Landmarks

I realized today what a difference having certain landmarks along a long drive makes.

The day started v-e-r-y early. I was so afraid I'd oversleep, that I set the alarm for 5:30--and then was wide awake at 4:30. It left me enough time to run a load of dishes, do a load of wash, feed the dogs, take a shower, pack the car, and be on the road by 6:30. I didn't know how much rush hour traffic I would encounter on the way to my mother's and wanted to plan ahead.

As it turns out, I encountered NO rush hour traffic, so I got to her house by about 8:15. She was at the hairdresser and her doctor appointment wasn't until 10, so I managed to fit in a half hour nap.

We got to Kaiser early and had a bit of a wait, but we met with the anesthesiologist (a very nice man who set off my gaydar, even moreso after he talked about his ex-wife and about how his father "disagrees with some of the choices I've made in my life and feels that I'm going to go to hell."), then the nurse who was in charge of explaining how the procedure was going to go, and finally a woman who, I guess, was in charge of calculating the cost--but she typed about 10 words a minute, obviously didn't know how to work the computer and screwed up so many times I was tempted to volunteer to enter all the information FOR her!

We were finished and back home by noon, I had a quick sandwich, and was on the road for Santa Barbara by 1 p.m.

Fortunately, I had an audio book with me and it made the miles fly by, but what made them pass even faster was realizing how I didn't think of it as a 300 mile trip, but a trip from point A to point B, from point B to C, and so on.

The first landmark is San Jose. It's about a 2 hour drive on whichever highway we choose (we have 3 options from Davis to San Jose) and I never really feel that I'm "underway" until I've gone past San Jose.

By the time I'd passed San Jose, I was already feeling sleepy and stopped at a McDonald's to get one of their new mocha lattes and hoped it would wake me up. It did!

I always love driving through the stretch of highway before Mission San Juan Bautista, which is lined on both sides tall eucalyptus trees, which was used in the film Vertigo. I have never driven that stretch without thinking about James Stewart and Kim Novak!

As I passed through the area south of the Mission San Juan Bautista, my eyes actually hurt because the hills were so incredibly gorgeously green. I finally had to stop and take a picture. This photo doesn't begin to do it justice!

Next come signs for Watsonville (where my friend Phil grew up) and Castroville, the Artichoke Capitol of the World. Both are off the beaten track, so I only pass by their signs.

Then there is passing through Salinas. Every single time we pass through Salinas and see the highway sign for the John Steinbeck center, I think of how I've wanted to go there for twenty years, but we are always rushing to get somewhere else whenever we pass through Salinas. If it hadn't been so late, I might have actually done it today.

The water tower at Gonzales is my next landmark. This is across the highway from The Burger Queen.

Walt's mother used to work for the Department of Agriculture and traveled all over the state. She discovered the Burger Queen on her travels and usually stopped here for lunch or dinner.

It's a pretty "nothing" kind of place, but it's not a chain and the food is cooked to order and it's pretty good, for a burger joint. We frequently stop there for lunch or dinner, if the timing is right, but I had already had lunch and it was too early for dinner, so I mushed on.

The Burger Queen

I never really feel that I've passed the point of no return until I pass through King City. I hate King City. Not for any rational reason but just because it is about the halfway point so it seems to take forever to get there whether you are traveling north or south.

Once I've gone through King City, the next landmark to look forward to is San Luis Obispo, where Tom used to live while he was attending Cal Poly. I love it when I hit SLO at dinnertime, as I did tonight. If I'm driving alone, as I was today, I always stop for a meal at The Apple Farm.

It's filled with all sorts of kitschy things, does its own baking, and the food is very good. I love stopping to eat there. Tonight I had a chopped chicken salad that was so huge I brought half of it with me and Walt had it for dinner here. It comes with the Apple Farm homemade cornbread.

Once I leave SLO, I know it's only a couple of hours to Santa Barbara. The next landmark is Pea Soup Andersons and the road to Solvang and from there it's a hop skip and a jump to here.

I listened to all but 2 hours of my book, so I've almost finished it. It and the mocha latte were a real godsend to keeping me awake all the way down here. Tomorrow Laurel and I are finishing the cakes for the birthday party on Sunday.

When we get home, we will have seven dogs: our two, the four puppies, and Tot, who is coming back for awhile (Tater has been adopted).

My Lunch with Oprah

Anybody who has paid any attention to Oprah in the past three or four years probably knows the (famous?) story about the restaurant in San Luis Obispo which was on the verge of closing until one of Oprah's minions happened to pick up one of their sandwiches for Oprah, who promptly fell in love with it and ended up wresting the place from the jaws of bankruptcy, investing in it, and making it world-famous by raving about the food on her show.

