Pacific Ocean (Poppa was right)

(Again, I won't be able to post this until Monday - we are REALLY remote now. The Porta-Johns are 100 yards away and the $2.00 showers are 400 yards away! We don't know if the showers have hot water! Nana thinks we're in the wilderness! Of course, I don't care because Nana sent me through the wash-rinse-spin-rinse-spin-dry-dry cycles yesterday. I could have just licked myself clean like Siggie does, but she didn't listen to me.)

We drove 278 miles today, across California's Central Valley. In Pennsylvania, when there is a really crappy road with dips, bumps, potholes, etc., PennDOT just shrugs their shoulders and mumbles the "freeze-thaw cycle" mantra. Here in California, they just put up signs that say "SAFETY CORRIDOR! Fines doubled! Please drive carefully!"

At Stockton, California, we could look 360 degrees around us and not see anything higher than 2 feet - totally flat! Then we got into the California Delta - all the rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean (yeah, Poppa was right, that's what it's called).

We stopped at a little town on the way. Nana said "This place is for the birds!", or something like that:


Poppa thought this profile looked familiar:


Whoever he was, he was pretty nice:


I'm not sure why Nana and Poppa wanted to see this house:


For a while after, Poppa kept sighing and mumbling something like "Tippi Hedren".

Then on to Bodega Bay, and finally, the ocean itself.

We spent the last part of today on The Pacific Coast Highway, (Highway 1), which really slows you down, but is worth every mile. Again, Nana kept insisting that Poppa keep two hands on the wheel. Some people said we should rearrange our trip so we would be going south on the PCH and have a better view. Nana and I were glad we were going north and were on the inside lane going around curves.

This is the store across the street from our campground. The same guy was standing there having a beer when we got here Sunday night and having a cup of coffee when we left Monday morning:


We were "dry camping" Sunday - no water or electric hookups. Still, my first view of the Pacific made it worthwhile:


Poppa made me sit for some flower pictures again:






Nana and Poppa thought a champagne toast to arriving at the Pacific would be appropriate. The wind is really strong here and this is how the toast turned out:


That's Nana's champagne glass in the foreground. Poppa says "Thanks for the hat, Nancy." They each had two coats on to keep warm. I'm glad I have a fur coat.

This sea gull kept saying "MINE, MINE, MINE...", but I think the champagne was gone by then:




Did I mention that the wind is strong here? I learned a valuable lesson today. If you're going to pee outside here, KEEP THE OCEAN AT YOUR BACK!

Posted from Nana's iPad