2nd Letterboxing Road Trip (Day Two)

Since we'd had such a long day on Friday I told Z to give me an extra half-hour whenever I "hit the snooze button". With four attempts she finally got me to wake up around 9:30am. She had spent a couple hours that morning finishing up some of the boxes we would be planting that day. I helped with the final touches there and we somehow managed to not leave the motel until Noon. So, with a late start I nixed my Arden Fair mall plant (the second lost plant of the trip as I realized we wouldn't be passing the Nut Tree on the way home). Instead we headed straight to FairyTale Town.

This place was definetly meant for kids younger than Z. They must of had 20 birthday parties going on and only 2 were for 8yr olds (none older) while the majority were for 3 & 4 year olds. Nevertheless, Zairabear had fun playing around and I had fun watching her :-) We even managed to hide 3 of the 4 boxes we had planned. I let Z actually plant the 4th and she got the angle wrong, exposing the box. When I tried to replant it the stickiness of the Velcro had been compromised and I didn't have any spare on me :(

After a little freeway confusion we took Hwy 99 down to Lodi. Our first stop was Grumpy Grinch's "Lodi Libation". Z had a little trouble reading the map to determine that this box had its own exit, but we managed to find our way there all the same. This is a wonderful spot and the stamp was well worth it! Once we'd made use of the facilities the car wouldn't start, AARRRGGHHHH!!! But Z was in the spirit of adventure and agreed to learn how to pop a clutch. She got it on the first try! That's my girl.

We were running pretty late at this point, so had to skip out on LisaScenic's nearby "Astonishing Creatures" plant and I also nixed all of the Stockton area boxes we had on our list. We did manage to pick up a very refreshing mystery box along the way however.

I decided we'd cut over from 99 to I-5 on Lathrop Rd so we could try to stop the alien threat to our junkfood and we were rewarded with one of the coolest pieces of "Roadside America" I've seen in quite some time! It seems a spaceship crashed right into a building and the aliens were running all around it trying to repair the damage while dodging weary drivers! A big thanks to Mtnbikemanns for leading us here with his "Alien Smorgasbord"!

That was it, time was running out. So we highballed it back towards Gilroy, stopping in Santa Nella long enough for me to introduce Z to the road trip tradition of eating at Pea Soup Andersen's. I'd left the headlights on when we arrived so when we finished eating the battery was dead. ::sigh:: Instead of asking someone for a jump like a normal person I insisted on having Z pop the clutch again. This time it took about 20 tries (half my fault, half Z's). While I was resting from all that pushing Zairabear informed me that popping the clutch wasn't as fun as she'd first thought ;-)

Still, we made it home on time, exhausted of course. Another road trip successful and many more memories (letterboxing and otherwise) added to our collection!

Tags: road trip, Sacramento, plants, popping the clutch, Pea Soup Andersen's, alien junk food