Day 1 - Across California

We woke up this morning around 7 a.m. (OK, so Kristina was up at 4:30 on the dot... damn jet lag!) and packed up our car.  As you can see, this trip is reminiscent of the pack job on our original Route 66 adventure, but Emily assured Kristina that there are lots of FedEx locations on the route home and "we could always just stop, drop off one of the crates, and tell them to box this up and ship it out."

Emily, Kristina, and Marcia enjoyed breakfast in Burlingame at Neal's, one of Marcia's favorite breakfast joints.  We couldn't decide what to eat, so we ordered a bunch of everything and did a lot of sharing.  Delicious.  Then we walked to the nearby grocery store and stocked up on some lunch and snack essentials for the trip... time to get rolling!  Emily and Kristina gave Marcia (and Baby McDonald) big hugs and then hit the road.

The first stop was Sacramento.  If you are from the MidAtlantic region, you have most certainly visited Ocean City, MD at some point during a summer vacation.  Have you ever noticed the sign on the OCMD bridge on Route 50 (west) as you're getting ready to cross over the bay?  It says something along the lines of Berlin 15 miles; Salisbury 50 miles; Sacramento 3073 miles.  What you might not realize is that a similar sign exists on the opposite site of Route 50 where it ends in Sacramento.  Indeed!  Since Emily and Kristina have vacationed in OCMD nearly every summer as kids, this was an essential photo to get on this trip. 

Next up was Folsom, CA, just east of Sacramento.  Although we didn't have direct instructions, we managed to find our way to the grounds of the Folsom State Prison (the site of the legendary Johnny Cash performance back in the 60s).

More importantly, we discovered the prison museum.  Jim Brown, the proprietor, was a friendly man who obviously still loves his job 25 years later.  He was a wealth of information about the prison, prisoners, and all sorts of details therein.  And he was even nice enough to comp our admission price (a grand total of $4, but still...).  Because of this, we felt guilted into watching his short informational video, joining a mother, grandmother, and two little boys in the small room adjacent to the main displays.  We giggled as the early 90s Seinfeld-type music played when the video cued on... this video was at least 20 years old.  Then we giggled again when one of the little boys said to his mother, "Mommy, I don't like blurry videos."  

But the museum, albeit small, had really interesting stuff... like folk art made out of contraband, and even a signed picture of Rick James (did you know the Superfreak spent time in Folsom Prison back in the early 90s?).

Heading out of Folsom today, we passed some safety-conscious fellas pumping their hearts out.  No idea what this was, but they were moving at a pretty good clip right along the main road.

We moved on to Gold Bug Park in Placerville.  The mine tour, although low budget, was actually very well done.  We learned how rudimentary gold mining was accomplished on the self-guided tour  and later, how it was extracted in the on-site stamp mill.  Mostly, we just enjoyed wearing the required hard hats and trying to get our self-guided recorders to play in unison (much like we used to attempt syncing Britney Spears' "Overprotected" on our desktop computers during delirious late night study sessions in college).  

Inside Gold Bug Mine, reminiscent of Indiana Jones:

Through the twisting and turning Sierra Nevada mountains, we made our way to South Lake Tahoe.  Upon arriving, we checked into the Basecamp Hotel and went to grab a lakefront dinner at Rivas.  We ended the day with a stick shift driving lesson for Kristina in a nearby parking lot and then s'mores at the hotel outside fire pit.  Here goes nothing tomorrow, as we head to Salt Lake City!

South Lake Tahoe, with a prom happening on the boat:

Goodnight from the Basecamp Hotel: