Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Maggie's Memos: Back from Vacation...Day One!

Hi everyone!  I finally made it back from my coastal vacation with Mama and her family.  What a trip!  I had loads of fun (for most of it) and got to see and experience all sorts of new things.  It's great to be back, though.  I don't think I'd ever want to be a world traveler.  Too much time in the car (or airplane, or boat...you get the idea)! ;)

I have so many pics to upload to my vacation post that I don't even really want to think about it.  I think what I'll do, basically because I'm lazy and want to do things as easily as possible, is do one post for each of the days I was there.  That way, I won't be trying to upload tons of pics at the same time (all you bloggers know how well that works with Blogger's lovely photo uploader...although, I must confess, it's been a bit faster lately).

So you'll have to bear with me as I sort through my pics and share everything that happened.  And if you don't want to bear with me, then find some other blog to follow.

All right, enough of that.  On to Day One!!

Here I am in the car, all ready to go.  Just waiting for Mama and Papa and their girls to get their act together and get in so we could actually take off.  Humans take such a very long time getting ready...especially humans with little humans!

I was joined by Mama's girls' dolls.  Here are Baby Polly, Holly Hobbie, a small baby doll that I don't know, and a Bitty Bear.  These were what Mama's middle daughter brought.  It was amazing there was still room for her in the seat!

Mama's youngest brought her Molly doll and her stuffed dog Polka (as in dots, not the music).

Mama's oldest decided to bring Josefina.

We had lovely, uh, summer weather outside...NOT!  It was totally rainy.

After a lot of frantic scurrying around by the grown humans and lots of noise from the little humans, we were finally off!  I almost wish Mama hadn't told me how long the trip would be.  It was torture knowing I'd have to endure 3-4 hours of the little humans' "Woody's Roundup" and "Disney Princess Tea Party" CDs!


Mama was completely obsessed with taking pics of the scenery on the way.  Seriously, if I had put all of them in here, this post would have been 3 times as long.  Papa kept laughing at her, especially since she'd put the camera down and turn it off, then see another spot she wanted to photograph and scramble for her camera again.  A lot of the things she wanted to take pics of she missed.

I have to admit she did get some pretty cool pics, though.  Like this one.  Doesn't it look like something from a story?  I bet there's a door to Narnia somewhere down there.  Mama told me that when she was little and taking this trip, she used to try to see unicorns hiding in the trees and undergrowth.


Our first stop was at Burger King for lunch.  Josefina really wanted to be in the pic too.  Hmph, just steal my spotlight.  Why not? 

I have no idea why Mama thought it would be great to have us standing on the car.  I also don't know why we are waving to some unknown person in the distance instead of at the camera like we were supposed to.  Hello, Mama.  We have digital cameras for a reason!  Just because your kids are hungry, doesn't mean we need to be shoddy about the photo ops, okay?


More scenery.

Road construction!  Amazingly, this was our only stop on the entire trip.  Mama said it's pretty common to be stopped 4 or 5 times on these vacations.  I'm sooo glad that didn't happen this time.

Mama took the opportunity to braid my hair while we waited for the road construction to end.  She figured it would be less tangled if it was in braids instead of down.

Ta-dah! 

And yet again, more scenery.

By this time, I was getting a bit hungry, so Mama let me have some Parmesan & Basil Wheat Thins.  She and Papa had never tried these before the trip.  The funny thing was, they totally tasted like Ravioli.  It was super weird to eat a cracker that tasted like cheese-filled pasta! 

It started raining after a while...

...and then we hit some mist. 

After hours of traveling (and just when I thought I'd scream if I had to listen to another one of Mama's girls' CDs), we finally made it to our destination:  Eureka, CA.


Here's the Red Lion Inn.  Mama said that when she was a little girl, she stayed there around Christmas time with her parents, her brother, and her grandparents.  They were able to watch the Lighted Truck Parade from their balcony.

Everything was in bloom and absolutely beautiful (yikes...I'm starting to sound all flowery like Tess or something!).  Mama was taking pics right and left, trying to get shots of everything.

Here's the Bayshore Mall.  Mama said that would be one of our stops during our stay.

And here's Pierson's.  It's a hardware/garden store that the whole gang stops at every year.

After driving all the way through town, we finally made it to the place we'd be staying.  We stayed with friends of Mama's family.  Apparently, Mama and her family have been coming over here every year since Mama and her brother were little kids.  I was just happy that we were finally getting out of the car!

As soon as we were inside, Mama found me a comfy spot in the bedroom we were staying in.  I stayed behind and explored while Mama and Papa got everything unpacked. 

Nothing much happened after that.  Everyone just enjoyed resting and being out of the car.  I stretched out and relaxed on the bed until Mama and Papa kicked me out so that they could sleep there. 

Sigh.  Seeing that picture reminds me that my Aragorn is no longer in mint condition.  His sword was officially left behind in Eureka, lost somewhere in the room where we stayed.  The moral of the story is:  do not let 3 year old humans play with your stuff, even if they promise to be careful. 

Well, that's all for Day 1.  I know, somewhat uneventful. :}  I may try to post pics from Day 2 today as well, but we'll see how things go.  I'm still really tired from the trip.

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