January 1, Friday, New Year’s Day
I wake before our 5:30 alarm, heat up coffee and finish my final packing. There are a few business odds and ends to wrap up before I can leave with a clear conscious. At 8:00 A.M. Art and I drive to C.V.S. to pick up our prescription medications for our extended stay in Baja. Art is expecting to pay over $700 for his medications since it is the start of a new calendar year and I am expecting to pay $90 for mine. We are pleasantly surprised when the pharmacist tells us that there is no co-pay and we leave feeling that the New Year is off to a good start. After a quick stop at the A.T.M. we call John and Will who spent New Year’s Eve with friends at the Santa Cruz Holiday Inn. They are bleary eyed but meet us in the lobby. We make a quick stop at the nearby McDonalds since grease and carbs will help to settle a night of too much excess and return to our house to load our Toyota 4-Runner. We pull out of our driveway at 10:00 A.M.
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| Sleeping Boys on New Year’s Day |
Art drives the first leg of our trip to King City where we stop at Starbucks and order a soy cappucchino to go. When I emerge from the rest room the boys have vanished but I find all three at the McDonalds across the street, refueling again. I drive from King City to Santa Monica. At 4:30 P.M. we arrive at Ken and Amelia’s; enjoy a nice visit and take them out to a Japanese restaurant. The restaurant’s speciality is skewered meats and vegetables and we each order three assorted skewers accompanied with fried rice. The ordering process is confusing and the skewers arrive sporadically and I leave still hungry.
Art drives the final night time leg of our trip between Santa Monica and Chula Vista. I have booked a Holiday Inn Express with my CLC card but unfortunately have forgotten that the credit card connected to my CLC account has been compromised. The boys head up to our room while I sit in the lobby, under the sour gaze of the receptionist and struggle to log into my CLC account and correct the credit card information. Our room is spacious with two queen beds and happily John and Will don’t have an issue sharing a bed. It’s been a very long day.