Remember Day 16 when I promised Velma, my GPS, that I wouldn’t mess with her mind anymore?

I lied.

Sacramento to Eugene, OR, should be about 7.5 hours.

Except then you get past volcanic Mount Shasta and end up needing to top off the tank in this town:

Where things move so slowly that the snow still hasn’t melted all the way because man, they’re laid back in Weed, CA.

And you giggle like a 12-year-old and buy postcards and chuckle some more as you ease on out of town.

Then, pulling yourself out of second person, you decide, eh, you’ve got plenty of time to hit a National Park on the way to Eugene because your kid is in love with becoming a Junior Ranger every chance she gets and you hear Crater Lake is amazing.

I had heard it was amazing. I had not heard that it wasn’t a quick side trip.

I’m kinda glad I hadn’t heard that, because if I had, we wouldn’t have gone. And if we hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t have gotten to ride through creepy X-Files-ish forests on the way.

Even Velma underestimated how much time it would take to get to Crater Lake. She said we’d arrive at 4:30. Instead, Earl and I were staring in the windows of the Ranger Station at 5:01pm giving the rangers The Eye. They lock the doors at 5:00, but did you know if a mother an child stare doggedly at them through the windows long enough, one will come to the door and tell you to go away, they’re closed? They will! But when you desperately plead, “Please! All we need is a Junior Ranger booklet! We came all the way from Tennessee!” they’ll be kind enough to slip it to you through a crack in the door.

Well, I didn’t lie.

The Junior Ranger book came in handy. It kept Earl occupied while I gawked. Because Crater Lake is breathtaking.

Stunning isn’t a strong enough word.

Even Earl was wide-eyed with wonder when she pulled herself from her dutiful studies.

At dinnertime (ahem), we found the park’s only sit-down restaurant. We’d have gone into town, but we were close to cannibalism, and town was a good hour away. So we waited an hour for a table at the restaurant.

Because, in hindsight that makes total sense.

Our dinner delay, though, put us back around the western rim of the lake and heading out through the forest at sunset. And, if you haven’t been able to tell from the pictures on this here blog, I’m a sucker for a purdy sunset.

We left the National Park at 8:30pm. Eugene, OR? A three-hour drive from Crater Lake.

I could potentially call that spontaneous little side trip a grave mistake, but it wasn’t. It was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. More than that, there’s something about spending hours on a windy little 2-lane road with no other cars and only the end of twilight, the moon, and your headlights for illumination. Driving in new places is about the unknown, but darkness kicks it up a notch. I held Earl’s hand when she got scared. We looked, sharp-eyed, for wildlife that might be on the fringes of the surrounding wood. We analyzed wisps to determine fog or smoke from a nearby wildfire. We marveled at the surprises lingering just around the bend, just beyond the lamplight, just out of reach.

It was a long drive. We were both exhausted by the time we hit Eugene not far from midnight. But at the same time, we were somehow more full after our trip to the crater.

Who’d have thought that a couple of incredibly long nights paired with the arrival of El Jefe for a leg of our trip topped off with a dash of a helluvan evil head cold would throw me into a total blogging tailspin?

Ahem.

After arriving at Hearst Castle after its closure the previous night, Earl and I gave it another shot on Tuesday morning. I booked the tour online for 9:20, which meant we needed to be there at 9:10, which meant, of course, that we didn’t arrive until 9:22 because there’s oh so much traffic in San Simeon, CA.

There’s no traffic in San Simeon. I have no clue what made us so late, although I’m guessing it involved mine and Earl’s one lingering daily argument over tooth brushing and the whole getting ready process: I think she should put on clothes other than pajamas in a timely fashion, she begs to differ.

I usually win, but sometimes victory is slow.

Anyway, Hearst Castle. It’s essentially a museum for the collections of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Where most people might collect spoons or porcelain figures or Shopkins, Hearst collected…grander things.

Like fireplaces and tapestries.

And ceilings.

And who needs wood paneling for rooms when you can import choral stalls and their paneling?

Nope, guests were not to sit in the choral stalls. They were, instead, to make themselves at home in cherubically patterned comfy sofas and chairs.

For dinner, everyone sat around the grand table, a powerful mace positioned strategically behind Mr. Hearst’s chair. The china and silver would have been the finest around, no doubt, right?

Nope. San Simeon was the Hearst family camping ground before William built the castle. He wanted that same experience even in this house. The silver was mismatched camping wear. The plates were nothing special. The napkins weren’t linen. And the ketchup is just right there in the middle of the table in the bottle—no fancy condiment boats here.

William Randolph Hearst was weird, but at least he did him. Grandly.

We spent way too much time there and still didn’t see it all. I’d like to go back, though, if for no other reason than to see the castle when it’s not surrounded by scaffolding. I don’t want to think about what it’s costing to reroof the place.

Realizing that it was quickly closing in on lunch time and I really wanted to go more than 10 miles that day, we boarded the bus for the 5 mile journey back down the winding driveway to the visitor’s center.

I was focused on getting to our next stop, but there’s a reason I relate to Dug in “Up.”

Squirrel!

Or, rather, sea lions!

