California Trip Day One: River Pirates

Sometimes life comes at you fast. A month ago I would have never guessed I'd spend my week between school and starting work taking a road trip to California. I never would have guessed I'd be spending the week with Adrian either. Regardless, here I am trying to write about what an amazing time I had, knowing that no words will do it justice.

Adrian grew up in Crescent City, California and he has lots of friends and relatives scattered throughout northern California. Basically he planned the entire trip and found us a place to crash every night. He was a great tour guide and drove all but like 3 or 4 hours of the whole trip, so really I have no complaints.

I'm going to post a day at a time and probably write more than anyone really should bother to read. Really, I'm writing it for me and letting other people read it. If you find it entertaining, enjoy. If not, please be gentle when you make fun of me to your acquaintances. If you want to see the whole week in pictures, I have a web album on Picasa (yeah, google has grabbed a hold of even more of my life). Check it out: http://picasaweb.google.com/analevan

Friday
We started our 2100 mile road trip early on Friday morning. The back of Adrian's car was completely full of clothes, blankets, music, books on CD, and food. Snacks are very important because I get cranky when I'm hungry and I figured I'd save that side of me for later in the relationship. The first major event of the trip was crossing the river to enter Portland and more importantly, the state of Oregon. I have a life goal of visiting all 50 states. Oregon brought me down from 14 states left to 13 states. Interstate 5 through Oregon was pretty uneventful. Some would say it was a boring drive, but some people have never driven Interstate 39 between Rockford, Illinois and Bloomington, Illinois. You see, Oregon has this little thing we like to call "topography," while Illinois has mostly corn and a whole lot of flat.

We got off the interstate in Grant's Pass, Oregon. We stopped at the Dollar Tree to buy a birthday present for our host, Gary. You can find the most wonderful gifts at the Dollar Tree. We also bought Tootsie Pops, which were a great add to my snack supplies. We continued our drive and eventually crossed the border into California (12 left!). Right before our destination, we stopped at the most beautiful river I've ever seen. Really clear water and really nice rocks. Get ready for a pattern of my words failing me. You'll have to rely on my pictures, though here I fail again, because we took no pictures of the Smith River.

Dinner that evening was at the Nautical. It's like Adrian's favorite restaurant, mostly because it overlooks the Pacific Ocean. You can spend the entire meal just completely mesmerized by the waves crashing into the shore. I had never seen the Pacific Ocean, but it completely mesmerized me. The food, the wine, and especially the dessert (chocolate volcano cake, yum) were wonderful. Really though, the best part was being able to stare back and forth between the ocean and Adrian. He's taken to claiming that at the end of the meal I broke a wine glass, but he's totally the clumsy one, not me... so we all know what really happened. After dinner, I piled on some layers over my little red dress so we could walk down to the beach. The layers didn't really help, mostly because my legs were still entirely exposed. Touching the ocean for the first time was worth it though.

After dinner, we went back to Gary and Becky's house (where we were lucky enough to get to crash for the night). Gary opened his Dollar Tree gift. Particularly entertaining were the Nerf blow darts. After a few more drinks, they decided it was necessary to dress Adrian and I up like pirates, and for some reason we offered zero resistance. The fake teeth that were included in Gary's present added quite nicely to the costumes. After a few more glasses of wine and some entertaining conversation, day one drew to a close.