Goin' to California with aching in my heart.

Well, here we are in beautiful Redding, CA. It's a nice town that's sunny and easy to navigate.

Yes, we are on a different path from the one we set out on, and lots of things have happened since I last checked in.

We spent Saturday morning enjoying our beautiful room on the Oregon Coast, ordering breakfast in, and then going down to the pool. It was still pretty cool outside, so thankfully, the pool was heated. But after about 5 minutes, we were ready to hit the jacuzzi. We brought Amos with us, though we were sensitive to the temperature and he and I were only in there for a few minutes. Nathan worked on loosening his shoulders and back muscles and we all enjoyed the water. After checking out, we went out to the beach and played with the Pacific for a minute. Again, it was quite chilly, and the water was freezing! But it was so beautiful and fun to be out there.

We loaded up and headed south to the Redwoods. After driving for an hour, we decided to stop and get lunch and refuel. When we hit the road again, we repeated our mantra, "Hello Cleveland!" as it has felt like we haven't been getting very far, like we keep starting over to try and make it there. It's a reference to Spinal Tap, when they are lost under the arena, trying to get out to their screaming fans!

After a bit of driving, the check engine light started flashing, which according to my mechanic husband, is not good. He could feel the car "misfire" as we would head up hills, putting the car under alot of pressure. My heart stopped and everything changed. Suddenly we went from vacationing without a care in the world to being very anxious. We made it to the next town where Nathan found a few shops with tools to buy. He called Fred and they did some tests to see what was up. Before leaving Seattle, Nathan had replaced the distributor, and we think that something might be up with that. While we were driving, we noticed that the light would flash only when we were going up a hill and accelerating a bunch. So Nathan tried not to do that. After a while, though, the light flashed and stayed on. We spent the day driving south to try to make our destination, which was in the middle of the Redwoods, and driving south on 101 was taking awhile. After a late dinner stop we decided to try to make it the Bed and Breakfast that was reserved for us from High Road. About half way there we called to let them know we were coming, as it was late. They informed us that they did not have a reservation for us, (someone there made a mistake) so we turned around to go back to Eureka, CA, to find a place to stay. And we had no luck. Every room was booked (it was a Saturday night in August, on the coast, after all), so we resolved to go East, to stop at the next available place there. Nathan loaded up on coffee and I tried to sleep, as watching Nathan drive on the winding roads, in the dark, was nerve racking. He did a great job and we finally found a place, in Willow Creek, to stay. The rooms were basic, but had everything we needed. We were thankful to God for getting us that far (we were afraid that the car would stop in the middle of the woods) and that we found a place to stay (we were going to possibly trade shifts through the night). All the while, Amos did so well, sleeping in his car seat and being the sweetie that he is. We both went through a wide range of emotions, from fear to peace to anxiety to calm and finally to being reminded of God's great goodness and care to us in the unknown. I even was able to remember last year, when things with Amos were scary and unknown and remember that it turned out ok. I thought too, the worst of the worst may not be ideal, but I know that God will still care for us there. These things brought peace to our hearts as we kept going.

That day (Saturday) while we were driving and hoping the car wouldn't stop, we resolved to change the route of our trip. At that point, seeing the great southwest was low on the priority list and getting there was pretty high. While it was sad to see very little of the Redwoods, and say an abrupt goodbye to the Pacific, our drive on Sunday through the Shasta-Trinity Forest was gorgeous and we enjoyed it thoroughly. As we made our way to Redding, the puttered along on another winding, two lane highway, and enjoyed the view while listening to our new Spoon and Wilco records.

When we arrived in Redding, CA, we thought about going on to Sacremento, as there was a possibility of a good shop there to fix the car. Nathan called Fred, who was going to help us find a good shop, and his advice was to stay in Redding. We were thankful that we didn't make the drive, again feeling like the Lord was leading us. We found a nice place to stay and decided to spend the rest of Sunday hanging out and being together. We enjoyed lunch at Chevy's (Rio Bravo) and took a nice long nap. We hit the pools after dark and enjoyed another great swim. We ended the night with a pizza and Spiderman 3 and prepared to wake up to take the car in.

Today has been pleasant already. Nathan took the car to the shop and is waiting for the diagnosis to be done. Amos and I watched some quality morning tv and then had breakfast. He is now napping and I hope to catch up on some blogging! We are probably going to head east on Interstate 80, which is pretty far north, to avoid some of the hefty mountain passes. We are sad to miss out on the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and the desert, but are thankful to be together and see what the northern part of the country looks like!