Mary Ann and I made a quick trip to California to visit Sam and Josh. This post has a description and some photos.
Josh and Sam couldn’t make it home for Christmas, so we went and visited them after Christmas.
We got a new car which we picked up on Thursday. It’s a Subaru Forester. It’s the first new car we’ve purchased in 30 years.
We left for California on Friday at about 9 AM and arrived at Josh’s at about 5 PM ( we picked up an hour due to the time zone change). We visited at Josh’s place and went to dinner. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Fresno.
The next morning (Saturday) we headed for Marina, CA, which is a small city just north of Monterey. We hit a lot of traffic along the way, and arrived at about noon. It was about a 4 hour drive, but would have been less than 3 without the traffic. There is a beautiful beach in Marina, where we met Sam, Wendy, and Anthony. We drove to Monterey and walked around the town. We went to 5:00 Mass in Salinas, and then had dinner at Wendy and Sam’s apartment. It was a great dinner, and it was good to meet Wendy’s mom, and Pedro. We stayed at another Holiday Inn Express in Salinas.
We left Sunday morning and arrived home at about 6 PM. It was a short trip with a lot of driving, but we enjoyed it. It was great to see Sam and Josh. Next time we’ll plan on staying longer. The area around Monterey is beautiful.
We were happy with the new Forester. It’s great for long trips, which is what we were hoping. It’s comfortable to drive. The gas mileage was a little less than what we hoped for. It’s rated at 32 mpg highway, and we got about 27 (it has a nice display of the gas mileage as a function of time, and computes the average for the trip). I think it’s because the speed limit in Arizona is 75 mph, and traffic moves at 80 mph. In CA the limit is 70, but traffic moves at 80 mph. I noticed that at 70 mph the gas mileage is 30+ mpg.
I didn’t take many pictures, but here they are:
