Friday (6/5)

Taylor and I arrived into San Francisco and headed south on 101 towards San Luis Obispo.  We decided that to visit Dave in CA Valley was too far out of the way, so we went to Mary’s house and visited with her and her family for a bit. Although I felt like I knew Mary for years from listening to Larry, it was actually the first time we met face to face. Also it turns out that Dave left his phone is San Bernadino so Tay and I would have driven 90 minutes out of the way to the middle of nowhere and had no way to get a hold of Dave.  We made the right decision going to Mary’s house.

We arrived at the newly constructed beautiful home that Larry and Mary had just moved into 6 months before.  It was a very difficult conversation with Mary as everything is still so new with Larry’s passing. Taylor and I stayed for an hour or so and decided it was time for us to find out where we were going to stay for the evening.  Mary graciously offered for us to stay with her, but we elected to stay at a hotel.  We actually ended up having more trouble than we thought in finding a hotel. Atascadero has a strong Mexican influence so you can find a taqueria or taco bell, easier than a hotel. The ones we found were already booked.  We finally found a place to stay and then went to dinner at A-Town Diner, which is a Buckhead Diner wannabe.

Saturday (6/6)

We woke up early around 5a and convinced ourselves we needed to sleep longer so we went back to sleep until 8:30a and then got dressed for Larry’s funeral. We got in the car to find somewhere to eat breakfast before the funeral. We ended up seeing a Denny’s which was a couple minutes from the church. I hadn’t eaten there in 5 or 6 years and Taylor commented afterwards that she liked the food.

We arrived at the funeral, after a small GPS issue and while standing in line to get in the church, my cousin Dave McCracken saw us and screamed at the top of his lungs,”Trent McCracken in the hoouuse!!!” Taylor was mortified! I went over and gave Dave a hug and introduced Taylor. Then Dave introduced me to his high school basketball coach and a few others. We sat down for service which was wonderful. They played a 6-7 min video tribute to Larry and someone turned on my faucet of tears. I wasn’t expecting this but was overcome by extreme sadness in the moment. Taylor and I later spoke of it and she mentioned she was crying and didn’t know why because she had never met him. Larry was just a great guy, the 2 words that come to mind are genuine and selfless. During the service there was a full military sendoff including the folding of the USA flag presented to Mary and the gun salute. . After the services, we headed over to the reception where we met a few other people. The one that sticks out the most was Larry’s girlfriend from ’77, Kathy who drove from Montana to attend the services. I later learned there were 4-5 of his ex-girlfriends at the funeral. I think this is a statement in its self how great he was. Dave walked us out to our car and we headed north to Monterey, CA.

We took Route 46- West from the church to get to the PCH. We drove about 5 hours through San Simeon, stopped and were entertained by the Elephant Seals, drove past Hearst Castle, into Big Sur, crossed the famous Bixby Bridge, and finally got to the 17 mile loop of Pebble Beach and Cyprus Springs golf course. We visited the Cyprus Point Lookout and then arrived at the most photographed tree in the world, The Lone Cyprus, the logo for Pebble Beach.

It was getting late so we drove to our hotel for the night in Salinas. We decided to go to dinner at a restaurant called Famous Dave’s. On the way to Famous Dave’s, we noticed a lot of familiar sites and then saw El Pollo Loco. Yes, that’s right, the restaurant we ate at on Friday is right next to the place we are eating at tonight. The one exit we stop at on a 203 mile stretch from San Francisco to Atascadero ends up being the exit where our hotel is on our way back to San Francisco 2 days later. Absolutely crazy how that worked out….. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and got in the hot tub for a bit and then turned in for the night.

Sunday (6/7)

We got up and headed 90 min north towards San Francisco. Our 1st stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. As we got closer to the bridge, we were surprised how foggy it was as we could only see the bottom of the bridge. Mysteriously as we got closer to the Marin county Side of the bridge it was suddenly clear. We pulled over to Vista Point and luckily timed it right and pulled right into a spot. The wind was blowing and it was very cold so we decided not to walk on the bridge but we got some great photos.

We left there and headed over to Lombard Street. Once again luckily we had a few minute wait and the officer motioned us to take our turn. After Lombard Street we headed to Pier 39 because we were getting hungry. The first place we saw was Hard Rock Cafe, so we had lunch there. We walked around for a hour or so and saw the sea lions… It was SO cold! Dressing for San Francisco weather is always a challenge. We reviewed some of our videos and pictures and realized that we could do better and headed back over to Lombard Street for the second time and got some great pictures and almost saw a child run over – damn tourists…

We then decided to head up to Twin Peaks for the best view of the city. It did not disappoint. It is pretty cool to come down the cut in the hill entering Cincinnati, but it doesn’t come close to the vantage point that Twin Peaks provides.  Since we had had a full day of site seeing we went to the airport early and I got some work done before we got on our red eye flight home.

We can’t wait until next summer when the whole family takes the trip from Seattle to San Diego.  That will bring Taylor’s total states visited to 45… not bad for a 14 yr old. Click here for a map showing where our family has visited so far.