t 'n t luoma

On Wednesday night we called Discover to see if they had a tracking number for our replacement card, only to find out that the person there had lied to us and had not sent the card. So we had it FedEx’d to Seattle and decided to spend Thursday visiting the last of the sites and then starting north. (Discover Card shall be receiving a very unhappy letter from us, a copy may very well be posted online as well.)

Our last day in San Fran was utterly frustrating... We got a late start (even later since we had to do a 20 minute loop back to Yvette and Vivek’s because we had left Ethan’s tools behind!!! Fortunately Yvette had returned home and was there to let us in. Since we were heading back into San Fran, we decided to see the Apple store, which was really not worth the hassle. The store, while big, looked pretty much like the other Apple stores I have been in, and did not have any Apple apparel, apparently Apple headquarters is the only place to get them, which means that I missed my chance a week earlier. There was no parking, so Tracey was circling the block in the car while I ran in, which was not conducive to really checking anything out. The most frustrating part, however, was realizing that we had been just around the corner from there on Monday when we could have spent as much time as we wanted to around there.

Anyway, the supposed “quick trip” to the Apple store (which was only supposed to be briefly off course from our main destination) when coupled with the late start, caused us to be very late. The directions we had pulled off Mapblast were utterly WRONG (that site has gone way downhill since Microsoft took it over) and we ended up driving back and forth across SF trying to figure out where we had gone wrong. We were also looking for a restaurant which a) had parking and b) was not pizza or Chinese. This took the better part of 3 hours. No, I’m not kidding.

We finally did find a really good hole-in-the-wall place which had really great burgers. The one thing that went our way was that as we were leaving, we got back to the car just as the meter maid was noticing that there was no time left on our meter and she did not give us a ticket, although she did give one to the empty car next to us. It must have been the site of Ethan. We had just totally forgotten about the meter after 3 hours of frustration being lost and hungry, and I think we both might have snapped to come out to a parking ticket.

At that point it was after 3 p.m. and we just had to get on the road, so we didn’t see any of the things that we wanted to see. Now if we had started out saying, “We are going to get on the road early today and aren’t going to get to see some of the things we had wanted to see” that would have been one thing.... and if we had started out saying “We are going to get a late start today but are going to see 3 more things we wanted to see,” that would have been another thing... but wasting 3 hours in the car and still not seeing anything we wanted to see, that was just too much to deal with...

So we decided to give up and start heading north. We drove around again looking for the Golden Gate Bridge, which you would think would be easy to find, being a) a huge landmark and b) a huge bridge but you would only thing that if you already knew how to find it, or if you had never been to S.F. We did see a sign for the Japanese Gardens at the Golden Gate Park... we followed said sign only to once again be left in sign limbo (“Hey, it’s over there! But this is the last sign you’ll see). We think we saw them, but if we did see them, they either weren’t in bloom or they weren’t worth seeing.

Great.

Then we got out again and couldn’t find any more signs for the bridge. Eventually we tracked one down (having backtracked again) and made our escape from the city.

I’m glad we saw San Francisco, but we spent far too much time looking for where we were going. Apparently the signage budget for San Francisco was dramatically slashed at some point in the past and never recovered. There needs to be a grand review of driving directions and instructions by people who are not familiar with San Francisco. These instructions need to cover things like “If you have 1 sign that says, ‘Turn right for THIS’ and then you turn right and THIS is not visible, you ought to have another sign that says, ‘Yeah, keep going this way’ rather than leaving people hanging out there.”

The straw that broke the camel’s patience was trying to find something on the coast and having the one and only sign be, essentially, “TURN HERE RIGHT NOW” and, as we were currently in the far hand left lane, turning right was not even an option.

We spent the next 6 hours in the car heading towards northern California and Oregon. We made it all the way to Crescent City, CA, home of the Redwoods. We missed the Avenue of the Giants because it was too late in the day to see it. We found a decent hotel around 10 p.m. and crashed for the night.

Friday we drove through the Redwoods (really amazing) on the way to Oregon. I took a few pictures, but really, how do you capture that on film? It’s just too immense to not see in person. The drive, about 10 miles, was a good length too, because after awhile you’ve got to get tired of saying, “Hey look, another big tree!”

