Saturday Adventure!

It was a beautiful day so we decided to head down to Pismo Beach to the Monarch grove to see the butterflies.

We get there, park and go wandering through the trees. It was pretty neat to see them all fluttering about and hanging on the eucalyptus leaves (although I will admit I was probably the most interested of the 4 of us!) I didn't realize it was right next to the beach so I didn't bring any of our beach gear but we headed over anyway. The boys ran around in the water getting soaked in the process of course. Ronan liked it until he fell down and really got wet, then it wasn't so fun anymore. So we decided to hike back to the car and go get some lunch. We leave the grove and look across the street and see....... nothing. A big, gaping maw where our car used to be.
Umm, err, ummm didn't we park RIGHT THERE? Fighting back panic we think 'had to be towed, had to, no one could steal it right here with a zillion people here right?'. What to do what to do.

So we hike over to the ranger station and explain where we parked and everything so the girl there Jordan (thanks for all your help) radioed the ranger and asked if Grover Beach PD had been towing anyone today and got the response that yes some cars had been towed. So she lets us use the phone (cell phones, wallets EVERYTHING was IN the car). We look up the phone # for the GBPD and call. The dispatcher gives us grief about this being the emergency line. ummm hello?, this is the one LISTED IN THE PHONE BOOK not 911. Anyway Judd explains and she says you can only get cars out of impound M-F. He explains about the phones, ids, carseats ect being IN the car and tells her we live 50 miles from here, have two small children and NO MONEY, phones or IDs. Her response "I don't know how to respond to that" and puts him on hold! So she comes back and says again we can't get the car till Monday but gives him the name and number of the impound yard. (WTF is up with them not letting you get your car on the weekend? When Sparky was impounded for an extra fee we could have picked him up on the weekend at 2 am if we wanted but whatever) So we call there and explain and tell them it will take at least an hour before we can get there to get our stuff out (gramma is on the way to rescue us) so they give us the tow truck drivers direct line to call when we are ready. The boys are very exhausted by this point. But I walk them around the campground looking at all the campsites (thanks nice people who let us pet your doggie). Gramma arrives and we call the tow company. After about 15 minutes of explaining (again) the situation and hearing alot of "black Toyota Highlander", Toyota, Grover Beach, Toyota, Highlander, Black (I guess thats a really hard car make to remember) Judd finally gets "he's not answering the page, we'll call you back".

At this point EVERYONE is exhausted, thirsty and hungry so we decide to try and get something to eat. Just after we order the phone rings and they tell us he will be back at the yard at 4. (Its about 3:15 now) Luckily the restaurant wasn't busy so we were able to eat before going to the yard. Judd and Gramma head over there while I wait with the boys so they can finish eating. (I think the waitress thought we were doing a little dine and dash as she certainly checked on us alot! I put the money on the table so she was a little more discreet after that. The boys got ice cream with their meals so they were very happy but were getting tired of being contained so I paid and we went outside. I was starting to worry that something had gone wrong since Judd and gramma still weren't back. After about 15 minutes of running laps around the deck Ronan was very close to meltdown mode so I hiked them down to the parking lot to look for bugs in the flower beds. Gramma shows up and says she got lost on the way back to get us and that in their rush to get over there in the first place they forgot the KEYS (which were in my pocket DUH! And I'm considered smart most of the time)

We get back to the tow yard (thank you nice tow truck driver for being so patient), get our stuff and head for home. Its now a little after 5. Logan falls asleep after about 2 minutes of driving. Ronan however has gone beyond tired and into "nothings going to comfort me but you holding me mommy" mode and of course I can't so we had to listen to him screaming for most of the ride home. I finally have the brilliant idea of giving him my cell phone to play with so the last 15 minutes were relatively quiet.

Home at last..... Get Ronan into a dry diaper (finally, thank goodness he didn't poop!), washed up, jammied, paci-d and he crashes. Logan goes soon after.

Thank goodness this day is over. It will however start all again on Monday when we have to try and coordinate getting to Grover Beach PD to get the release then to the tow yard and home with the car. But thats tomorrow.....

The most irritating thing was WE DIDN't PARK IN A NO PARKING ZONE. They said it was for safety reasons 'cause we were parked by the railroad tracks. And the tow driver said they did go over to the grove to see if they could find us (we were on the beach at the time). But still, it doesn't say not to park near the tracks or have any type of parking instructions. There were 7 or 8 cars parked just like us. But oh well, live and learn I guess.

Have some pics to post but I'll do that later.