Day 1 of Road Trip

I sit here in Myrtle Creek, Oregon, at an adorable coffee shop (Soco Coffee Co.) with great pastries and very tasteful decor. It's right off I-5 and well worth the stop. We stopped in as we needed a break and some caffeine. The original plan was to camp in Mt. Shasta. But we arrived in Mt. Shasta much before we expected to, and decided to soldier on, and make it to Portland in 1 day. Christina ordered a huge, crispy peanut butter cookie and I had a Not So New (day old) [but just as delicious!] pastry, an Orange Chocolate Explosion (if I recall correctly) which was a moist orange bundt cake with chocolate frosting.

Christina and I departed from Pacific Grove a few minutes after 6:00 am this morning. Our car was packed with camping gear, a duffle (each) of clothes, our backpacks which contained our precious computers, a cooler and sack of food packed by my Syrian mother, God forbid we get hungry. And, everybody knows that there are no places to get food from Pacific Grove, CA to Portland, OR. In her defense, she wanted to save us money, to spend on other things, like chocolate, well, she didn't say that, but I will. We drove, and drove, and drove through thick fog leaving PG, and then through hot sun in the central valley. We were in awe of Mt. Shasta, which we nicknamed Shasty baby or Shasta Bear.

Shasta Bear

We stopped in Shasta and had a little picnic. Smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwhiches along with carrots, overlooking the Lake and dam. We loaded ourselves back up in the car and were off, again, our next stop being Myrtle Creek. We listened to David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day." If you have not already read it, I highly recommend you do so. I recommend even more that you listen to Mr. Sedaris on tape, or MP3, I guess this is the 21st century. We were listening to him as we drove into Portland, we were screaming of laughter and my eyes were so full of tears I thought I might wreck the car. Needless to say, we made it safely.

Me, taking photographs with my cell phone,

to send to our less fortunate friends,

who have things like work and responsibilities

and could not accompany us on our trip.

If one must pose for photos, and does not possess model capabilities for posing...