Final Day of Driving (December 31-Jan 1)

...and we stopped at Mount Shasta. it will put us getting into portland later, but i'm so glad we stopped here. there are shamans everywhere and tibetan meditation rooms. in addition to new mexico (bb, i want to camp at white sands!), i could possibly live here, too. snow everywhere and a place called middle earth crystal room.

so the story on why we're so late in the trip. in the wee hours yesterday morning our motel room phone rings and i thought maybe k$ had arranged for an early wake up call. no such luck. all i heard was her say, "OH SHIT." someone had broken out the back passenger side door window in my car. what did they take, you ask?

MY BAG OF PANTIES.

yes. i'm not kidding. when i say i left my panties in san fran, i literally mean it. i had a small luggage bag packed up with all the panties, bras and socks that i didn't pack in my little overnight bag of clothes for the trip. i had every other garment vacuum packed in my trunk. that person must feel like a right asshole right now. THEY TOOK MY PANTIES. now i have to go replace all my underwears and socks. including my funky new socks i just bought at the gap. this led to our adventure in finding someone to replace the window on a sunday that also happened to be new year's eve. that takes us to oakland at 3 pm yesterday, which is when we had planned to be at the oregon border. finally, dragos finds the part and i pay out of pocket for now and will wait on insurance reimbursement. so we're talking to dragos in a freakin' mcdonald's parking lot in oakland and i ask where he's from considering his accent.

he says, "what do you mean? where do you think i'm from??"
and i said, "well, you have an accent. where's the accent from, then?"
"eastern europe."
"oh really? where in eastern europe?" (cue look at his face that tells me i probably shouldn't have asked that.)
"do you know where yugoslavia used to be?"
"yes." (SHIT. i felt like such a bastard for asking now. i gave him an extra 20. guilt gets into my pockets quickly.)in the time we were waiting to hear from him (about 10 am after finding him on craigslist after calling every auto glass place in the bay area. maybe 40 or so phone calls.) we went to fisherman's wharf and ate some awesome dungeness crab and bay shrimp. thank god i'm not a kosher jew. :) went shopping and bought some crap. finally leave oakland, then back to SF so we can see the golden gate bridge. then on to a twisted route back to I-5. finally stopped in redding, ca, because i was too tired to drive any longer and i wanted to have my bourbon at midnight. cue today, which has been beautiful driving weather.

portland, get ready.