Daniel showed up right when he said he would, before 8:30 am, and I took longer than I said I was going to because the files on my computer took way longer than I thought they would to back up, but we were stocked up with Henry's bulk bins goods and on the road by 9. What had begun as a mere thought during the last month of school had shifted into actual possibility by finals week and cemented itself that last Friday morning of school, when I checked the registration window one last time and discovered an empty spot in the class I had been trying to get into for a week. With Daniel's deft planning, we had an itinerary, places to stay, and a nice long drive ahead of us.
We started out in Daniel's family Mustang, and as we drove through LA we watched the spedometer flip over to 60,000. Good times.
Even though it was Memorial Day, the roads were clear for the most part. We sailed right on through Ventura.
We saw a beach just off the 101 and decided to stop, just because we could.
After we tried to take pictures of ourselves with the ocean in the background, Daniel said we should turn around and actually look at the scenery.
And what did we see as soon as we did? Dolphins!
I hadn't seen dolphins off the shore since my 19th birthday, when my family and I were visiting La Jolla. I was super excited as always; dolphins in the wild never get old.
We discovered that a portion of the 1 paralleled the 101 closer to the water, so we continued on it until it merged with the 101. Our next random stop was this bridge to seemingly nowhere; apparently it's called the Richfield Pier and is used for pumping oil. I discovered this just now as I googled it.
We were disappointed we couldn't walk out on it but amazed at the views we found.
Me snapping a picture of Daniel snapping a picture of me. There was just so much picture-taking going on throughout this trip.
As we attempted to get back onto the 101 after this stop, though, we were a little derailed. What we found out later was the catalytic converter stopped working. All we knew then was that the car suddenly sounded like a giant Harley-Davidson, but was still running fine. We pulled off into a neighborhood and as Daniel was checking under the hood, a guy walked by to see if he could help. "Were you guys hot-rodding?" he asked. Daniel assured him we were just trying to merge back on to the highway.
He called his dad, who insisted he would drive down and meet us halfway to exchange cars. We drove back the way we came, slightly deflated but so happy that we would be able to continue our trip. We gratefully met his dad in Pasadena, unloaded and reloaded quickly, and altered our plans to make up for the lost time.
Since we lost a couple of hours, we couldn't take the most scenic route 1. Instead, we hopped on the 5 and started making really good time. Once we passed Valencia, home of Six Flags, we were officially the furthest north in California that I had ever been. We stopped by Pyramid Lake for a quick rest and a view.
The bright side of switching to the Saturn was that I could drive, since it was automatic. Daniel was non-plussed at the route since he'd driven it so many times, but everything was new to me. I was super excited to drive the Grapevine of my favorite Death Cab for Cutie song, and even the random oil pump things were interesting. All the central agricultural land was fascinating in its neverendingness. The soil was a rich chocolate brown, something I, used to the dusky sandy desert, never imagined I'd see in the same state. For a change of scenery, we took the 46 from Lost Hills back to the 101 and continued up through Santa Cruz. We had sunlight until we reached Salinas, and made it to Daniel's cousin's in Santa Cruz just in time for bed.
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