Family Vacation: The First 36 Hours

I was going to count the first 24 hours, until I realized that vacation really starts when you get in the car. That makes this post about the first 36.

When did we become that family? There are bikes strapped to the top of the van!

We love driving. All of the packing and prepping is done, plans are laid (to be carried through or revised), mail is held and farewells said. And then...we get into the automobile. A clean break: a time capsule where you enter in one location, have an adventure, and then exit to find yourself in another place.

Or..we turn around and go home before leaving our street to go back and look for that camera cable I had in my hand. Just a few minutes ago. And I look for it inside for about five or ten minutes before giving up and getting in the van...to find it in my purse. Nice.

But we're on our way! Again!

We have made the drive to Quincy often enough that we have a rhythm and there's just enough predictability to make deviations interesting. It's not chaos. It's 540 miles of loosely orchestrated adventure, much like a sporting event: passing familiar towns like yard-lines on a football field when you're headed for a touchdown.

Nutmeg stretching out during our first stop

We often make the trip up with two stops, chosen from four different locations. This time around we made four. It was fine, anyway. One of my favorite stops--and the reason the travel is making the blog, anyway--is north of Sacramento. There's a Safeway (clean restrooms!) with a small, private parking lot behind it (great for nursing a little baby!) and a random large plot of grass (for running around and burning off the sugar highs from the cookies we gave them in Stockton!). For years we have stopped here before crossing the flats and then heading up into the foothills; before wending our way up the Feather River Canyon.


Not long after we left Sacramento, J spied some blackberries on the side of the road. Heaps of them. Summer comes a lot sooner to the flats (what else should I call them? I don't even know), and so he pulled over and said, "Ten minutes. I just want ten minutes." This was one of our extra stops. He picked and picked while we hung out in the van. I was reading Greenwitch; I have no idea what the children were doing.


And it means that we had blackberry cobbler for breakfast. YUM. SUPERYUM. A tasty slice of summer served up early, nice and warm.

You know what? I lied. I'm only doing the first 12 hours. It's late, and I need to go to bed...too many episodes of Parenthood last night. Rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, though, I'll throw this up in faith that I will eventually get to the deliciousness of Sunday in Quincy with our second-church family; we had the added bonus of a community get-together and live music and the warm hospitality of friends. I've been ruminating all day on what made Sunday special, and what those themes meant for the rest of our trip.

And I've been singing The Kepple Family's unique version of the old WWI tune "Katie" all day. So beautiful.

No! No! I'll talk about Sunday some other time!

Goodnight, y'all.