California Cross State Road Trip - Turlock & Friends

Dave and I took a week off work mid October with the plans of partaking in a California road trip.  We started in San Diego headed North going traveling as far as Medford, OR.  We started by leaving San Diego late at night on a Friday and arrived to our first destination of Turlock, CA; this is the town I grew up in.  I have broken our trip down into a few different blogs as there is a lot to cover and write about.

Our first morning of the road trip, we had breakfast at one of my favorite local diners, Latif's, followed by some antique and thrift shopping on Main Street.

We woke up some what early and had some time to take a stroll down Main Street before any of the shops opened.  Turlock ended up being the town in which I found my best find for the trip.  I saving that find for a blog of it's own as it truly deserves it.

The first antique store was very very good to us.  The staff was so friendly and there was so much to look at.  I ended up purchasing these bakelite spacers for a very good price and Dave spotted the vintage sunglasses.  The best part is that they are not prescription glasses which means I will not have to spend the money to have them fixed!

This Disney's Haunted Mansions book was my first find and was a steal of a price.  We came across a ton of Halloween decorations while on the trip as this was the week leading up to Halloween. 

After spending a few hours on Main Street we decided to hit up the local thrift stores.  We both ended scoring some awesome Hawaiian duds.  I found this lovely 70's Hawaiian print dress (made in Hawaii) and Dave ended up scored a 50's Hawaiian shirt as well.

After thrifting we had lunch at my favorite local Chinese restaurant in town, The China Cafe.  They have the best garlic chicken and I have never found anything else that even comes close to it.  It was a must do while I was in my hometown. We relaxed at the hotel for a couple of hours and then headed to Minnie's in Modesto to have  pre dinner Tiki drinks before heading to dinner to meet up with my local Central valley friends.  Below are some of the Tikis outside Minnie's.

 I had a fantastic visit with my friends and miss them all dearly.  It was a short visit but a good one.  We had dinner at Shangri-La in Modesto.  The funny thing is that this is the same restaurant that I had my going away dinner at almost six years ago. Back then it was an Acapulco's.  I reserved us a table and the spooky thing is it ended up being in the same room that my going away dinner was held.

 We headed to Vieira's Lounge after dinner for a few cocktails and lots and lots of laughs!

 The next morning we were back on the road again.  Our destination for the end of the day was Redding, CA where we would be staying the night at my sister's house.  Along the way we stopping in Tracy to have a visit with my Grandpa on my mother's side of the family, followed by lunch in Stockton with Dave sister Debbie. 

We had a great visit with Debbie and she even surprised me with these tiki salt and pepper shakers.  Too cute!

After lunch we were back on the road.  We got to Redding around 8:30p and had a short visit with my sister before heading to bed.  Below is the only picture we took at my sister's house.  I'm holding my favorite doggie in the whole world, Kelly Kapowski.  Sorry about the poor quality of the picture.

We woke up the next morning, had breakfast at a very cute log cabin styled restaurant, followed by thrifting at the stores Redding had to offer.  I had a couple great finds to be mentioned in the future blogs.  Two more legs of the trip to go.  Next blog will be our visit with my parents including a day spent in Medford, OR. 

Till' Next Time,

Suz