"on the road again..."

sabine and i rock. in case you hadn't heard. like we rock hard. up til 3am, up at 6am, on the road by 7am. on schedule. we headed out after a couple of AMAZING days in seattle and were making our way to san francisco. this was to be the longest leg of our trip. 13 hours. straight. (or gay.)

sadly the rain obscured the views of mt. rainier in seattle, then mt. st. helens and mt. hood in portland. that said, we were making great times and it was beautiful to drive in a light rain through the northwest.

as we got into oregon, we passed through portland and made a stop in eugene... oh, EUgene! let's leave it at that. after a slight snafu in the beautiful city by the willamette we decided to press on and continue on our way. much to our delight we were surprised just after passing through grants pass (of oregon trail fame... the video game, of course), that we could begin to see the b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l mt. shasta... california's second highest point and the fifth highest in the cascades... our favorite mountain range(be sure to look at the photos).

as we came out of the mountains and the air warmed up, we rolled down the windows and got baked by the sun for the remaining six hours of the trip. the pine trees gave way to rolling golden brown hills and then down into the bay area. uncle butch had mistakenly left out that the bay bridge was closed through the weekend for one of the biggest architectural feats in modern history (see http://baybridgeinfo.org/1/index.html)... minor detail. we persevered and after a few hours in bay area traffic in a very scenic detour, were crossing the golden gate into THE CITY.

we got in (after finding possibly the most clutch parking space ever. ever.), and in a true sign of san franciscan hospitality, we had a warm welcome, cocktail in hand within minutes, and a delicious blackened chicken salad with buttermilk dressing and french bread... homemade. yum. the rooftop was next to taken in the beautiful view that cullen's uncle has of the golden gate bridge to the marin headlands, nob hill, russian hill, and every other beautiful hill and place.

we've already concluded that we may not come back to boston, and apologize in advance to kiron, the parents, the brothers, the lola, nina, marcy, diane, alexandra, and the many others our void might cause pain. as we discussed earlier and we'll now relay to you, "i always want to walk up hill, and feel like i've had a nice gluteus work out." we love it here. love it. love.

today's tally

cop count: 29... read that again please. 3 states. 12 hours. 29 cops. that's slightly more than two cops an hour. for 12 hours. 29.

miles driven: 914 (see map to left)

volcanoes seen: 2 (mt. shasta, lasser)

trips to "benecifia" (per sabine): just the one, though BENICIA was close by

laughs between friends, random jigs and dances, t.m.i.'s, and belted out songs on the radio (with associated dance moves): countless