Want to know something fun to do on Flag Day?   Road trip in the USA!  That’s exactly what my wife and I decided to do this summer.  We dropped a pin on the map, and the pin fell on a place in CA called Point Arena, north of San Francisco.   We didn’t do any research prior to coming, didn’t even plan the time we would have to leave to get to our destination until the night before.   We just knew it was a coastline destination in Sunny CA!

Our Maps app told us total time from our home to our final destination was 13.5 hours.   We decided we should get up at 3AM, leave by 4AM and with minimal stops along the way, we would make it before the sun sets as I’ve never been a fan of arriving to our destination in the dark.

3:45AM – left point A, myself being the first leg driver in our Mini Coupe S named Lokalani.  My wife sleeps.

6:15AM – arrive point B… I was starting to get sleepy, so quick leap frog of drivers.   I take turn sleeping.

12:00PM – arrive point C… Truckee, CA where we had a nice hour sit down lunch at the local SqueezeIn restaurant.  Good eats!

5:00PM – arrive point D… little market called Yorkville Market, in a little town in the middle of nowhere on CA highway 128… My favorite part of this place is when I looked down at my cell phone  and it says… ‘No Service’.  Really cool highway with many local vineyards and wineries.  We enjoyed the much needed break to eat dinner and get over car sickness!

8:45PM – arrival at point E, our final destination, Lighthouse Point Resort, in the quaint Point Arena.  CA local time 7:45PM… sun just starting to set.   Mission accomplished!

So what we thought would take us just a little under 14 hours, ended taking almost 18 hours to complete.    Am I complaining…   absolutely not!    We took time to UnPlug, enjoyed a couple of cool eateries and after taking the ‘long way’ to avoid what would have been the craziest curviest  road (so we were told) to our final destination… We drove past some way cool vineyards in the country and then thru an Amazing Awe Inspiring Redwood Forest, Navarro River Redwoods State Park (totally didn’t expect this!) as well as finished up by driving by northern CA coastline that you usually only see in movies!

It was a great first day of the next 10 days where my wife and I plan to rest; relax; and as ironic as it sounds, UnPlug, to ReCharge!   : )