HWY 198, Brant & Disneyland

We still had our complimentary tickets to Disneyland from our honeymoon that had to be used up by July 1^st of this year so we decided we had better use them up before Jordan starts working. Pretty lucky to get a second chance at a honeymoon. This time it didn’t rain on us, Disneyland wasn’t sold out, and Jordan didn’t get sick. Much better!

We headed out on Tuesday, May 27^th. We were planning on leaving early in the morning but alas, it took too long to get in touch with the State Farm agent in Utah (I guess they get a lot of calls after a long weekend) and the corporate division tried to give Jordan a hard time and claim that the tire wasn’t the cause of the damage and they didn’t have to cover it. Yeah right! Luckily (I guess) for us, the day before we left Utah his car was in the shop getting new struts and Jordan had the guy check the tires. The back tires were fine to be pulled to CA. So State Farm will pay to have it fixed, which it is looking like the car may be totaled. We are probably going to be in the market for a ‘new’ car sooner than we had planned. Anyway, the car took a while and then we had to wait for a repair man to come look at our washer drain… the pipe in the apartment was plugged and the washer couldn’t drain the water. Luckily I was in the kitchen and heard the water spilling out onto the floor before we had too big of a mess. So we didn’t leave Santa Clara until almost two and we didn’t have the internet yet so we were relying on the maps in the car (yes, we left our atlas at home). The 5 does not go to San Jose. We would have to go to Oakland (an hour backtracking) and then start going south. The 101 Freeway goes from San Jose, near the coast down to LA, but not through Palmdale, where my Aunt Mary lives nor through Bakersfield, where my cousin Brant lives. To get to Bakersfield we needed to be on the 99 and to get to the 99 we needed to get over to the 5. So, an hour after we left San Jose, the only connecting road between the 101 and the 5 that does not backtrack is the 198. What? You haven’t ever heard of the 198? Hmmm…

Well we started down the road and it was really a beautiful drive. It reminded Jordan of the happy cows from California commercials. You get the idea. THEN we came to a fork in the road. I was in the back seat feeding McKay. I told Jordan I thought we should not take the fork… just keep going straight. Well, there was a guy in a truck ahead of us backing up to take the other road… so Jordan figured we must want to be on the other road too and looked over his shoulder and saw 198 with an arrow pointing to the road we came from and the road we were on… but from his view it looked like the arrow was pointing to the road we came from and the fork. So he backed up and took the fork. Next thing I know, Jordan says ‘I’m not too sure about this road’. I looked up to see the road had narrowed to a one lane paved 4 wheeler trail with dozens of squirrels darting across the road trying not to get hit by Jordan going 70 mph! We passed several abandoned farms and hoped we would get to the end of the road before our gas ran out (we still had over half a tank thankfully). Finally we saw human life at the side of the road so I strongly suggested we stop and make sure we were headed in the right direction. Jordan asked the lady if this road would take us to the 5. The 5?? It was like someone stopping in Preston and asking if they were on the right road to I-15. Uh, not really! In fact, the road we were on loops around and connects back to the 101! Needless to say we were not supposed to take the fork in the road. Suddenly the drive was not quite so pretty as we waited and waited to reach the end, going around curves, trying to avoid all the semis on the road. A few miles from the 5 we hit Coalinga, where one of Jordan’s classmates got a job working for Granite Construction. Now he agrees with him that it is in the middle of nowhere! We got so frustrated with the horrible signage but finally did arrive at the semi infested I-5. Whew! Quite a bit later than we were anticipating but oh well!

We got to my cousin Brant’s place in Bakersfield around 8 pm (BTW we anticipated getting there around 3 or 3:30 before the day started…) It was great to see Brant and to introduce him to Jordan and McKay. I hadn’t seen Brant since Mary brought him to the Cardon Reunion at John & Debbie’s 8 years ago. He was excited to see us, especially McKay. McKay’s blond hair reminded Brant of him when he was a baby. We got to Mary’s around 10:30-11 pm (poor McKay had finally just fallen asleep). We got McKay to bed and then had to look at a map to show Mary where we came. Confirmed: the 198 was our only option since we had already passed Gilroy! We found another road that looked shorter from the 5 to the 101 going through Gilroy we decided to take on the way home. Aunt Mary decided we needed her map of California worse than she did. Wonder what gave her that idea...

Aunt Mary very kindly offered to watch McKay for us while we went to Disneyland. After eating a delicious breakfast and getting McKay down for his morning nap, we headed out. The odds were completely in our favor to have a better time than we did 2 ½ years ago on our honeymoon and we did! The longest line was about 15 minutes except for waiting in the Indiana Jones tunnel for the ride to be fixed (is it just me or does it seem like Indiana Jones breaks down a lot?) which was about 45 minutes and just before we took a break for lunch making the wait feel like 2 hours. It was so nice to be able to leave McKay and not have to worry about him because we knew he would be okay. And I think both McKay and Mary had a great time!