2,600 Miles Plus

One night while I was jogging at the park, I was pondering how best to get Jeff back up to the Pacific Northwest to have that third interview when it dawned on me, "If we drove then we could all go."

Almost immediately I dismissed the idea as ludicrous. We'd have to drive for two days up and two days back. That would only leave us two days to relax and enjoy ourselves.

When I got home, I told Jeff about the ridiculous notion I had briefly entertained, laughing while doing so.

"That's sounds kinda nice," he responded.

Huh?!?!

Later, I braced myself for vociferous protests as I told Tobias, "Don't worry, honey, because we're not planning on doing this, but I was wondering how you'd feel about all of us driving up together so that your dad can have that interview. It'd be about 12 hours a day in the car for two days up and then another 12 hours a day for two days back."

He shrugged. "That sounds alright. I'd get a lot of reading done."

What?!?!

Surely Delaney would see sense when I proposed the idea to her...

...apparently not.

With the utmost insistence, I repeated to them all how long we'd be in the car and that we'd only have two days not in the car. I emphasized that all the other vacations we've ever gone on have had the main purpose of enjoying ourselves, but that this I-hesitate-to-refer-to-it-as-a-vacation would be all about getting there and getting back so any fun they had on four of the six days would be a surprising bonus.

They all stuck to their stories.

Okay, I thought. We'll see how y'all feel about it when your butts are numb and the only view out the window is the tail end of a smog-belching semi-truck.

We left very early on Day 1. Here is the obligatory start the trip photo:



As you can imagine, this...


...is how the kids spent much of their time.

I didn't take many pictures on the first day until we sighted Mt. Shasta.

From there on out, the drive up was beautiful beyond belief.

Day 2 = driving

Day 3, we woke up at our friends' house and enjoyed the relaxing sensation of not having to climb into the car.

Instead, the guys paddle boarded...


They went all the way across the lake and out of sight.

They returned about an hour later.


No, Jeff's not flirting with the camera. Whilst paddling to his heart's content, he slipped off the board and lost his sunglasses in the great blue wet surrounding him.

We then enjoyed some bocci ball.


Shortly after this bit of idyllic lake life, it was time for Jeff to prepare himself for his interview.

I'd hire this guy. Wouldn't you?

The interview was rather intense, involving questions about fellow officers being shot and how to prevent child abuse, etc. You know, the kind of stuff that cops have to deal with all the time.

It was nice once it was over so we could just relax and enjoy the day and a half that we had left outside of our car.

We filled the time with swimming...

...jumping...


...dog adoring...

...watching Mimi-hoola-hoop-on-the-diving-board...


...savory pie eating...



foul-donut-eating (yes, that is bacon draped across that maple bar)...

...and a delightful activity involving buckets and muddy rows of lush fruit-bearing plants...






Mimi and Rylee know how to hold the box of berries without simultaneously pillaging it...


...a skill which my family seems to be lacking. See how Tobias is double-fisting it?

All too soon, Days 3 and 4 had slipped away in a pleasant blur and we had Days 5 and 6 with their promises of freeways and stretching limbs every 100 miles staring us in the face.

There were some bits of amusement along the way, such as Tobias's magnificent examples of bed-headedness (or is that backseat-headedness?):


We also caught sight of Sonic's directives to their carhops. Note the fourth bullet-point:


Jeff and Tobias did their best to encourage the workers that they were succeeding in their labors:



Soon, we saw Mt. Shasta again and knew that it signaled the final section of gloriously beautiful landscape on our trip.



*sigh*

A ginormous thank you to Jay, Diana and their girls for hosting us yet again in our quest for Pacific-Northwestern-residency. You guys are so wonderful. We loved every minute of our stay with you. :)

Oh, and the update of the job situation is: When we arrived home from our 44+ hours-in -the-car-over-a-six-day-period-trip, there was a letter waiting for Jeff from the first place where he was interviewed. It said that he had done well and had been placed on an eligibility list which would be valid for a year. At any point in the next year he could be contacted for employment or he could not. Hmm, that's pretty open-ended, huh? We're still waiting to hear from the other two places.

It's all good.