We made it to Oregon and to the home of Ellen Parr and Doug Flatbush, more friends from Arooooo! who have 8 hounds, a mix of beagles and harriers (which are, for those who don’t know, large versions of beagles). Ethan was a little unsure what to do with so many dogs and such big ones, but he was really giggly and generally had a great time. It was great to meet Ellen and Doug and pack, albeit briefly... the next morning we headed north for Seattle. (Oh, note to self: if you visit Ellen and Doug again, be sure to double check that you really closed the bedroom door the entire way unless you want to wake up to a bedfull of happy bouncy beagles and harriers :-)

On the way further north, we found an Elmer’s Restaurant which was really, really, really good. There ought to be a law that you can get breakfast anytime, because you never know when you will want breakfast, and Elmer’s had really good breakfast-anytime. They also are doing a good job at making low-carb options for their guests which are actually low-carb, and not only that but they make suggestions in the menu for things that you can substitute if you are eating low-carb. With a lot of places just jumping on the low-carb bandwagon, it was nice to see someplace doing it so well.

The trip to Seattle was quite easy, Ethan and Tracey both slept the majority of the trip, and finding Judy and Richard’s place was easy (fortunately). We dropped off the rental car and Discover had actually followed through and sent the replacement credit card.

Unfortunately we did not realize the cost of going to Victoria British Columbia, the Victoria Clipper wanted $103 per adult and $50 for ETHAN.... $250 was just too much after the expenses of the week before, so we had to cancel and miss meeting Lori (another Arooooo! friend). That was really disappointing, and we hope to avoid any more major disappointments this vacation.

We had some great Indian cuisine last night (something else we can’t get at home). We also remembered that Kendy from Princeton Theological Seminary’s Institute for Youth Ministry serves at a church near here Sammamish Presbyterian Church, so we made plans to visit there this morning.

The service was very lively, Ethan had a good time, and even started clapping in beat during one of the songs. We did meet up with Kendy briefly after the service.... Of course it took her a minute to place who I was, since she hasn’t seen me in almost 2 years and across the country! Just as we were talking, my cell phone rang.

It was the rental car company.

You’ll remember that Monday we had our credit cards stolen. The rental car had been reserved with the old card. We had dropped the car off after hours and I had written the new number on the agreement and explained what happened.

“We can’t check the car back in unless we actually swipe the card, so unless you come in soon we are going to have to charge you.”

Fortunately for them I had just been in church, and simply stated that I was not paying for a minute past when we had dropped the car off, and that we would get there as soon as we could.

Realistically, every single credit card machine has the capability to type in the number, which is needed for those times when the magnetic strip won’t work, so there is no real reason why they couldn’t type the number in... it may be their corportate policy, but their policy is not really my problem.

So we drove off to the car rental place again and swiped the card. The good news is that there was a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse nearby. <voice class="Homer">Ummmmm, steak</voice>. We drove by, no sign of being open, but Tracey saw a sign (see San Francisco, signs work!) that said they were open for lunch 7 days a week! We had a delish meal there. No dessert really appealed to us, Tracey was in the mood for fudge. We went into the mall, but the only place that sold fudge did not have “Just Plain Chocolate Fudge” which is what my dear bride was desiring, so we went on.

And found The Cheesecake Factory. <voice class="Homer">Ummmmm, cheesecake...</voice> While clearly not Atkins Approved it was deemed necessary. There are times when one must bend one’s rules as long as no harm comes of others...

So that brings us pretty much up to now. We are planning to get a Seattle City Pass and visit the Space Needle and Pacific Science Center tomorrow. The City Pass looks to be a great deal.

Despite all the bumps in the road, we have had a great time thus far and have really enjoyed making some virtual friends into personal friends. Meeting Vivek, Yvette, Kush, Gage, Wayne (and Jeni), Mimi, Dick, Meg (Az), Daneen, Ellen, Doug, Judy and Richard (and of course all the 4-leggers) was well worth all the crisscrossing San Francisco and all the time in the car thus far.

Well, tomorrow is fast approaching, so I’d best say goodnight.

Update: Redwoods picture 1, Redwoods picture 2, Redwoods picture 3, Redwoods picture 4, Redwoods picture 5, Redwoods picture 6. Not that it is anything like being there, but these came out pretty well so I thought I would share them. They are not tiny but not huge either, especially when compared to the originals!