Total Miles Driven: 256
Total Time in Car: 8 hours 32 minutes
Total Freeways Taken: 8
We left SLO around nine, thinking we’d make it to Oceanside about 4 – plenty of time to enjoy the pool, have an early dinner and get some rest. We just had two stops along the way – easy peezy. Not so much. The trip took about three hours longer than anticipated – a ridiculously long stop to buy headphones for Ry certainly contributed to our unfortunate timing in LA. Why we picked Oxnard to make this departure, I don’t know. Less than pleasant.
After the crazy Big Sur Drive from the previous day, the hills as we headed south were a welcome relief. Driving was easy and quick. We made a quick stop in Santa Barbara to check out a mission. Ben’s studied a bit of California history (from Spain’s perspective) so I thought he might enjoy it. He did. He got some great pictures and asked to go on the tour. I’m glad we did. The self-guided tour was very informative. Aside from our initial impression of the mission with the Churro cart on the front lawn, the entire facility was well maintained and told the story of the early settlers. The blue sky made for some pretty shots.
From here, we continued south and picked up our discounted tickets for Legoland and the Zoo at Port Hueneme. Thank you DOD.
Those two missions accomplished (ha!), we tried to make a quick trip to Oceanside. Didn’t work out as planned. The journey consisted of a trip down 101 to 1 to I-405 to I-90 to 110 back to 405 to I-72 to I-5. It was crazy. Nuvi helped us navigate around traffic backups and we finally made it.
From there, we had an excellent dinner at Stone Brewing. You know, the people who make the devil arrogant bastard beer, says Ben. Really excellent service, good beer and super yummy food. The setting was quite pretty, too. The highlight, according to the boys, was spotting a small preying mantis in the greenery outside the restaurant.
As you can see, Ry was completely tuckered out at the end of the day (which was longer than I’d hoped). He fell asleep on the way home from dinner and stayed that way till seven the next morning.
Until next time …
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