Vacation 2017: Day Four and Day Five

Sadly, this was the day we had to leave California and all our relatives behind and head for home.  It was not my favorite day of the trip.

We packed up our van and got ready to leave. On our way out, I ran in to the lobby to check out.  We were about to pull away when I noticed that they had under-charged us, so I went back in to get it sorted out.  I ended up spending another half hour trying to fix it, with an ever-growing line of Gee's behind me trying to leave as well, a loud, chatty lady next to me, advising me to file a complaint, etc., and my whole family waiting in the van wondering if I'd been swallowed by a black hole.... and that was the start of my day.  In retrospect, it may have been an omen...

As our final reunion hurrah, we all met at the Dennis The Menace Park for breakfast.  Guy and Heather had been cooking pancakes in their hotel room on an electric griddle for HOURS (until they blew a fuse in their room).  They're CRAZY and super-dedicated!    After breakfast, we let the kids play at the park with their cousins for a little while.  We knew the rest of the day would have them stuck in tight quarters.  Plus the park was amazing!

This is only a portion of it.  It's right cross the street from the ocean. 

Nicki took some pictures for me. 

This maze was pretty awesome, but I think Bronson got stuck in it.  Alison had to rescue him.  

And then we were off.  One of the first things we did was to stop at one of the many local fruit stands to buy some produce. I was in HEAVEN!  Everyone else was in...somewhere else.  They were all bugged at me for stopping.  But I didn't care!  I bought fresh strawberries and these teeny little fresh avocados for $.33 each, and some grapes and oranges.  It was awesome!

Then, we started driving in earnest.  While the first-day-of -vacation drive was fun, this one wasn't as great. We all got carsick.  David said that he remembered from another seasickness experience he had that he was more susceptible to motion sickness for days afterwards.  Maybe that was it for us too, because we had to pull over more frequently and get some fresh air.  Everyone was a bit more cranky than they were for the first few days of vacation.  Part of it was the motion sickness.  Part was the fact that our vacation was coming to a close, and part was just that we'd been together for a few days without much of a break. All I can say is that this half-day drive seemed longer to me than the full-day drive of day one.   

We decided that since we were so close, and we had no idea when we'd ever get back, we would drive to San Francisco.  However, traffic and our unplanned car-sick stops made the drive there much longer than we'd anticipated.  By the time we got to the city, most of our kids couldn't have cared less.  They just wanted to keep watching the movie they were watching on the DVD.  We knew that we still had hours and hours to drive, so we didn't fight too hard.  We drove through some beautiful parts of town - houses and streets that looked just like the movies I'd seen of San Francisco, on our way to the Golden Gate Bridge, but we never stopped anywhere.

We didn't even stop at the bridge itself.   We just drove right over it and kept on going.  But it was still pretty amazing! We were actually on the real life Golden Gate Bridge!  After seeing it destroyed in about a million movies throughout our lives, we were a bit relieved to see it still standing (and that we made it across safely).  

This was one part of the drive that everyone was happy and suitably impressed with. If only it lasted longer....

The kids even turned off the DVD player!  Nicki was snapping pictures with her tablet and everyone was commenting on how cool it was to be there. 

Then, we drove on.  Our next planned stop was Fairfield, California - home of the Jelly Belly Factory! I'm not gonna lie to you - this was possibly the most important part of the trip for me :)  Family's great.  Ocean, whales, togetherness - fine.  But Jelly Bellys are LIFE!!!  Just kidding.  But they literally are my favorite candy on the planet and when I discovered how close we were going to be to the factory, where they provide tours, samples, and a huge shop, I was so excited! 

We pulled into Fairfield somewhere around 3:15 or 3:30 in the afternoon.  We had to decide whether we should eat first, or head straight to the factory.  We decided to eat first.  So we went to yet another fast food burger joint, which was poorly run and a little disgusting.  Then, we went in search of the factory.   Low and behold, we found it!    

Nothing but joy filled our hearts as we walked into our little slice of Gee heaven (I may have passed on my love of Jelly Bellys to the kids).  As exquisite as was our joy, however, so exquisite was the pain that shot through our hearts as I said, "We'd like to take a tour, please." and the man at the counter replied "Sorry.  We stop taking tours at 4:00."  We were literally five minutes too late.  If we'd gone to the factory first instead of the gross burger joint, we would have made it.  

Luckily for us, the gift shop was still open.  We did our best to rally our spirits as we walked around there.  

They have a sample bar there.  Every flavor you can imagine is at the bar.  Workers stand behind the bar with little pairs of tongs.  Each person is allowed to request three flavors of jelly bean.  The worker picks them out with their tongs and gives them to you.  You can only chose three at a time, but you can get back in line and go through as many times as you'd like.  This is how they keep the line moving.  Well, there wasn't really a line, so Josh and Bron went through about three billion times each.  The rest of the kids went through multiple times as well.  I was busy shopping, so I only went through once, but I tried a Tabasco Jelly Belly and I must say, it was pretty spot-on.  We let everyone chose a treat for themselves, and I bought a few bags of Belly Flops (beans that for one reason or another didn't pass the rigorous test of becoming a Jelly Belly) as souvenirs for my friends and family at home, then we got back on the road. 

That night, we slept in a hotel in Reno.  We got there late.  We went to the wrong branch of the hotel chain we had reservations with.   We were redirected to the right hotel - all the way across town and right where we'd been a half hour before.  Urgh.  We were exhausted, cranky, frustrated, and hungry.  But it was too late for dinner, so we just ate the fruit I'd purchased that morning at the fruit stand and some chips and stuff from our van.  Then, we crashed.  

We woke up the next morning, ate breakfast in the hotel (which was magical to our boys.  So much breakfast food!  As much as they could eat!), and headed for home.

This is the girls' room in Reno.  It was a pretty nice hotel.

Since it was the Sabbath, we tried to listen to some Hank Smith talks on CD.  We also listened to beautiful classical music that day.  We actually had a very nice time.  We drove for the bulk of the day, arriving at home somewhere after 7:30 pm.  What a great family vacation we had!

It took me about a week to recover from our family vacation.  I mean, life started up in full swing immediately, starting with a basketball camp for Nicole the week after our return.  But I wasn't up to speed with my laundry, church calling, or exercise for about a week.