Mountains, Prairies, Oceans White with Foam

Molly: Well, I had a good night’s sleep until the alarm awakened me at 6 am.  I thought it was the fire alarm—I hate waking up to fire alarms, and it seems to happen wherever I go.  I hit the alarm clock hard and death glared Diva 1 before I relaxed back into a peaceful slumber.  What seemed like 5 minutes later, Diva 1 was awakening me again and letting me know that it was time to get out of bed.  I was bitter, but I got up anyway because she went down to find coffee and left me.  I could still smell the lavender lingering on my pillows—so nice. 

So then we go downstairs and I meet the crankiest man I have ever met.  He is barking orders left and right.  He almost attacked me because he thought I was going to take the USA Today off of the table before he could get to it.  It was an experience.  So we hauled our things down and got back onto the road.  That’s the other thing.  This is embarrassing, but I’m over being embarrassed so I’ll tell you.  We haul about 5-6 tote-bags/purses in with us wherever we go.  I think its because we don’t know what bag has what things in it, and after Day 1 we learned it was best not to venture back to our cars at night, so we just bring it all in now. 

We go to a gas station, but Anne doesn’t want to stop because she doesn’t want to pay the extra money to have someone else pump her gas.  So off we go to find something better.  We then go to Texaco and this man who kind of looks like the semi-creepy Hawaiian guy from 50 First Dates with LONG (not luscious) hair flowing down his back taps on the window and Anne thinks that this is it for us.  She would have thrown me to the man in order to keep her purse—what a bad person.  So his name is Sonny, he’s VERY chatty, and he just wants to pump our gas.  So he does that while we run inside—he even let me take his picture for the blog.

Then I buy a drink at this place—a pomegranate life water…my favorite!  Of course the cap wont twist off, and I discover this 15 minutes after we have left said gas station.  I literally bang it on the side of the window that I have rolled down on the freeway just about giving this truck driver a heart attack.  I try with my teeth, I hand it to Anne, I do multiple things to try and get this top off.  Fail.  So we go to another exit and I hop out to go in and I bring my life water to see if I can exchange it.  This hearty woman who I can only refer to as the female version of Hulk Hogan took my water and easily twisted the top off.  I just stared at her for a moment then turned and walked out.  I said thank you, but obviously I was being judged for being dainty and delicate. 

So then we get to the California border.  The man wants to check our car for plants/fruits/drugs/dead bodies, whatever.  So he’s all stuttering and can’t get past his words…I think he was in awe of us because I heard him speaking clearly once we left.  We also witnessed a controlled forest fire today.  This was a big time.  In other natural disaster news, we saw “Crater Lake” where Mother not-so-subtly implied that my chances of being struck down by a meteor are greater in this part of the country.  Thanks Mom.

After this, we went through the Redwood Forest.  Good Lord, those trees are huge.  If you stacked Mom 60 times (5 feet x 60 = 300?, maybe? Math isn’t my strong suit these days…) she wouldn’t even reach the top of these trees!  They are also VERY wide.  We had to stop and take my picture, of course.  We stopped at the little welcome center to go to the bathroom and throw out our trash.  Dumb Blonde of the Day award goes to Anne who couldn’t figure out how to open the trashcan.  Love her. 

We’ve also seen countless hitchhikers.  Fortunately our car is way too packed down to even fit another pair of shoes, much less an ax-murderer and his bike.  We saw one today.  We were driving in a small town in Oregon and we saw a less than savory character with a beard and long hair riding his bike.  Anne yells, “Mass Murderer on a bike!”  (but only so that I could hear, so she says)

We also went through a town with two main restaurants, both without names.  One just said “Chinese and American Food” and the one two blocks down said “Mexican and Seafood”  What wonderful combinations.  I also have to mention this woman we saw...she was wearing a Daniel Boone hat as she ate at the Wendy's drive-thru...I couldn't handle it.

Then we ran into elk on the road.  This was great.  Mom told me not to get out of the car, so I did and just hid myself behind the door.  He would not have attacked this Diva.  And these divas thought we were finally out of the wild!

This afternoon, we checked into our hotel and Momma did our laundry (thank you Momma!) and now we are settling down for a LONG sleep.   We kind of had to scrounge for dinner because the only thing that would deliver to the hotel is pizza and neither of us could do that again.  So I had Easy Mac.  Welcome to college.  I am exhausted and I can’t wait to get to San Jose tomorrow night!

Anne: Before we left wherever it is we are this morning, I just had to write about last night so I wouldn't forget to tell you as the day unfolds.

So, Diva Number Two is quietly lying in her bed, her lavender-scented earphones in her ears, her eyemask firmly over her eyes, her lavender-scented pillows surrounding her. She is obviously in deep REM sleep because she doesn't hear the alarm go off at midnight. At first, it was a little tweeting sound. A small, gentle Tweety bird calling to us. By the time I found my glasses and found the alarm, it sounded like Tweety bird was being eaten by Sylvester. I look over at the sleeping Diva, not a peep. Not so much as an eyelid movement. Nothing broke her gentle, REM sleep. I, on the other hand, could not get back to sleep until after 2. This alarm clock also went off at 6. Diva Number Two had to reach her arm over and slap it. She then fussed at me about it. That's it. She went right back to sleep. Today, she is going to pay for this.

