Our last State Capitol, Napa Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea

Yay! We processed Cara's Board of Nursing License Application!! Yay!

Why am I trying to make that sound exciting, you say? Well, because it really was the LEAST exciting moment you could imagine--totally anticlimactic:

The office was on the 3rd floor of a plain looking building in some office park; it was a tiny room with 8 pastel-colored chairs, one glass window, and a not-so-talkative receptionist. We filled out one paper, turned in the papers we'd printed out weeks before, and filled out a check for the fee.

Annnnd, so the receptionist said, we were all set! That was it! No receipt, no indication of when it will be processed, no celebratory lights and sirens, not even balloons and confetti, nothing.

Not exciting, and as you'll recall, this was the moment we drove across the country in three days for! Hey hey! We didn't want to take our time ENJOY ourselves, anyway!

But, we'd suceeded at what we needed to do, which was exciting, at least in theory.  Also, Cara went ahead and called the receptionist back and finally got the answer we were looking for: we could check online for the status of our application... (not something she thought she should share with Cara when Cara asked before leaving...?) The good news since: she had her license 5 days later, in plenty of time before being in charge of ICU patients.

And thus began our trip to our (temporary) home in San Diego! With a few trips on the way.

For the first, we drove to the Capitol building from the boring office park. The Capitol was a pleasant surprise-- fun and interesting, and quite lovely:

That's a guy on a horse with some sort of javelin item. Not sure if he was once a Californian legislator or not...
(Oh-- and you should click on that to bring up the big version. I only just noticed this picture gets even better-- Is he about to use the javelin against a bear that is mauling his horse?! Wow.)

We had no idea what to expect, but it turns out that you can go inside and peruse around. The first floor is no longer the home of the Governor's office, etc. That's across the street now, and the first floor rooms are now the recreated offices of the 1900s, as you'll see below. There's a very elaborate lobby as soon as you walk in, and they have some volunteers there answering questions and so forth. Pretty neat...

Secretary of State's Main Office, 1902:

After the first floor, we went up to the third so we could sit in the balcony and observe the state's GOVERNMENT AT WORK!

That's when we got to hear a few state legislators talk about two HOT topics, one of which was Water Softeners!  Actually, I can't really remember anything other than that water softeners was one topic... sorry to disappoint.

(The most "interesting" points:
-one legislator argued for the senate to keep in mind that this would cost apartment complex owners, LIKE HIM, thousands of dollars... and he wasn't even trying to act like this was about other owners. Straight up, it was about him.  I wasn't sure that was really an appropriate point but who knows.
-Almost every legislator was doing something OTHER than listening to the person talking about the issue at hand... chatting with each other, eating snacks, texting, etc. So it was funny to see that one of the most powerful rooms in the state of California probably looked worse than almost every elementary school classroom in the state.)

After that, we ate downstairs at the cafeteria. Tasty Lasagna and Coke:

Next, we drove to Napa Valley. We avoided highways, which meant a more scenic drive:

 

Lots of curvy, hilly roads finally took us to our first tasting room:

 

And second, which had a beautiful patio area.  We enjoyed some of it's specialty, the sparkling type, some cheese, and some lovely views:

Then we got a picture with a huge bottle!

On our way out, nice landscaping:

And for our friends in Akron!

Since it was still early in the evening, we decided to head toward the Monterey/Carmel area.  Here's the first photo I took after parking the car along Carmel's seaside sidewalk:

And the view to the left of that...

 

We'll report all that fun in the next episode, including how Hotwire.com nearly turned us into the stranded travelers looking for a room at the inn late at night!*

Plus, 

The Monterey charity volunteer/conman/"street performer"
17 Mile Drive 
Dead cameras leading to a feeling of loathing at Lover's Point 
and "I wonder where we can we find WIFI and electrical outlets."

*It really wasn't all that dire, just a lots of talking to customer service and a long night.