What has come before...

Day 1: Des Moines to Pittsburgh.
As most would expect of any trip that I'm involved with, we got off to a much later start than anticipated, leaving around 12:45 instead of oh, say 8:00 or 9:00. Meg and I made the drive in a modest 13 hours, but we had a good time on the way. Listened to I think three episodes of This American Life and though our energy was lacking a bit by southern Oregon, we got some fantastic joe at a Carl's Junior in Medford that got us pepped back up just right. At 2:00am we pulled up to the Zimmerly stead and had just enough energy left to roll out our sleeping bags and get our heads to our pillows.

Day 2: Chillin' in the Bay Area.
We pretty much rolled out of bed and started climbing Mt. Diablo. Mark, Liz and I made it up the northern peak, while Meg was waylaid by an hour-long conversation with her friend living in Antarctica (well worth missing out on the hike, I imagine). According to Mark, the view from the top is the second longest view in the world, next to Mt. Everest. The hike was very rewarding as most are, but by the top I was near collapsing (I suppose this made the view all the more impressive).





Day 3: Bay Area to Hollister.
We drove down to Santa Cruz and had a second go at De La Veaga. The redwoods south of the Bay area were beautiful, making for a pretty sweet drive. Of course the drive was about a half hour longer than it needed to be because we struggled so much with the directions to the disc golf course. Worst thing about it was that we distinctly remembered making the exact same mistake two years ago. De La Veaga was just as incredible as it was before, though there was no PDGA tour for us to be at once impressed and mortified by this time.

Brew... or not. Taking a leap of faith all too familiar for us former brew-nighters, we arrived at the doorstep of the San Andreas Brewing Co. only to find it still under construction. While they wanted help, we only wanted food, so we took our nearly growling stomachs elsewhere. We found a small burrito stand and after picking up three bean and cheese burritos for $8.67 (!), we headed on down to Taco Bell and washed up in the restrooms they so graciously put right by the front door. While disappointed in the lack of brewpub fare, we made the best of it, heading to our campsite to watch a movie and drink some fine homebrew.

The Thousand Trails was, well, just about the cream of the crop when it comes to amenities. Much to our delight the quirky grounds guy (who got all jittery when he realized we were from Jimmi HendrixÂ’s city of origin) keeps the spa running all winter at 120 degrees. We enjoyed a nice dip, watched Grosse Point Blank and slept through about seven hours of rain. (Didn't we just leave Seattle to get away from the precipitation?)