Earl kept asking me, “Are they dead?” Then one would start slogging over the others in the pile and the whole group would groan and complain. A few yards into the ocean, a few pairs either fought or mated—who knows. But it was astounding to me that you could just pull off of the highway and there are all these enormous creatures stacked on the beach, in their wild and natural habitat, right there.

I had to be dragged away from the boardwalk by my child. Should that not have been the other way around?

The trip to up the PCH to Santa Cruz where we cut across to San Jose would have been so much shorter if cameras had never been invented.

Somebody lives in a house atop that island. I want that house.

San Jose was home to our second real stop of the day, the Winchester Mystery House. They don’t allow photos in the house and…I don’t really know why I didn’t take pictures outside. Probably I was too perplexed by the house itself. Sarah Winchester bought an 8 room farmhouse in San Jose around the turn of the 20th century and started building on it. She built and built and built, crews working 24/7/365, until her death in 1922 when everybody passed out from exhaustion.

There are doors to nowhere, stairs to ceilings, windows in floors, rooms with one entrance but three exits. It’s a study in madness, wealth, and grief, and it is fascinating.

But it wasn’t our last stop of the day. I was determined to get to Sacramento before we stopped for the night. Earl was determined to see The Golden Gate Bridge.

We did both.

I refused, refused, to go across the Bay Bridge because double-decker bridges are not my thing, and the nav got irritated with me. We took Hwy 1 up from San Jose to San Fran where I further annoyed the nav by detouring to Lombard St., determined to drive down the curves (which was awesomely fun). We stopped for a quick pic at the waterfront, and although the bridge was hiding, Ghirardelli was in glorious golden hour view.

And look! A seagull!

We chanted, “Mine! Mine! Mine” all the way back to the car, then switched gears to the “Full House” theme song as Earl made sure we were in the exact same lane the Tanners were in when they cross the Golden Gate in the opening credits.

A photo stop was necessary, if cold. Because OOSH!

Back in the car and on the road, the bratty nav in my car (whom I’ll call Velma) took us across the Richmond Bridge. Which is a double-decker bridge.

I did not have a panic attack. But only by the skin of my teeth.

Two detours through the ‘hood later (Velma was in fine form that evening, I tell you), we arrived in Sacramento, where the bridge we needed to cross was closed and we had to detour again.

When we finally, mercifully pulled into the hotel, I promised Velma that tomorrow would be better.

I might have been fibbing.

Every time we talk to El Jefe, he asks how we’re eating. I normally just shrug because I know there is food going into our mouths at some points along the way, but to be completely honest, I couldn’t remember most of it. Notable exceptions: Blue Bayou and Whataburger. And now, In-N-Out.

YUM.

I lost my beloved sunglasses in Disneyland, so Day 15 became about 2 things: Driving and replacing said beloved sunglasses.

We’d originally planned to head up the PCH from L.A. to San Francisco. When Earl’s love of National Parks started to blossom, I decided, no, we’d head up through Sequoia and Yosemite instead. After all, the super helpful ranger at The Grand Canyon sold us on the annual National Parks pass, so free admission. Woo!

Then came the day to drive and the realization that, oh wait, we have to be in X location by Y date and that does not allow for Z drive time through Yosemite.

To the Pacific Coast Highway!

We were still on total overload from the previous three days of our La-La Land adventure. I can’t say we talked very much—we were both decompressing in our own ways, I think. I found an REI in Ventura and got new sunnies, then we stopped by In-N-Out for a healthy lunch of burgers and fries.

Earl said, “These hamburgers are huge!” And she was pretty much right.

I don’t know why our drive up the coast took so long. Maybe we got started later than I remembered. Maybe it took us that long to get out of L.A. Maybe I was still in such a fog that we were abducted by aliens leftover from Roswell and they flashy-thinged me. Or maybe I was just too involved looking at the scenery to pay attention to whatever was slowing us down. Who knows.

At 6 pm, we were only half-way up PCH, and the driver needed a break. We weren’t far from Hearst Castle, and their website talked about evening tours, so we decided we’d pop in for a visit, then perhaps make it at least as far as Monterey.

Ha.

Hearst had already stopped selling tickets for the day. Evening tours are only certain days, and Monday wasn’t one of them. Oops. By then, though, Earl had done enough reading about it that she wanted to go, so we opted to find a motel in San Simeon and hit Hearst first thing in the morning.

There’s not much to choose from in San Simeon and even less was actually available. I dunno, it’s summer or something, apparently. It was either expensive or completely run down. And while run down has its road trip charms, the crowd around that particular motel did not, so the Best Western it was.

Added bonus: the Best Western had beach access.

Double added bonus: It was golden hour with sunset rapidly approaching.

Triple added bonus: Earl’s face when I told her we were going for a walk on the beach.

It was cold, but so unbelievably beautiful.

Earl ran in and out of the (very cold) tide, collecting rocks and marveling at the size of the breakers. The tide was coming in, and temps dropped with the sun. After a half hour, it was with great sadness she suggested perhaps it was time to go in.

We made an early night of it, lounging in our jammies with a little room service from the restaurant downstairs. There was no delivery fee, no extra room service charges, the lady at the desk had told me when we checked in. “Same price to eat in your room as to down to the restaurant, so why not, right?” she’d smiled.

Why not, indeed.