Vacationing National Lampoons style...part dos

After our three nights at the train depot aka "oceanside condo" we went to San Diego for one night and stayed with our gracious host Dan's BFF.

Finally some real beaches...we had a great time visiting Dan's friends in San Diego and then it was on to Morro Bay.

Well of course we don't have navigation so we had to get a map....yeah we were kickin it old school.

So, I map out our travels up I-5 an then over on Hwy 166 to Hwy 101.....sounds easy right.

Well Hwy 166 comes into I-5 at just north of the grapevine...in the middle of BFE. But my trusty map indicates that in just 27 miles there will be a town...no doubt they'll have a diner of some sort.

About 10 miles into the drive I start to worry, there is no sign of civilization...there are farms and fields but no one working in them and no one on the road...hmmm. Finally we cruise into the one town on the map...Maricopa. Ahh Maricopa, not to be confused with Mariposa (which I did) Maricopa, is a tiny little town, with approximately one stop sign....so I tell Dan, there must be a diner here...while desperately hoping for something resembling a Dennys so we can at least be somewhat safe....uh wrong again.

We drive down the main street and see a sign, "Tina's Diner"...hmm alright how bad can it be right?

As we get out of the car, we notice that all the other shops on the road are boarded up and gone, there are no other cars, no other people....nothing....

By this time we had already gotten Natalie out of the car so there was no turning back, as we entered the diner we were ENTHUSIASTICALLY greeted by who I can only assume was Tina...no turing back now.

After much senseless banter about how cute my kid is (which she really is) we sit down and start to look over the menu. I'm sort of freaking out at this point, since this place is about 100 years old...it was clean but freaking old and somewhat dilapidated.

We decided on some hamburgers...well done (just incase) and salads.

The salads come one what can only be described as platters, and Dan digs in....and then says "There's a potato in my salad" at which point we realize that our salad is a green salad over potato salad, macaroni salad and carrot salad...sneaky.

The food was fine, although I was too nervous to eat much of it.....but don't worry Tina had pleanty to say to keep me from actually eating. She must have been thrilled to have people stop by because she actually sat down with us while we ate and told us all about Maricopa and their industry...which is apparently oil and mining kitty litter (who knew right?!!?)

So finally at a break in the conversation *read monologue* we informed Tina that we needed to hit the road and were able to get out of dodge.

After another 80 miles of desolate scenery and 2 more boarded up towns we were finally at Hwy 101...and let me tell you I was never so happy to see traffic in all my life...civilation!

Our last stop was Morro Bay, a cute little town just north of San Luis Obispo....great shops, on the water, and tons of bars...what could be better.



All in all a good vacation, but I'm starting to believe that we cannot go on a vacation without some ridiculous travel drama....one of these days I'll have to tell out about our SWAT run in in Jacksonville FL.....