Day 4 - Monday, June 15 - California!!!
All right, one more day of driving and we’ll be in California! Just like the other days, we targeted a departure of 8:00 AM. So we got up early and started packing our stuff. As usual, I started loading the car while the others started breakfast.
I went out to load the car and it was an absolutely gorgeous morning. Perfect temperature, slightly chilly but not cold. And the air seemed like it had a hint of sage to it...fresh mountain air. And what a view... I’m in heaven!
I took my time loading to soak it in a little bit. Here’s a view of the hotel from the outside...
I finished loading the car to find my family finishing up breakfast...
And then we played the waiting game while Dave and Grandpa loaded up their car. If I had one complaint about traveling with them, it’s that they usually took a lot longer to get moving than we did, which meant a lot of waiting around. No big deal, the kids had fun playing and it gave us a little bit longer to enjoy the cool mountain morning.
And a bit later, we were on the road. Yahoo!!!!
Normally, I’d say that the scenery between Elko and Reno was beautiful, but it was relatively boring when compared to what we saw in Wyoming and Utah the day before. So it was a pretty uneventful 3 or 4 hours until we arrived in Reno.
Our next destination?!?!
The first In-N-Out that you’ll find heading west on I-80. And it seems like everyone else and their in-laws (too) were stopping here for that very same reason. The line was
In-N-Out-the-Door...
My immediate family has had it before (and we loved it), but the rest of the group had not. Grandpa is a burgers and fries kind of guy, so I had a strong hunch that he’d like it. (And he did… they ate at the chain two or three more times during the following week.)
If you have no idea what I’m talking about here, I’d say In-In-Out is about the best fast food burger chain there is. Period. It’s cheap, simple, fast, and very tasty. The fries are all cut fresh and fried right before your eyes. And the burgers are made to order. So good. I’m lucky the closest one is over a day’s drive, or else, I’d be obese right now.
If you are still interested, read this blog post from my favorite food blogger (Kenji Lopez at Serious Eats) about their secret menu. It has a great overview of the chain with lots of photos.
So yeah, it was packed. We had to park down the block. But once we were inside, the line moved very quickly. They were super efficient. But still… they were so packed, that we had to eat outside. No problem, except for it was really hot out. Oh well, ain’t nobody gonna rain on our parade!
We pretty much all had traditional burgers and fries. We saved the secret menu (including going Animal Style) for later.
Fast food nirvana right here!
As my cousin, who was raised in LA, would say, “In-N-Out… it's what it’s about!”
I think the girls would agree:
OK, enough of me gushing about lunch. Time to get back on the road. Next stop is Sacramento! We headed into the mountains, and then we were back to the breathtaking views again. Driving I-80 is just too awesome!
Before we knew it, we were in California. And a couple miles later, we came upon what looked like a toll booth.
Except for instead of collecting money, they were collecting your produce. LOL.
In hindsight, I should have known about this. I work for the country’s oldest fruit tree company (Stark Bro’s) and there are all sorts of rules about what we can and can not ship to California. So we pulled up and the guy asked us if we had any produce… we told him that we had two apples. He asked to see them, and then he kept them (since they didn’t have labels with their state of origin on them.) He said if they had labels saying that they came from Washington, he would of let us keep them. He made a big deal out of it, but I was like… “Two Apples?!?!” who cares - you can have them. He took down our license plate number and our zip code too. I half thought I was going to get a ticket or something waiting in my mailbox when I got home. LOL. That was really weird.
An hour or two further, we made it to Old Town Sacramento. We stopped here for one reason, and one reason only….
Candy Heaven!!!
Pretty much the best candy store EVER. (Too bad it was a bit pricey.)
These photos don’t even begin to do it justice. The photo above only covers about 1/4 of the store. They had pretty much every kind of candy imaginable.
We all stocked up on our favorites. My biggest score was half a pound of Tart’n Tiny’s. These little sugar candies were some of my favorites as a kid. In the 90’s they started putting a hard sugar coating on them (like Spree’s or something) and they were never the same. And then about 15 years ago, they were discontinued. By then, I had quit eating them and had no idea that they were gone... I had just forgot about them. Turns out that they were re-introduced this past year and they are indeed VERY rare. And expensive on the internet. As crazy as it sounds, I wish I had picked up a couple of pounds. No joke!
