Driving back to our hotel from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk wasn't anything big or difficult. The main diversion was whether to refill the gas that night or in the morning and I preferred that night. We went to a 76 that caught ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's eye every time she saw it, as the chain used to be in Michigan but receded long ago. I only ever knew it as one of those weird gas stations you saw when you were on a family trip. The alternative would have been going to a Rotten Robbie's, a chain we never heard of before and with a name that intrigued us. It felt homegrown; even a gas station/convenience store that wanted a scrappy underdog image wouldn't let a word like 'Rotten' escape focus group testing. All I can find about it is that it's a family-owned chain founded in 1938. Their official web site forgot to set up anything under 'About Us'.
Anyway, bunnyhugger checked us in for the flight (if she hadn't already) and we did several rounds of cleaning to make sure we weren't leaving anything behind and would be ready to go as late as possible in the morning. Returning the car was no trouble, getting on the plane was no trouble, and while we didn't get to stay in the same plane the whole trip, the stop was in Phoenix, a new airport to us. Handsome-looking place, and we had enough time for a late breakfast or early lunch. I forget which we got; the airport restaurants were making a changeover when we were prowling around.
And after that it was more flying. Landing in Detroit, waiting for luggage. My car was right where it should have been, and it was now far enough into the day we didn't regret how late we'd stayed up the night before. Back home we opened the house up again and were excited by how great it had all gone.
And now I bring you ... the search for letterboxes, that we never did find. But we saw nature, or at least a park trail, along the way.
Hey, lok at that, it's the waterfall that Marshall, Will, and Holly rode down into the Land of the Lost!
A pretty nice area with some ducks busy station-keeping.
Wait a minute, standing on the water is cheating!
No, don't you stand on the water too, that's not fair!
Thank you, at least sit down and make yourself comfortable.
Sandbags lining the road on the other side of the riverbed. I think they're a temporary barrier after the park was damaged by the heavy rainstorms California had last winter but couldn't attest to that in a court of law.
Trivia: At British latitudes, if one follows mean solar time, with noons 24 hours apart rather than when the sun is at its zenith, the afternoon in November is about a half-hour shorter than the morning is. In February the afternoon is about a half-hour longer than the morning. Source: Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar, Duncan Steel. (To find the difference at your latitude search for the ``Equation of Time''.)
Currently Reading: Kennywood: Behind The Screams, Pocket Edition, Brian Butko.
