1998/9 Baja, Mexico / California Trip

The following is a trip that our family took to California and Mexico during Christmas break. Our family includes my wife Cindy, myself, eleven year old son Jacob and six year old daughter Shawna. We had never been to Baja before and all four of us were going in our Chevy S-10 Extended Cab. I had been thinking about taking this trip for over a year but had to wait because of El Nino. About a week before leaving the family starting getting hesitant about going and I mentioned that if things did not go well we could always stay in California or even come home. Preparation for the trip required buying new tires, snow chains, a better first aid kit and a tow rope. I also had to promise Shawna that we would stay in a hotel on Christmas Eve so Santa could deliver presents.

We packed everything up Friday night and left home Saturday morning at 4:30. Sunrise was at 7:30. It was a cold clear morning with some ice and frost. The weather forecast called for snow the next day in Oregon and I wanted to get over the pass today. We drove past Portland around 8:00 am and then through Corvallis to show Jacob the small college town atmosphere of Oregon State University. There were some nice old houses in town of which many had been turned into businesses. We drove around the stadium and campus for about 30 minutes before taking highway 99 south. This is mainly farmland with little towns of Monroe and Junction City. There were many churches and small businesses in the vicinity. We finally got back on I-5 around 10:30

We drove for another two hours before stopping at the Wolf Creek Tavern for lunch. This is a Historic Inn & Restaurant that has been in continuos operation since 1887. It has been restored by the State of Oregon and has been under new management within the last year. The food was good and the prices were reasonable. It also has a little history as Jack London and Clark Gable are just a couple of people who have stayed in this Bar/Hotel. The Inn has rooms at $65 a night on the second floor. We continued south and passed a covered bridge over Grove Creek near exit 71. It was not in operation but you could still drive up to the bridge.

We crossed into California around 3:00 and we had made it through the Siskiyou mountain range with no problem. It was blue sky and very sunny although the temperature was still in the 30's. It was now around 4:15 and the sun was starting to set as we drove by Lake Shasta. It was also a good day to take pictures of Mt. Shasta with all of the snow on the mountain. It is interesting in that this mountain is right in the middle of flat land and its elevations is the same as Mt. Rainier. The scenery started getting boring after passing Mt. Shasta as we were out of the snow elevations and now into flat farm country. It was now around 5:00 and everybody was getting tired and hungry. We finally decided to stop at Willows for the night where we found a cheap hotel away from the highway for $38. This was a small farming town with not much action at night. There weren't many choices for dinner, so we bought subway sandwiches and ate in the hotel. Cindy and I waited for the kids to go to sleep and then walked to a bar that was close by. Most of the town was shut down. We ended up at Naomi's cocktail bar, where everybody seemed to know each other. It was a noisy crowd and no one came in or left the place while we were there. We left after one drink and went to bed around 10:00.

700 miles today, 700 Total.