I haven't watched Oprah much for a couple of years, but my mouth has been watering for that chicken curry sandwich ever since I first heard the story.

San Luis Obispo is situated just at the wrong distance. We pass through it on the way to Santa Barbara, but it's 5 hrs from Davis and 3 hrs from Santa Barbara, so unless you leave Davis at the crack of dawn, it's too long a distance to stop for lunch on the way down, and unless you loll around in Santa Barbara, you get there too soon for lunch on the return trip.

I did try to go there once, and called to see if they would be opened, but we arrived in town an hour after they closed. Another time Walt and I happened to be in San Luis Obispo right at lunch time and I couldn't find it. We ate at another very lovely place, but Oprah's place eluded us.

As we planned this trip to see Brianna, I toyed once again with the possibility of having lunch at "Oprah's restaurant" (the real name is the Art Cafe and Bakery and it is at 570 Higuera, if you're looking for it!).

"Could we possibly," I asked Walt, "leave by 8 so we could stop for lunch in SLO?"

8 a.m. is almost unheard of for us, but we agreed to try. I knew there was NO chance whatever when I woke up this morning with Lizzie landing flat on my chest demanding breakfast, glanced at the clock and realized it was after 7.

However, in spite of the late hour, we actually did get out of the house by 9, brought crackers with us to stave off hunger, and we headed for San Luis.

The first part of the trip was a fun lesson in high tech travel. Remember when you got in the car, turned on the radio (if you had one) and tried to pick up the signals of local stations? Well, I had my iPod, on which I was listening to the end of Ed McMahon's "Here's Johnny," which I started on my last trip down here. I was sending text messages to Jeri, Ned, and my friend Mary in Seattle.

Then Ned sent a tex message asking if we could still get his radio station (93.7, Jack-FM in Sacramento) or were we out of range. I told him we could get it, so he told me to tune in and listen. He said that when the current song finished there would be six minutes of commercials and then I should listen to the jingle at the end.

The jingle started with Dorothy saying "Toto, I've feeling we're not in Kansas any more" followed by the sounds of the witch's soldiers chanting "Jack-FM,eee-ooo", and ending with the Witch saying "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too." I texted an "LOL" to Ned. who creates the promo spots for Jack-FM in Sacramento and he returned "You can't take the Oz out of the boy."

That's my boy!

We continued our way out of Jack-FM range and I turned Ed McMahon back on the iPod (he's a terrible reader!) and then we listened to the latest "Says You" podcast and finally I put the music on "shuffle," which gave us an incredibly eclectic selection which mixed Orf's Carmina Burana with Johnny Cash, with Avenue Q, with Lawsuit, with Shania Twain, John Denver and Tony Bennett. Definitely not your normal playlist!

We only needed 3-4 crackers apiece to get us to SLO and we arrived, amazingly, at 2 p.m., a decent hour for lunch. The address was in a courtyard so there were lots of little shops and eateries to check out. While we were trying not to be obvious about it (I wasn't going to admit that I was one of "those" people looking for Oprah's cafe, even if I was one of "those" people looking for Oprah's cafe!), I saw another husband and wife looking around as lost as we were. The husband went off into a store and pretty soon came out and started pointing. They disappeared around the corner. Again, I didn't want to be obvious about being one of "them" but we followed them and there was the Art Cafe & Bakery.

Definitely not the high-falutin' place you'd associate with someone of Ms. Winfrey's financial status, but we went in, trying not to look like one of "those" people. There were only a handful of tables. The only one open, actually, was the booth directly under a portrait of Oprah, so we sat there.

Walt ordered the signature "O"riginal chicken curry sandwich, but since I'd read a restaurant review which preferred a different chicken sandwich (which came with carmelized onions, and you just can't go wrong with carmelized onions!), I opted for that, figuring I could have a taste of Walt's curried chicken sandwich.

The sandwiches were short on presentation

but very definitely long on taste. Both sandwiches were piled so thick that you really needed to eat them with a knife and fork and it was worth every mouthful.

So finally my curiosity has finally been satisfied. Would I go back again? Sure, but I don't think I would rush the way I did today to get there in time.

I drove the rest of the way and was delighted to note that the hills are still a deep green. I wished I could take pictures but that's not a good idea when you are driving! Some spots were breathtaking, especially with carpets of mustard and/or lupin on top of the green grass.

We rolled in here around 5 p.m. and talked with Tom. We have a date with Brianna tomorrow around noon. I can't wait!