This morning, she asked the housekeeper if she could have more of that lavender spray to take to college. The housekeeper beamed at her and said she would be up to our room in three minutes. Sure enough, in three minutes there she stood...with two extra pillows for the Diva, and NO lavender spray. Diva Number Two is determined to snatch some spray before we leave here...wherever it is that we are! (We left, she didn’t get any more, but she said I could add that to her first care package that she is under the impression I will be sending to her.)

A little while later, we get in our car and  are on the hunt for gas, because I don’t like to let it get too low.  You never know when we are going to find ourselves wandering in the wilderness with no gas station—like our previous experience.  So we pull off the interstate into another Shell station and we see some man pumping gas in the car in front of us.  And we pull out because I don’t want to pay extra to have someone else pump my gas—I can do it myself.  Then we go to a Texaco station, all of a sudden a man with hair longer than Diva 2’s has his faced pressed up against my window and is staring right at me.  Immediately I grab Diva Two to give up as my wampum because I feel like we are being robbed and I am going to go ahead and give her up. It’s either her or my nice purse…and you know how much I love purses!  He opens my door and asks for my credit card.  By this time I’m going to give him my whole purse, not just one card and he tells me he is there to pump my gas.  And I say, “no, that’s fine, I’ll do it myself” realizing that perhaps we are not going to be robbed. I am not a bad person like Molly is going to accuse me of being. 

Anyway, Sonny, Molly’s new best friend, tells us that there are two states that by law require someone else has to pump your gas.  One is Oregon, the other is New Jersey.  You learn something new everyday.  So while Sonny pumped the gas in our car, Molly and I went in to find breakfast. Normally, we have been eating at the Shell station and we are not used to dining at the Texaco station—the aisles were rearranged.  I pay, of course, and I look outside and Diva Two is chatting and photographing Sonny. He is so happy to be in our pictures. He barely let us leave, he was so thrilled. He waves as we leave, sorry to see us go. We were still trying to represent our people well, but Molly might have gotten a little too friendly this time. Reign in that diva! He probably would have gone with us, but he said he was making big money pumping gas…

Unfortunately, we haven’t had an opportunity for anyone to speak to us since we entered California.  The little man who stuttered in awe of us at the “Welcome to California” station wanted to check our car for fruits and plants.  Ha! We told him good luck if he could find anything in our car.  But he’s the last person that we have encountered for hours and hours….and hours of driving.  

We drove through the Redwood Forest and got you-know-whose picture with the big trees.  Then we stopped along the coast so we could also take her picture with the big rocks in the ocean. 

Finally, we went through an elk crossing and stopped for the 40 elk we saw. It was great. We saw more elk here than in Yellowstone or Teton. But the Diva wouldn’t get out of the car because she learned from our naturalist at Jackson Hole about how vicious elk were. I told her that woman was just kidding, and that she should get up as close as she could get to them and offer them some peanut butter, but Diva Two wasn’t buying it!

We now truly can say that we’ve been all over America.  We have been through the Redwood Forests, we’ve seen the Pacific Ocean, we’ve seen at least 15 billion pine trees.  I found the perfect Christmas tree for us this year but I cant remember which state it was in.  You wouldn’t believe some of these small towns in Oregon and northern California, on the back roads, not the highways. We passed so many places where wood carving was all the rage. I almost stopped and got Molly a little carved bear, but couldn’t decide between that or the beaver playing the guitar. It’s so hard to decide which she would like to see under the Christmas tree. 

We also passed a lovely establishment that invited us in for “Food, Snooze and Booze.” Again, hard to pass up! We are looking forward to seeing civilization tomorrow, if I can drive through all the traffic in San Francisco.

Tonight, our dining experience was courtesy of the Holiday Inn Express. When we finally got here, we were too tired to go back out, and the only place that delivered was some awful pizza place. So, we got Easy Mac and a chicken pot pie and dined like the Divas we are. Don’t let it ever be said that we got too big for our britches or forgot where we came from! I have already done Diva Two’s two loads of laundry tonight. One more load in the morning before we leave, and then she’s on her own!

We are going to post some photos of interesting things we saw today. We’ll have more tomorrow when we reach the final frontier!  

We would like to wrap up by giving three shout outs.

1. Sarah Riley sent me (Molly) a photo of something I told her she could have.  In that photo, I saw multiple other things that she has taken without permission.  I hope that by publicly shaming her she will return said things before Thanksgiving break. 

2. We would like to say Happy Birthday to Diva Waynick!

3. Dr. P—Thank you for your advice and your kind offer—we’ve got your number, we may be calling….just kidding.  

Leave us comments! 

xoxo,

Anne & Molly