Friends Quest
What is a Friends Quest, you wonder? The Duolingo app has a weekly “Friends Quest” to challenge you and a friend together to work on your daily language lessons. This weekend, we’ve been on a different kind of Friends Quest.
We have driven a lot of miles in the past few days, sprinkled with visits with friends. We couldn’t get to everyone we know along the way, but we were glad we could fit in a few.
We left Barstow CA on Friday with a stop at the Bakersfield Costco for fuel, then we headed to Pleasanton CA. We spent the afternoon and evening with Ann and Jeff. We had a lovely visit and enjoyed dinner with them at a Chinese restaurant, something we didn’t get in Mexico.
We “moochdocked” in front of their home in Pleasanton, then we departed early the next morning since we had a long driving day. We stopped for an early lunch in Williams CA. You would think that after over a month in Mexico, we would be tired of Mexican food. You would be wrong. The food at Roberta’s Taqueria is completely different. We had tacos in Mexico, but we had burritos in Williams. While waiting for our burritos, a citrus farmer who supplies the lemons for Roberta’s chatted with Amy and gave her a taste of his grapefruit that he had just picked. We learned that there is no one working at this stand with the name of Roberta. We also learned that we are not the only ones who return here when driving along I-5.
On the way north, we learned that another friend who also drives an EKKO was driving south for their vacation while we were heading north. We decided to try to meet up with Daniel and Ada. The timing of our drives pointed towards a meeting in Grants Pass OR, so Amy picked Babes’ Bakery as a meeting point. We stopped at a traffic light when we departed the freeway; Greg checked his phone to see the location of Daniel and Ada. Then he looked up and saw their EKKO! We chatted about our travel and rigs while we ate some pastry.
Next, we headed to Eugene for a total drive for the day of nearly 550 miles. We met up with Rudy and Amber. At this point we had eaten a huge lunch plus pastry, so we didn’t want anything too big. They found a vegetarian restaurant with salads and rice bowls that perfectly fit our mood. We had a great visit and really enjoyed catching up. We spent the night in Eugene with a much shorter drive for the next day. We needed to get to Portland for some errands.
The drive to Portland was short and uneventful. When we reached Portland, we visited Ed and Jessica.
After a visit, we walked to buy shoes at the KEEN factory store. We picked up bagel sandwiches on the way, and Amy got a cup of coffee. We forgot how nice it is to walk around a big city. We carried the 7 pairs of shoes (!!) on our walk back to their home. After another brief visit, we finally picked up the new kayak. Small-big problem: it’s larger than Greg expected. We can get it home by transporting it inside the RV, and Greg is starting to re-plan how to transport it on the next adventure. Tonight, we’re moochdocking at Ed and Jessica’s.