Day 38-- SF & Sacramento

Today we left our very comfortable hotel and headed to Sacramento to meet Heather, Lenny and Heather's two sons for lunch. Heather's boys are on the autism spectrum and Lenny has a son with autism. I first met both of them online. Lenny and I saw each other a few times at conferences. I met Heather for the first time on Sunday at the rally.

It was VERY nice to spend time with both of them. Heather and I had artichoke sandwiches. Anyone who knows me knows I love artichokes. Michael had.... yes, chicken and french fries. The boys were pretty good and got silly at the end, throwing napkins around. I was kind of sad to leave and wish I could have spent some more time with them. Hopefully we will see them all in the future.

There was this road on the way to Sacramento where there was a lot of marshland. I wish I could have stopped and taken a picture, but we were on this long bridge with no where to stop. There were about 10 or so white herons or egrets about 100 feet from the highway, sitting on bushes. It was just so cool looking. Herons, along with eagles are my favorite birds and I ended up marrying someone with the last name Heeren (pronounced heron). Anyway, whenever I see a heron I think "everything is going to be ok".

As we traveled up route 5, the main road to Northern CA, we saw many farms. In the Northeast, I see pretty much the same crops- corn, soy and potatoes. In CA you see such a variety- fruit trees, artichokes, things I couldn't even identify. Sometimes when I was driving on the highway, I would see cherries or some kind of apples all over the road. It reminded me of the time I saw cotton on the road in Virginia.

Anyway, the road was straight and flat for a few hours- which makes it very easy to drive. Then we hit some mountains. It was nice except for the smoke getting worse and worse. Just like in Virginia, we were near forrest fires again. But, this time it smelled like pine. Much different than the smoke coming from the Great Dismal Swamp.

We stopped in a small town called Yreka, CA. We got a hotel room around 9:30pm, after driving a total of 6.5 hours that day. I was pretty tired and the smoke was getting to me a little. So, I didn't fall asleep until after 1am.