On Friday morning we awoke in Winnemucca at 7:00 a.m. local time, 9:00 a.m. Winnipeg time. We decided that we would stay at the motel until the pool opened so the kids could go swimming, because it was closed the night before when we arrived. That meant that our travel day would be cut short by at least 2 hours. We decided that though possible, we wouldn't try and get to Fresno CA that night only to have unpacking to do before we could head to bed. Our goal for the day was to get to Sacramento CA.
After the swim and breakfast, we headed out. The weather was definitely hot and dry. Poor Asha was getting a clogged nose from the lack of moisture. Lucky me, I got to drive through the rest of Nevada. But looking back, I definitely got the better part of driving that day.
Just before we got to California's border, Carl took over the driving, since we were getting into the mountains. It wasn't like he couldn't trust my driving, but Carl admitted to having real control issues while in vehicles. Of course it was something I've known for years. I'm glad that he finally admitted it, and I can post it for the entire world to know.
At the border, they have huge check stops, kind of like at the U.S./Canada border. Now remember that we told you that at the U.S. customs we didn't have to open our trailer? Well, now at the California Agricultural Check Stop, they have you open your trailer. And remember I told you that we had been driving in the mountains of Idaho and Montana? Well, it was a real pain to open that trailer because everything had shifted. Go figure, the U.S. lets us in to the country, but California won't let us into the state without a check. Apparently they have to be very careful to protect their agriculture from foreign diseases.
Well, the mountains of California are a bit scary and to add to the drama the roads were horrible. It was like driving on cobblestone. I was a bit stressed out (maybe I have control issues too?) so I buried my head into a Maclean's. There were quite a few rest areas for vehicles to let their brakes cool, so we stopped at one just close to Donner Pass at about noon. We didn't have anything to eat though, ha ha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party
The volume of traffic definitely increased as we headed deeper into California. Once we were about 100 miles out of Sacramento, the interstate was lined with suburb after suburb. There really wasn't any more open space between cities. The last leg of the trip we had two meltdowns in the car. Joel was hollering because he was restless and cranky and so we pulled off the interstate and dealt with it. A few minutes after we got back onto the interstate, Asha woke up and started to cry because she was hungry. Unfortunately, traffic had stopped almost completely and we were trapped. There was no exit for miles and clogged lanes on either side of us. I said I would never do this, but I ended up taking her out of her car seat and feeding her while we drove 2 miles an hour in traffic. Ack! But it certainly made everything much better.
We arrived at a Comfort Inn just outside of Sacremento, around 4:00. We settled into an amazing room, got into our swim suits and headed for the pool. They even had a laundry facility which we really needed. It was such a relaxing evening and for once, we sat down for supper at a Chinese restaurant and had vegetables and rice instead of burgers. The kids didn't even stop to drink or talk during the meal; they were enjoying their broccoli.
That night we had a good sleep and in the morning leisurely got up and knew that we only had 2 hours to go before we were finally in Fresno.
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