Steven and I are in Tacoma, WA for the week. We had plans to leave early on Saturday but ran into a few last-minute snags, amongst the most exciting and least enjoyable was Izzie (the siamese-tortie) getting herself stuck in the handle of a milk crate in the closet. Kenny came to the rescue with some gardening shears and cut her out of the crate. I hated leaving her on Saturday and I miss her, but she's in good hands with Kenny there.

Despite the late start, we managed to accomplish much on Saturday. We got my car CA plates (finally, it's been a year now, right?) at AAA, who apparently does car registrations, is open on Saturdays, has much shorter lines, and a much more pleasant waiting area. (Speaking of, my little VW passed CA smog tests with flying colors on Friday!)

We also got battery-operated speakers for my iPod nano so we could listen to some tunes on the trip. My car stereo is mysteriously broken and is not responding to repeated attempts to "reset" it. Steven's checked all the fused he has access to and they all work fine, so if it's a fuse, it's got to be one that's located elsewhere in the car than those he checked already. Finding it will be an adventure, and the warranty on the stereo expired in June, so if it's not a fuse, then it's likely going to need to be replaced.

Saturday was a fun leisurely drive up the 101. We stopped at a little town called Solvang and had dinner and then discovered a wine shop that does tastings. I enjoy finding new wines that I like so we stopped in and I did one of their wine tasting selections, all of which I enjoyed. I've never been to a wine tasting where I enjoyed ALL of the wines that I've been presented with. Usually I end up liking maybe one of the types that I'm presented, but I learn a lot of history about the areas where the wine comes from. Since this wine tasting was all local wine, I didn't learn that much more than I already knew about the area, but I did enjoy all the wine. I'm now a wine club member.

Steven drove after that, of course, and we ended up stopping at a hotel just outside of San Francisco to spend the night. We woke up relatively early the next morning (early for our standards, of course, is late for most people), ate breakfast, and headed back out again. We spent Sunday driving along the 101 some more. There was a lot of fun stuff to see, including the Redwood National Forest (I hear I slept through the Avenue of the Giants though), but the 101 is a slow drive since it's so twisty you have slow down for much of the distance of it. Once we hit Oregon we decided to cut east a bit and take I-5 the rest of the way.
We stayed the night in Eugene, Oregon which was a lot of fun. It's a little college town that reminds me a lot of Olympia, Washington. From there it was a quick drive up to Tacoma, WA and so we didn't actually arrive until yesterday afternoon.

I've been doing homework for much of it, inbetween visits with family, and Steven has been playing video games and reading, but once the homework is done, we'll be set to go for having some serious fun this week. (Homework should be done in another couple of hours.)