We are officially back from our California vacation. \u00a0I’ve got the day off, because we didn’t get home until around 2:00 this morning, but as I stepped outside into the 90-degree heat this morning I quickly realized we were no longer in California. \u00a0Boooo. \u00a0We actually put some small amount of effort into extending the trip. \u00a0The Royals are at Angels stadium this evening, which would have justified another night. \u00a0We also wanted to put off facing the cat as long as possible; \u00a0The Wrath of Kane is indeed a fearful \u00a0display of spitefulness. \u00a0But, it just wasn’t to be. \u00a0For one thing, Donette leaves tomorrow on a business trip, and for another our debit card mysteriously quit working a few days ago.<\/p>\n
Great trip though, I feel like I have been gone for a lot longer than a week. \u00a0There were a lot more “activities” involved with this trip than usual, which I think made it more enjoyable. \u00a0To skim the highlights, we flew into Oakland on the 13th with the Martins. \u00a0Donette and Kelly were running in the Napa to Sonoma 1\/2 marathon<\/a> on Sunday, so the first weekend events centered around that. \u00a0The run went off without a hitch. \u00a0Matter of fact, they really didn’t even seem tired and we ended up meeting some friends and going out for the evening. \u00a0Monday I got up semi-early and joined Chris, David (a friend of ours who just happened to be in town from DC,) and Steve (who lives there) for a quick nine holes of golf. \u00a0Believe it or not, this marked the first time in my entire life I’ve played a round of golf. \u00a0It was a great time, if maybe more due to the 68-degree weather than the actual game. \u00a0Mercifully, there is no photo documentation of this event. \u00a0After that, we picked up the girls and Steve took us on a tour of the Sonoma Wineries. \u00a0Tuesday marked the end of the Martin’s trip, so we dropped them back at the airport and started the next leg of our trip, which was a drive down scenic Highway One. \u00a0I am most definitely not a fan of driving, but if you have to be stuck in a car for any extended period of time that’s definitely the road to be on. \u00a0Honestly I would rate it over the famed “Road to Hana<\/a>,” which we’ve driven a couple of times also. \u00a0Donette had planned the trip down the coast in relatively short hops so as not to exceed my notoriously short attention span, so we had lots of sight-seeing breaks along the way. \u00a0A few of the more interesting stops were lunch at Nepenthe<\/a> in Big Sur, and a tour of the Hearst Castle<\/a> in\u00a0San Simeon.<\/p>\n