Day 14: Pasadena, Hayward & Williams
Count down started today for the next Millenium. We left Anaheim at 7:30 as traffic was light. We did stop in Pasadena around 9:00 as they wanted to try and get Jacob a UCLA Rose Bowl sweatshirt. I wasn't real happy about coming in just for the shirt and missing the parade. This would be the one day when Cindy and I would have our one large argument. It seems like we always have one argument on the way home from long trips. It's usually something stupid as I'm not ready to go home yet and Cindy can hardly wait to get back. It's usually about 3-4 days before we get home. We turned around and looked at the kids and told them this wasn't their fault and it happens all the time on long trips. They looked a little confused but let us finish our argument and then we were on our way.
We left Pasadena at 10:00 and decided to take I-5 north. I had thought about going on highway 1 thru Big Sur and Monterey but the weather was foggy and we may not even get get to see the ocean with the fog. We just went straight thru and stopped for gas at Bakersfield and then took highway 580 to go into the Bay Area. Today was Cindy's birthday and I used that as an excuse to take them to the best Italian restaurant in the Bay Area. We got into Hayward at 2:30 and went to Banchero's Italian Restaurant on Mission Blvd. Their seven course meal includes soup, appetizer plate, salad, vegetables,, spaghetti, ravioli, a main course selection and ice cream for $8-12 dollars. They also have a kids meal for $5. It doesn't get any better for Italian food. The restaurant has been in business for 51 years and they are packed every time we come. Before we left we bought extra soup to take home for my mom and ourselves to eat later in the week. I wished we had more time to visit the Bay Area but Cindy and I decided during dinner that we wanted to get home one day early to rest before going back to work/school. We also decided not to tell the kids because we didn't want them to get all excited and not leave us alone all day tomorrow.
So we left right after dinner and would drive until I got tired. We wouldn't have any problem getting home as it's only 800 miles to Seattle from the Bay Area. I drove for a couple hours and stopped for the night in Williams which was only a couple hours away from the border. Instead of driving all night I decided to get a good night sleep and drive all day tomorrow. We stayed at a Motel 6 for $42 and I appreciated the room much more since spending a week in motels in Mexico. Motel 6 has renovated a lot of their motels so the rooms don't look so old. They're not Marriot but they are worth the price. We all went to bed at 8:30.
Drove 600 miles today and 4800 total