California love {day 1}...

A lot happens in 10 days. Too much, in fact, to fit comfortably into one blog post. For that reason I will be splitting our trip up by days and just touching on our highlights. I'm sure each post will be packed with photos and possibly videos if I can find the time to get it all uploaded, so bear with me.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and headed out the door just after 4 am. We wanted to get a jump on the long drive and thought the girls would sleep most of the way to Medford at least. We were wrong. By Wilsonville both children were saying they had to go potty (20 minutes from home), and we made our first stop just north of Salem. Ugh! Grace didn't fall asleep again until we were through Eugene and then she only slept until Roseburg (about an hour). It was definitely not the morning we had planned on.

After stopping briefly in Medford to get gas, breakfast and use the bathroom, we continued south until we hit Redding. We love the In N' Out Burger in Redding as it is the first thing that really makes us feel like we are in California. That and the fact that when we got there this time it was already 71 degrees outside! We all enjoyed sitting outside in the sun while eating our burgers and fries. We also got a kick out of the fact that there were far more OR and WA cars in the parking lot than CA cars.

Though lunch was very enjoyable, we made it quick so we could get back on the road. We stopped again in Stockton for a break and let the kids play at a park for an hour. A break like that is sort of hard to swallow on such a long day, but it really does make for happy girls, so it seems to be worth the time.

The one frustration of the trip was the traffic in the San Joaquin valley. We were at a stand-still for about 1/2 an hour and probably added close to 1 1/2 hours to our trip in a 12 mile stretch of road. We never figured out what was causing the problem, but it was a holiday weekend and we were warned about the traffic.

Finally, 18 hours after starting, we pulled in to Torrance. We were even able to make it to Veggie Grill for Merrick to grab dinner. It was so wonderful to walk in to Kelsie and Alex's quiet and comfortable home knowing that we had a great place to crash and two full days of "nothingness" ahead of us.

The sun setting - somewhere near the cut off to Fresno.