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Ok...mostly caught up. I can't believe its only been 24 hours cuz it seems like 5000 hours.
Traffic as EXACTLY like this...I shit you not. A 4.5 hour drive took us 9 hours.
AND...it was 97 degrees by noon. We left the foggy cool coast at 8:30am, got here at 5:30pm. 2 hours out, the altenator went out on the truck and thank God it went out at the exit at Buellton where there just happened to be a UHAul place. We were going to tow the damn truck but the guy that worked there said he could replace it for us an it would take about an hour. That cost us 440 bucks. Jeez. And it was hot, but more like 75 degrees, so tolerable. I worried mostly about the dogs, so I found a nice place to park in the shade until the truck was fixe. Then we were off again. Finally got to Santa Barbara an hour later, then Ventura half an hour after that will no problems. SB was full of fog, so it cooled down a lot...and so was Ventura. Blessed relief! I was hoping the end of the drama would be done, but nope. Soon as we got past ventura...its started. Bumper to bumper. On a SATURDAY, mind you. And hot? It got hotter, hotter hotter..dogs began to pant...we had to pull off an offramp in one the many cites off the 210 (I think it was the 210), find a park, let them pee and pour water on them. Air condtioner helped, but dammit..van was stuffed so the vents were not cooling it enough back there, and poor Moki had no place to hide from the sun beating in the back window.
Anywa...spent about 15 minutes there, hit the road again. Soon as we hit San Bern...omg. See pic above. I am trying to view MrG behind me, cars on each side of me trying to squeeze in front of me, motorcylces whitelining the road, read signs, keep an eyeball on the heat meter in the van. It was awful. And I poured sweat. Got a sore throat, hoarsness set in, chest began to ache with GERD even though I had not eaten anything (stress) and I was ready to turn around and come home. But..no place to get off in that mess since CalTrans decided to do road work on a SATURDAY AFTERNOON...and channel a bottleneck of 4 lanes into 2. We CRAWLED. Finally, it let up past Redlands and we got home around 6:30am. And my hair was stuck to my head, I was dripping, hoarse, dogs were lethargic and I HATED it.
At 2am, I woke MrG up, who was sleeping on the floor, and said "I'm leaving. No traffic cuz its 2am. I will live in my van. You can stay here. I'm LEAVING". He let me rant, then rolled over and went back to sleep. I slept on the couch..or tried to. It was SO HOT in this house and I couldn't sleep at all. The ac was not on, cuz they just leave the doors and windows open for the night air. But it was horrible hot. Come to find out the other gal that lives here doesn't mind the heat and not once turned it on with all of not here yet, so it collected in the house for 2 days. Jeez.
Anyway..I got up at 7am this morning (which I plan to start doing now), sat in the back yard and enjoyed looking the the mountain range and the nice cool air in the back yard. House finally cooled off around 4am. When I got up, my friends were just making coffee and had the AC on and it felt so good in the house, but nice outside although very warm and today it got up to 103. I have never drank as much water in my life since being here, lemme tell ya. But, the way to survive this is go to bed earlier like 11pm, get up earlier and do what has to be done as far as shopping and stuff BEFORE the heat of the day hits. Then hide in the house until the sun goes down and wait for the night air to hit us. Plus, fall is starting, so we only have about a month to go before it starts to get cold. I grew up in the valley..so my body IS remembering the heat. It just forgot about it for 30 years when I moved to the coast. Now it has to remember again.
Anyway...this is a lovely little town in the middle of sprawling cities and no need to go too far to anything! It's all within a block or two or less than a mile. There is no need to go anywhere else, so that is a plus. Nice neighborhood...even the neighbors came by to welcome us. So overall...it is getting better and I am less stressed. And the dogs? they LOVE it. Go figure!
Well while it stressed me out just thinking of what that trip was like, so happy you made it relatively uneventfully Gracie. And hope you have a good restful night and the rest of your life begins in the morning. ((hugs))
