Road Trip: Day Three

Woodside CA to Corona CA

Scott again woke up before me, at about 9am, and again let me sleep, but this time only until 10am. Gary was getting ready to go to work and Carla suggested she take us to breakfast. We took some pictures outside the house, said goodbye to Gary, and headed down the hill into the township of Woodside.

We enjoyed a meal at Buck's Restaurant, convincing our server to allow us to order breakfast even though it was one minute past the 11am cutoff time. Carla and I both had the Woodsider Omelet, with Jack cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and topped with avocado. Scott had a Divine Omelet, which had meat and onions. Our meals were served with grilled red potatoes.

After breakfast Carla dropped us back at the house and we decided to take a nap before heading out. We slept a little longer than planned, but were on the road by about 4pm.

Central California is a big place. Mapquest estimated our journey should take about six and a half hours, so we hoped to arrive around 11pm or 12 at the latest. We headed out with Scott driving and made our way onto I-5 South. Our plan was to take I-5 down over the grapevine into Los Angeles, but had noticed several signs for at least 100 miles notifying us that I-5 was closed at Highway 138.

Since the map and directions we were working with didn't say anything about 138, or where it is in relation to our plans, we continued on hoping that we would magically figure things out. Just south of 99 joining I-5, we stopped for a little bit of Taco Bell at a Travel America, and were informed by a helpful truck driver that 138 was totally stopped up and no one was going anywhere. We purchased a California map and after talking with a different Mr. Helpful Truck Driver, decided to go ahead on I-5 to 138, and then take 14 down in to the basin.

Once on 138 it was clear that whatever the problem had been there, it was gone now and we were nearly alone on the way over to 14. Coming down the mountain into L.A., there was a close call for everyone on the road with a large amount of scrap metal spread all over the freeway.

We finally made it back to I-5 below the wildfires that had caused the original detour, and caught 210 to 57 to 71 into Corona, with Minx asleep on the dashboard. We pulled up to Audrey & Crit's house around 1:30am. Cats and accoutrements were hauled in and everyone went to bed, Chou under the covers.