California Bound!

Spirits were very, very high on Friday morning as the Schilling girls arrived at about 8:30am and within an hour, we were on the road, California bound.  These pics were taken about five miles from our house.  Michele was learning how to navigate my phone - the camera, PicFrame, Instagram, and tagging on Facebook while I took the role as driver. 

Note that the beautiful sunshine we'd had the day prior was not existent in these morning hours.

It took us about three hours of driving south to finally find it.  Once you go from a fog bank into this...it's such a "Hallelujah" moment - certainly giving even more reasons to praise God for such a priceless adventure we were given the opportunity to experience.

This pic was taken about an hour later.  Clearly, the girls weren't as enchanted with the border crossing into California as they were last summer.  Dramamine had a lot to do with it too.  They slept a long time.

Michele and I definitely agreed that the early stretch of I-5 in California are indeed beautiful with Mt. Shasta on the horizon and Shasta Lake recreational area.  But, once you get past that, the scenery is downright dull - and very unappealing.  Michele and I switched out of the driving rolls when we stopped in Redding to fill up with gas and some McDonald's.  We were all in a hurry to get to our final destination, so there was no time to be picky in terms of where to eat.  We did very much enjoy, however, the 70 degrees that greeted us as we stepped out of the car there.  Ahhhhhhhh.

In just about 8 hours from the time we departed our house, we reached our hotel in Fairfield, California.  We picked the location based on it being a Marriott Fairfield Hotel - a franchise we choose every time if possible based on how well it fits our family and the familiarity of it.  We had hoped it would be in a good location, and sure enough, it was the last exit of this city - in a newer developed area that felt very safe.  That makes all the difference in comfort level, that is for sure.

Right across the street was a "Straw Hat Pizza" restaurant.  None of us desired to get back into the car to drive someplace, so that sounded like a great idea.  Unfortunately, the taste of the food was rather lackluster, but the place won huge points from the kids by having tv monitors at each table.  The one drawback of our hotel was that it didn't have Disney Channel (seriously?!!) - so when they discovered this place did have it, they were able to satisfy some of their withdrawals.

The day ended with a walk across the street to get some fro yo, and then nestling in to our cozy hotel room.  We'd arrived!