DAY 2

Our first day we drove for 5 hours, 341 miles! We stopped in Lodi at a Best Western, got here at 4 am. There were a bunch of the spicy hot cheetos in the elevator, and then a trail of them in the hallway and another pile of them right in front of one of the doors. Very slick!

Shawn couldn’t sleep because of the caffeine so he was rolling around and jumping and left for some amazing breakfast at like 6 am. He ate 4 bear claws, cereal, raw eggs, and whatever else they had. He said he ate everything except the pineapple cake. It was the hotel breakfast so it was all you can eat, he probably made them re-fill all the trays. Ive seen him eat bear claws too, its no joke! Huggy bear claws.

Now its just after 11, time to hit the road!

We’ve been on the road almost 3 hours, been on the 99 North. We were going to go to Yuba River, where they have river rafting and inner tubing and fun river stuff, but now we are going to Lassen Volcanic National Park instead.

Shawn just told me that he is going green so he will not shower the rest of the trip. So “sustainable”

We stopped at a Starbucks because Shawn thought I had fallen asleep again, which I hadn’t. It was in Yuba City, and had the best, strongest coffees ever! I got a Grande skinny vanilla latte with 2 splendas (yep I like them very sweet) and he got a soy latte. The cashier asked us what we were doing today, and we told her maybe Yuba River, and that we were driving up to Oregon and we are from LA. Her eyes light up and she goes, “Oh wow, are you guys famous??” Haha. Oh the joy. She doesn’t know too much about Yuba River, so she asks her co-worker, who told Shawn the longest directions ever to get to some other river “off the beaten path”. But the directions were like “Go past the tree, turn right at the shrub, go over the fallen down branch, you’ll see the stray leaf …” hahahah, Shawns face was the funniest thing about it. And the destination was just a water place where you could your feet in. You couldn’t jump off rocks or swim or anything. So we will skip that. Then the guy was asking us about LA, like why we lived there, and commenting on how bad the traffic is, and how he envisions people getting shot everyday. He thinks LA is like a human zoo it sounded like. We told him it wasn’t as bad as he thought. Then he asked if I went to UCLA, because I told him I go to school in LA. He said he thought about going there, but then he couldn’t because he would have to get a job in LA too. Maybe he doesn’t know that LA has a Starbucks on every street corner? There was an interview going on in Starbucks, I couldn’t hear all the details, but the interviewee was talking about milking cows.

Next stop volcanos!

Still on the road to Lassen State Park. We stopped to go to Sierra Nevada Brew Co in Chico, but it is closed on Mondays! Then we stopped for gas in Chester and got lottery tickets, beer, and snacks. Everything has been logged!!! Ok we’re here Ill have to update when were back. Toodles.

We won another 10 dollars in lotto tickets! I love those things! We were one mere “C” away from winning 20K! It was a crossword puzzle, and we had to spell the word “Statistic” and all we needed was the “c”. : ( hmmph.

We didn’t hike the volcano because it was late by the time we got there, but we saw a sulpher rock, with gas steam coming out of it. It smelled sooooo bad, like a mixture of rotten eggs, old gym clothes, and warm farts. The camera had run out of battery so we took some pics on our phones, and a short video too. It was pretty cool. Volcanos are weird. We went in the little museum part too, where they tell u the history so we learned some volcano trivia. We bought some shot glasses too, and a button that says “I climbed Lassen Volcano” Shawn wore it the rest of the day. We were on our third beer by this point, so it was pretty fun in the gift shop. I love gift shops. I also got huckleberry jam, and sweet n spicy mustard. Then Shawn got a dry roast beef sandwich served by a Swedish guy. Shawn’s theory on him was that he was an exchange student who was all excited to come to America, but then he ended up in Lassen Volcano Park, and is bored shitless and wonders why he wanted to do this. I thought he looked excited to sell the sandwhich.

Then we were driving through a town called Mineral. The population was 90! We stopped at the Lodge restaurant, and there were 5 people eating, not including us, and 3 people working. I think it was the only restaurant. Actually, I’m positive. There was a “motel” next door, with what looked like one room. And a bar too, it was open on Saturdays. The décor was cool, lots of old looking pictures, and deer heads, and they had a game room. The whole place looked like a house. Shawn got a volcano shot, which was 151 lit on fire. Got a good pic of the flame. I got a chocolate lava martini. We ate a lot. Soup, poppers & toothpicks, bufallo chicken salad, salmon, and very good French fries. And we even multitasked by pluggin the camera battery in the wall. Poppers are little fried balls of jalepeno and cream cheese, and toothpicks are some vegetable, I think maybe zucchini or something, fried to look kind of like a French fry. We rated the food a 4 out of 5.

Then we kept on trekking, got back on 5 N towards Redding. I fell asleep in the car, it was windy making it back to the 5 and I was a sleepybear. Seemed pretty quick to get to Redding, and we found a Hilton Garden Inn and got a room. They had free cookies!! Sugar, chocolate chip, and peanut butter. Shawn couldn’t tell the difference between sugar and peanut butter, looks-wise. And they had free internet, and a small pool and workout area. The only bad thing about it was a fake looking “drawer” over the mini fridge, was really just a wood panel, which jumped off its hooks onto my bear toes. (get it, bear?). it hurt sooooooooo bad, but we rate the hotel a 5 anyways. Free breakfast too, which we missed, but looked good.

We both showered (shawn broke his sustainability promise), then hit up the Win-River Casino a few miles away. We were not so lucky at the casino, and figuring out how much we were down was quite the task, but the conclusion was that we lost $160, so our “lottery” average has been dragged way down, and now we are at a net loss of $177 for gambling activities. We shall redeem ourselves!! We played blackjack and video poker and drank Jack and diets, 2 each. Came back about 12:30 and ate more sugar cookies. I also had to eat all the almonds, because they spilled in my bag. Shh.