11/17 - Nelson

Well...here we are in Arcata, California. It only took us six days, but we finally crossed the border into California. The weird thing is, there's still like 600 miles or something to go before we get to Brooke and Luka's place, where we're going to stay from whenever we get there through Thanksgiving. Then we'll head over to Arizona sometime the following week. I'm not sure we've even covered 600 miles on this entire trip yet...but we're probably pretty close to that number.

Today's drive was kinda weird, in a sense. I spent a lot of time really looking forward to going through the Redwood forest. But, unfortunately, we're thinking that unless you get off of 101 in the park, there's really not a lot to see. Sure, there are some cool really old trees with the "different" redwood bark, but there are no tunnels through trees, or trees so big you could hardly even imagine that it's possible for a tree to get that big. I guess when you spend most of your life in the Pacific Northwest, you get pretty used to seeing evergreen trees that are as old and thick as the ones we saw today.

One part of the road today gave me memories of a trip Nancy and I took with our parents once. Siskyou Pass was closed (this was probably 30 years ago or more), and mom and dad decided to go over to the coast and take 101 down to my aunt and uncle's place. Well, when we got to 101, there was a huge mudslide that was backing up traffic for miles. That was the first time we'd tried Pringles potato chips. I think we drove that stretch of road today. It was pretty familiar looking to me.

Going through places like Gold Beach and Brookings today was pretty. Oddly enough, of all of the south coast towns we went through yesterday and today, it sure seems like (along 101 at least) we thought Gold Beach was the only one that was really some sort of beach resort town. It really reminded me of Lincoln City. In another sense, there's something about the stunning beauty of the south coast. It's a little different than the Oregon Coast from Astoria to Newport that most of us Vancouver/Portland area folk are used to, I guess in a sense that a huge portion of it is still largely untouched by resort development. But it's really, really nice. If you've never seen it before, it's worth the trip.

The other thing I've been thinking of for two days now is my basketball team: the Slashers. For those who don't know, it's a club team we put together about three years ago and they've really become a great little team. The girls have all made friends with one another, and the parents have too. All of them are friends of mine. When we made the decision to leave for Arizona, I spoke with Kevin Fox, my assistant coach about him taking over the program and carrying on the traditions of the team (the main tradition is DEFENSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE). Anyway, last night was the first time I'd missed practice since Kevin took over as head coach. Tonight was the first time I'd missed a game. My thoughts seem to be focused on what happened tonight...and how practice went for Kevin last night. I'm confident he did fine in his first practice, and equally as confident that both the girls, and all the parents are just as supportive of Kevin as they always were for me. The good thing is, we'll be home in the spring, and we'll be able to see all the kids and their parents again before they all graduate in June. I'm still hoping Kevin, or someone from the team, will call or email me (or even comment on the blog) to let me know how things went tonight. Just because I'm gone doesn't mean that I don't care any more. I totally still care.

At some point in the next couple of days, we'll make it to the San Francisco area. Maybe as early as tomorrow. It's about 250 miles from here, still. But I've got family in the Bay Area, and Dawn and I have a friend there as well. We're going to try and see all of them. We're also even going to try and take the Alcatraz tour...which I've never done before, believe it or not. So we're planning to spend a couple of nights in that area. Should be fun!