It's the final countdown

We’re leaving in a little less than an hour and I think I’m finally ready (Mandy on the other hand has been ready to go since Sunday). I have the directions printed, I have the GPS, I have toll money, I have all my clothes and shower stuff, pillow, blanket, sunglasses, and flip-flops. I am prepared… I think. John Steinbeck makes me think twice about being prepared ::

“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different form all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself, no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercing are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blow-in-the-glass-bum relax and go along with it. Only then do frustrations fall away. In this way a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand.” John Steinbeck “Travels With Charley”

Ok, California Trip, let’s see who you really are.