?
-Neat modes of transportation!
And
-Look at how sweaty that guy is! (Is this the hottest day of the year in SF?)
Indeed, the fun had only begun... until then, a little preview:
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