The Long and Winding Road Home

Friday, our last day in Santa Cruz, was wonderful. The girls and I went to the beach just after lunch - which was earlier than usual, and Hubby joined us after a half day at his client.

Hubby had wanted to go see a Redwood park, but the girls had spent their whole time on the beach looking forward to him getting there. So it was hard to convince them to leave, and we ended up staying until supper time.


Hubby told me the secret of the skimboard is to DRAG the girl, not run alongside. So I tried that and we had a couple of really good runs. Thing 1 even put on her wetsuit and boogie boarded. It was awfully cute to have the dog running out to see what she was doing, though she bumped into him more than once.


Skimboarding

Thing 2 refused to boogie board, despite having loved it in Oceanside. Oh well, she was very happy playing in the sand, and being dragged along the beach on the skim board.

We didn't get as much packing in on Friday as I'd have liked, TRANSLATE: NONE so we didn't get packed up and on the road as early as I'd have liked on Saturday. It was closer to 11:30 than to the 10:00 am I'd hoped. But it was a miracle we got everything into the car, and those kind of miracles take a little time.

The drive home was mostly uneventful. We stopped for gas 3 times, once for a meal, and once when the dog barked to let him do his thang in the bushes. What the Garmin indicated should have been a 12.5 hour driving trip, of course not calculating for gas, meals, and dogs, we did in just a little more than 12, including stops. Obviously we are a couple of leadfoots. The last half hour or so, from midnight on, the dog was obviously getting restless and started messing with the stuff he could reach in the back. I knew it probably wasn't good, but we just pushed through. When we finally pulled into the garage and let him out we found he'd gotten into the board games, and had chewed through a couple corners of the "Carcassone" game box. Repairable, but annoying.

Turns out the dog was pretty sick. He threw up shortly after we got home, and then barked a couple times in the middle of the night to be let out to throw up some more, and to trot around the yard with the trots. While it was mildly annoying to be up and down letting him out at 2:00 am, and again at 4:00 am, it's sure a lot less annoying than cleaning lots of vomit and doggy diarrhea off the kitchen floor in the morning. He came through smelling like a - well, not a rose, but he proved himself a great traveler, whether he likes it or not.