Travel Stamp

The Northern California Post — Part 1

Even though this trip was low-key as far as our vacations go, it was still plenty busy.

When we got in on Friday night, A and family were all ready in bed so we were met by the elder Gs (Judge J and S), given good food and shown our room for the week. So it wasn’t until the next day that we finally got to met Baby C for the first time. I think he was sleeping. Or breast feeding. Or one of those since he seemed to be in one of those two states the entire time we were there. Yes, I know, he’s an eight week old baby, that’s what they do. Baby C is actually a very quite little boy, hardly ever cries, just grunts when he wants his current situation to change. And cute. He’s cute too.

Our first day of vacation was spent in Half Moon Bay. So two things about the car ride there:

1) There were six adults and two children crammed into a mini van with seven viable seats, which meant that Judge J (the elder G) was on the floor between the seat and the door. Irene was in the back of the van, not wearing her seat belt because, in her words “it just didn’t work”. So that’s the situation when we approach a stop sign. On the other side of the intersection is two cops, one at the corner and one about 30 feet or so beyond him.

Now as soon as we went through the intersection I see the cop switch on his little radio and say something to the guy down the road and I knew it was all over for us. And sure enough, the second cop points to us and tells us to pull over. Apparently the first cop had spotted that Irene wasn’t wearing her seat belt, which can net the driver a hefty fine. He starts asking questions, wants the registration and proof of insurance, so I open up the glove box and it is just full of wadded up papers and receipts and crap and I’m digging through all this stuff and Judge J is out of the car next to me and I’m handing him papers and trying to figure out what everything is and the whole time the cop is talking to J and getting fairly annoyed.

We finally manage to come up with the paperwork he’s asked for and by this time it’s pretty clear that he’s going to give us at least one ticket and maybe more if he can. And the amazing thing to me is, he didn’t even spot that Judge J was sitting on the floor when he first pulled us over. So as the cop is talking to J,Judge J strolls around the car and starts to talk to the cop and pulls out his little “I’m a judge card” from his wallet. The cop sighs, shakes his head and tells us to buckle up and be careful and off we go with out penalty. Amazing. But lucky for us.

2) You forgot about there was a second thing didn’t you? Well this ones not as exciting. After the cop incident we’re driving to Half Moon Bay and we pass a family fun farm thing were they offer pony rides and wouldn’t that be fun for Young J (just so you can keep track there is Judge J, the grandfather, J the father, and Young J, the three year old son). So we stop and Young J gets his pony ride, feeds the goats at the petting zoo, and goes on what was apparently a pretty creepy train ride through some sort of miniture haunted wild west town. The farm was a kick and looked like it hadn’t been updated since it opened in 1940-something.

Half Moon Bay itself is a cute little town where we stopped for lunch before heading for the ocean. Really, though, all the excitement happened on the way there.

Well, I think that’s probably enough for now. I’ll post more later. And I’m still hoping to get photos up this weekend in between household projects.

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