After we all checked out with our bags of candy, we explored Old Town Sacramento for a little while and enjoyed some of the mom-n-pop shops.
It reminded me of a combination of Laclede’s Landing and Main Street St. Charles in the St. Louis area. Very cool.
At that point, we decided to part ways with Stephanie’s family for the rest of the day. We would be heading to my Aunt and Uncle’s (my mom’s side of the family) in Hayward and we wanted to visit with them for the evening. And the others wanted to get checked into their hotel and make it to downtown San Francisco for dinner.
If you’ve read my other trip reports (or the pre-trip report), you might remember that I’m into skateboarding. And my skateboarding shoe of choice is the classic... Vans. We don’t have dedicated Vans stores in Missouri, and even more rare for us are Vans outlet store. So we stopped at the outlet in Vacaville.
Buddy and I both ended up getting a pair of shoes, and I got a couple shirts. I hadn’t had any of the Star Wars Vans yet, so I couldn’t resist a good deal on the Hoth themed ones. (And Buddy got a pair of checker board slip ons.)
I showed restraint, because I had big plans for the Vans/Disney collaboration shoes when we hit our first regular Vans retail store!!! In the meantime, I leave you with this:
Oh yeah, I’m totally getting some of those!!!
What next? Well, it’s getting close to dinner time. How about we eat? Stephanie Yelped and there was a Boudin Bakery near by.
So… we’ve heard of Boudin Bakery, because… well, you know… They have a bakery in the Wharf area of California Adventure. Good sourdough bread? I’m in!! We had no idea what the actual restaurant would be like, but it had excellent reviews, so let’s do it!!!
Walking into the store, they had cool bread sculptures (not too far off from they Mickey head ones in California Adventure.)
So what did we order?
Stephanie had an Asian salad with clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.
I had a bowl of clam chowder and a half sandwich of turkey, avocado, and bacon. Princess had the whole version of the same sandwich.
Buddy had a turkey sandwich...
And Princess had a pizza!
So how was it?
Amazing!!! One of the best “counter service” meals of the entire trip. Everything was fresh and tasty. And you know... I grew up eating at Panera... When it was a local chain, unique to St. Louis. When it was still called “St. Louis Bread Co.” everywhere. Being from the area, I take a bit of pride in Panera and I eat it somewhat frequently. So yeah, I think Panera is pretty good. But… Boudin blows it out of the water. In a major way. It was
that good! (Princess kept bring up that sandwich the rest of the trip. And that’s saying a lot!)
All right, Buddy was a bit jealous of Pickle’s cookie. I said, "do you want a cookie, or a doughnut from next door?" Without a hesitation, he hollered "a donut."
Buddy looks disturbed in the previous photo, but I can assure you, he was stoked. The sun was just in his eyes. The only Krispy Kreme in our area closed about 5 years ago and they are a rare treat these days.
So yeah, a couple donuts and we were on our way to Uncle Tracy and Aunt Minh’s! We got to their house around 6:30 PM or so. We unloaded our car, got situated, and spent the evening catching up. We hadn’t seen them since they visited St. Louis last summer. Good times. They are the best!
(Oh and a funny note… Pickle kept calling them Uncle Minh and Aunt Tracy. Seems logical to an 8 year old. Because Tracy is commonly a girls name, and Minh is pronounced like “Men” - so that should be a boy name, right? I’m glad that they are good sports, because it never seemed to bother them and and they seemed to think her logic made sense.
)
Just make sure you NEVER drive that stretch of road in Wyoming during the winter months. It gets crazy. The snow and wind are so bad and we have had quite a few horrible scary experiences there. The last time we drove it when we were moving from Wisconsin back here to Utah I thought for sure we were going to die. Right in that canyon where the Lincoln rest stop is we couldn't see past the end of the hood of our car. And a few semi trucks flew past us only to have us see them upside down off the road a few miles later when visibility was better. 
.... I guess maybe they get used to it, but definitely would not motivate me to go swimming
I'm real familiar with the area. I live in Fairfield. In N Out is the best fast food. Yummy.
