Rugby Sevens
Monday we slept in a bit, and quickly packed everything up, grabbed a bite to eat from the hotel (for me just a cup of coffee and a dry bagel) and headed for home. We had to make a quick pit stop for Kerry’s car, the night before the oil dummy light flashed at us, and it turned out that the car needed 4 whole quarts of oil, which isn’t good. We had also found out in the morning that the Grapevine was closed due to snow and ice.
For anybody who doesn’t know California’s interstate and highway system. I5 is the major north south road through California and the grapevine is a mountain pass at the southwest end of the Tehachapi Mountains linking Southern to Central California that rises to 4.100+ feet and during the winter it occasionally gets snowfall. Unfortunately, the pass is so long, and so many lanes that road crews often cannot keep up with it, and the pass has to be closed.
That meant very bad news for us headed home. The best feasible route around that pass means going all the way out to Highway 101, which roughly follows the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco. We took 101 up to San Luis Obispo and then cut back over to I5. It was a 2 hour detour that made our long drive from San Diego, into a VERY long drive. Particularly because there was heavy traffic on 101 nearly the entire trip.
We were able to break the trip up a little bit with a stop at The African Hut (a South African foods importer) and the Springbok bar in Long Beach for lunch. Kerry and I alternated driving a few times which always makes long drives go easier, but next time I think we will just fly. We got home around midnight and Kerry was in bed before I parked the car, I wasn’t long in following her.
In all, it was a great trip, and I look forward to trips like it in the future, but perhaps next time we’ll try to plan a little further in advance and get a hotel in downtown San Diego, within walking distance of the Stadium, and fly instead of drive.
I’d also like to point out that I crossed the 10,000 picture line with my D50 during this trip. I took nearly 500 pictures during the trip, and it may be a bit before I get through processing a majority of them so look for posts in the future with some photo highlights.
