Santa Cruz via Lovelock and San Francisco

Hubby got stuck in traffic on his way to the airport on Thursday and missed his plane home, so he didn't get home until 11:00 am on Friday.  The things he was going to do Friday morning for the client in San Jose got bumped to Friday afternoon, so we got out of town a couple hours later than I'd hoped.

The pet friendly hotel in Lovelock Nevada worked out just fine.  Kelso was a perfect gentlemen and handled his first night in a hotel room just fine.  He heard someone outside at 6:00 a.m. and started woofing and sat by the door, which resulted in an early morning walk with me and him.  It's hard to argue with him, knowing that he can win at any time by peeing on the floor.
We stopped downtown to check out the locks of Lovelock... it's interesting. I saw locks all over the chains around the Pont de Vechio in Florence, but Hubby doesn't remember.

We didn't even give the dog another doggy drug on the way west.  He did fabulous, only barking to be let out once. (We dove for the next exit with no concern about whether or not it would be easy to get back on the freeway.  It wasn't easy; thank heaven for Garmin.)  We had eaten a nice big breakfast in Lovelock so we ate some of the snacks I'd brought in the car, and pushed through lunch with only the one dog stop, and a gas stop. (Again diving for a gas station that the Garmin said was close, only to find it was a 15 minute terribly-narrow-twisting drive through a Sausilito neighborhood.  Curse Garmin!)  We took a detour over through San Francisco to show the kids the Golden Gate Bridge, and to point out that Hubby and I lived near there (in Alameda) right before Thing 1 was born.  The kids seemed appropriately interested in the bridge, mostly because it's featured in the Monsters Vs Aliens movie, but they were completely thumbs down on stopping.  They just wanted to press on to the beach house.
We drove down Highway 1, gambling the traffic wouldn't be too bad on a weekend.  It wasn't.  We had a lovely drive along the coast, and were able to zip along pretty quick.
The house I rented in Santa Cruz I chose for its proximity to the beach, number of bedrooms, and pet friendliness.  It is a nice place, the third bedroom was quickly taken over by the girls for their playroom, and there is quite a bit of space.  This is a shot of the girls in the 3rd bedroom, playing in the loft above the bed.


Though it is roomy, fairly well equipped, and nicely decorated, it is still a rental, and it has little annoying features of a rental that a "lived in home" would not.  Such as there are two 24 inch TVs in on the floor of the master bedroom closet taking up all the room on one side, and a huge box for the flatscreen TV on the other side.  Neither of the two smaller bedrooms  has a dresser, just beds and a closet with a few hangers in them.  The shelves above the hangers in the closet have extra bedding and old (broken?) stereo equipment on them, with more boxes from other electronic equipment.  There was a very thin metal rod propped precariously above the bathtub in the master bath with a heavy cloth curtain draped over it in a kind of wad.  This is not a shower curtain, it's the decorative one you'd hang outside of a shower.  It's much too heavy for the rod it's hanging on... that arrangement I quickly took down, but it means the master shower doesn't have a curtain.  It's less of a problem because the shower head is on a swivel cable and doesn't attach to the wall
There are a few other things, but it's not making for interesting reading; I'm just whining.
It's quite a nice place all in all, more open space than we have at our house, and there is a master bath which we don't have at our house - though with the hand held showerhead in the master bath, I expect Hubby and I will shower in the hall bathroom, the kids will be (and currently are) bathing in the master.
The beach is about half a block away.  We'll have to walk down there and check it out, we were sort of occupied last night with unloading the car and getting dinner (us) and exploring the condo (the kids and the dog). Here's the dog enjoying the patio.

We did have a good egg hunt this morning.  The girls were thrilled with the stuff they found, and were very happy the rabbit found them.
They weren't the only ones thrilled with their find - I had left the dog's bowl of food out and it was covered in ants this morning.  He doesn't eat nearly what the package recommends as a normal serving size for his age and weight so I've taken to leaving it out so he can eat what he wants. Not so around here.   I go over and wipe the ants off the wall with a wet paper towel every half hour or so, leaving some broken ant bodies behind as a warning to their comrades.

We invited a good friend of mine from bygone years up for breakfast.  Jaymes and his wife and son live in San Jose, and they're coming over in a couple of hours.  Hubby's napping on the couch, and I should get up and get going.  Since yesterday the only grocery stores Hubby could find were all organic and healthy (fabulous food, but no Skittles or Apple Jacks) I think we may have to try and find an open grocery store (is anyone closed on Easter morning?), it's hard to know everything the place is missing until you've had at least one meal here, and there are no quiche pans.