The Long Drive Home

Today was pretty low key, as we spent it driving home from Santa Barbara, going by way of Terra Linda, because we hadn't done enough sorting through grandmothers' stuff already this weekend!  I had a few things I needed to pick up for my mother, a few things I wanted for me, and one thing that I wanted to make sure got home for Jeri.

We stopped for a little bit of gas before leaving Santa Barbara, where gas is pushing $5/gallon, and drove up to Betteravia, where gas was "only" $4.09 to fill up.  Then on up the valley.  I decided that the movie Despicable Me 2 has got to have a whopping publicity budget.  I swear they are advertising that movie everywhere, from McDonald's, to posters, to even a mini blimp flying over the fields near King City.

I'm not sure how effective it was to all those migrant workers in the fields.  This is harvest time and they were there by the hundreds, all the way up the valley.

We decided to stop at one of our regular eateries in King City for lunch.  King City is about 20 minutes from the Burger Queen, but somehow we seem to save the Burger Queen for trips south, and eat at V's Coffey [sic] House for meals going north.

I personally like V's better than the Burger Queen.  For one thing they don't salt their meat as heavily as the BQ, nor do they automatically add pepper.  But mostly it's just a much better tasting burger, IMO.

(even though today they had no mushrooms, which were scheduled to arrive on the produce truck at 3 p.m.  The waitress asked if we'd like to wait...40 minutes!  We declined and I just had my burger without the mushrooms.)

But V's is notable for its tsatskes.  It's the only restaurant I've visited where the decorations are heavy on religion.  We were sitting next to the Jesus booth.

We continued north and stopped at a rest stop.  I was intrigued by this note I found posted on a pole.  I wonder what this means!

We stopped in Terra Linda.  The house looks so sad.  Like an abandoned apartment, with stuff everywhere.  I picked up the things I had come for, said goodbye to the HUGE portrait of my mother's mother-in-law, which her husband insisted in ordering and which nobody wants now, neither her grandchildren or her great grandchildren!

It's a lovely portrait, but it's so huge that Peach's grandson refused to sleep in the same room with it because he said it scared him.  My mother has been trying to get rid of it ever since her husband died and it has lived for the past 15 years in her closet, face to the wall.  Poor Katherine.  I don't know what is going to become of her!