ROAD TRIP to the Pacific Northwest...Day 1

How far can one go on a tank of gas? I am not exactly sure, but I can tell you how far we got on 184 gallons of gas.  Kerry and I decided it was time for us to travel north. We had a mission, no, we had several missions. It had been years since we visited my family in Nanaimo, BC, Canada. We had not yet seen the new home John built (Kerry's brother) in Oregon and our most important reason, we wanted to spend some time with our oldest sons family while he was doing a 6 month tour in the Middle East (or as they say, some undisclosed location in Southwest Asia).

This series of BLOG updates is our story, a day-by-day accounting of what we experienced during our 3 week road trip. You are invited to join us on our vacation, to see what we saw and to experience every moment, as it happened. Hope you enjoy following along with us on our journey into the Pacific Northwest.

Sunday, October 20th;
At exactly 6am we pulled out of the drive way, with Ridgeline fully loaded. We were running a little late, but that didn't matter; we were on vacation. Once on highway 10 we headed up through Phoenix then over to the California border and Blythe. We selected a route that would skirt north of Riverside California and Los Angeles. We encountered little traffic. So far, so good.

The 210 expressway spit us out on top of the Grape Vine onto Interstate 5...I really don't like driving through passes, but at least we had good weather on our side; no signs of snow! The mid-November return trip lingered in the back of my mind, teasing me the entire time.

After dropping down off of the Grape Vine we exited the 5 and merged onto highway 99.  This is the route that would eventually bring us into Bakersfield, our first stop. It took only 9 hours to get here. That was a pretty good shift behind the wheel. As soon as we took the exit we saw our hotel up ahead (reservations were made online a week ago). The local traffic flow made us go a mile or so out of the way before we could turn around onto the right street. Confusing!

As we pulled up to where I was going to u-turn, Kerry asked where I was going. I joked by saying that I was going to turn around at the Costco located one block up the road (pretending as if I actually knew where I was going). Ironically, one block up, where I was to make the u-turn, was a Costco. Now that was weird. We filled the tank with gas and laughed as we headed back to our hotel. Once checked in, we walked back to Costco for an easy dinner (a sandwich from their deli). Yumm.

After eating we walked Rosie (did I mention that we took our Miniature Poodle Rosie with us?) One of the back seats of the Ridgeline was folded up, allowing us to place a kennel on the floor. On the seat that remained down, we had a box with a bed on top giving Rosie the option of staying down in the kennel on a cushy bed or she can lay on the upper deck bed and watch the world pass by as we trucked down the road. She ended up spending most of her time upstairs, where we were within easy view.

While taking Rosie for her walk we stumbled upon the Buck Owens Museum, two blocks down the road from our hotel. Bakersfield is definitely a Country and Western kind of town. We were on vacation; tourist in this cow town. Glad we were only spending the night. I don't know of anyone who ever went on vacation to Bakersfield.

After we got back to the hotel be bunked down for the night, with Rosie between us (yes, it was a pet friendly facility). Rosie was happy and we were tired. It was a long day and we still had a long way to go.