We arrived back home yesterday–safe and sound–from our two week plus road trip to points north to Butte, westward to Spokane and Seattle, Portland, Seal Point and other Oregon notables, then down the Oregon coastline on U.S. 101 all the way to northern California. We clocked 3000 plus miles on the car, and suffered through numerous fill ups at gas stations along the way, paying from $4.16 a gallon before leaving Utah, all the way up to $4.69 in California–and that’s just medium grade regular, folks! We were almost elated to see the pump prices here yesterday at a little less than when we left. Seems like such a bargain now! Gas wise it was a fairly expensive drive, but we thoroughly enjoyed the trip in our Hybrid with a highway mileage of nearly 50 miles per gallon for much of the time.

Also enjoyed the satellite radio we finally broke down and suscribed to. We made a few new discoveries about the little lady who lives rent-free in the dash (she’s part of the satellite route mapping system that came with the car) who helped us navigate our way around the hectic traffic while we were in California. The bad thing is that you have a lot of road noise in a smaller car, and that means the little lady had trouble understanding us when we’d tell her the XM radio channel we’d like to listen to. Frustrating to put it mildly! The Honda people need to add a regular knob dial along with all the other fancy doodads on the satellite dash.

Now that we’re home, I’m struggling with the laundry accumulated through two weeks on the road, plus all the sorting and putting travel things back where they belong, etc. I have about a million pictures to sort through and organize, which I’ve already started, so I can tell you there’s some really beautiful shots there! You can be sure I’ll be sharing lots of those with you in good time. I’m also more than two weeks behind in my blog reading; it will take some time to catch up, but eventually I will, I promise.

In the meantime I’ll share a lesson with you that I learned on the road just yesterday! Too bad I didn’t have this instruction earlier.Next time I travel, I’ll know the proper hand washing process, which means I’ll have to start carrying an old toothbrush in my purse–no, not for brushing my teeth but to clean my fingernails whenever I use the restrooms. Don’t say no one ever told you! This sign was posted near the sink in the toilet at a restaurant we stopped at yesterday. (Referring to Step 3 below: 20 seconds is about the time it takes to sing “happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear uh umm, happy birthday  to you” twice!) Check it out: