October 7

$247 Hotel

$43 Lunch & Gelato

$11 Gas

$10 Electricity (Fuel)

Dinner:  Out

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This is all vacation spending.  I am coming up with a grand total of about $450.  We had $9 left in our vacation budget for this year.  I was planning originally to just take DL(16) on this trip and to use MH's income to cover this.  It sounds like it will probably work out.  MH should be working next week.  (We have more than ample savings if MH's job falls through again).

We've stayed at this hotel a bajillion times over the years and have never had any problems.  But in this case, they didn't have our ocean view room.  They initially told us they downgraded us to a regular room and we were mostly *shrugs* about that.  Given the increased spending with bringing a third person on the trip.  But we stood around waiting for a long time, and they found us an ocean view after all.  Of course, this all seemed to come down to "lack of staff/new employee" issues, as with everything these days.  MH got the impression they were giving us a bigger discount but as far as I can tell they just dropped $10-$20 for the trouble.  But there were a few charges/credits on the credit card so I can see maybe we didn't receive the discount they were attempting to give us.  It's been a few days and it looks like $247 is what came through.  In addition, they gave us $50-off our next visit.  Which is really more than necessary for a little bit of standing around.

Of course, we had just had this whole talk on our beach walk in the morning.  It was never my intention to go back to this hotel after move-in.  It's just that DL(16) specifically wanted to stay here and it was going to a mom/son trip.  As we walked on the beach that morning MH said we should really just stay in Solvang the next time.  I told him, "Or the hotel right by the college."  Both of which would cost about half as much.  This beachfront hotel has free public parking and a lot of surfers park here.  I was telling MH, "We could always come over here for a beach walk, charge up the car, eat at our favorite resaturant."  Saves $100 for much of the same experience.  So of course, now we are tempted by that free $50.  We *may* use it during Thanksgiving break.  We've stayed there a couple of times after Thanksgiving because it was such a good deal.  & now we have the double reason of dropping MM(18) back off at school.  We don't have any firm plans on that though.  He has so many friends he can catch a ride from and the grandparents seem really keen on picking him up and doing most of the driving.  (They also want to keep him all week but clearly that is ridiculous.)  

We were able to charge our car overnight at the hotel.  Most these electricity providers just charge $10 at a time and then refill when you use your $10.  I just see a $10 charge.  I am looking it up and we spent $12 on electric charge ($6 x 2).  That was for 100 miles of range; 50 miles in Solvang and another 50 miles at the hotel. 

{We drove 800 miles total on this trip, about 150 miles on electric and 550 miles gas}.  

We did eat lunch and dessert at our favorite Pismo Beach place.  MM(18) was too busy with classes, so we didn't see him again or have to feed him.

We drove for 3 hours towards home and then took a break for MH's movie.  DL(16) and I spent some time with GMIL and then my parents.  We ate a late dinner with the in-laws and then got home around 10pm.  This became a more rushed trip when MH joined us.  I wasn't going to board my cat for this trip and we really needed to get home to take care of the cat.  Our original plan was to keep it looser and maybe stay another night.

We did stop for gas where we always used to stop, about half way home from the Bay Area.  We stopped to fill up at a 7-11.  We maybe haven't been there for a year?  I noticed some "7-Eleven" electric chargers.  They were comparable to gas prices, but I just thought that was incredibly smart.  I would 100% just stop and charge there.   

We were just cutting it close on gas (and had used up the electricity) so I asked MH to just put in two gallons.  Is what I like to keep in the car.  Electric vehicle recall aside, I never use gas any more.  2 gallons seems to be a sweet spot where I'd otherwise just get gas once per year.  (It will burn off a little gas in more extreme weather or during maintenance mode).  To explain why we only spent $11 on gas. 

This trip ended up being interesting in that I was feeling bad I just had no mental energy whatsoever to take DL(16) on any college tours.  Probably should have because it's his fall break this week.  But. So. Exhausted. with everything college.  Anyway, it worked out pretty well.  DL(16) viscerally hated absolutely everything about MM's college and dorm.  After about 5 minutes he just wanted to leave.  MH tells me this at some point.  MH and I never did the dorm thing, we somewhat understand.  We just aren't as moody and dramatic as DL(16) is. By itself, was probably a good experience to get him thinking more realistically about college.  He wants to go away (somewhere less urban and more rainy).  I highly doubt he will be up to that at 18, but also figure it's a bridge to cross in another couple of years.  A lot will change in 2 more years.

Anyway, MH's aunt was with GMIL (when we visited) and she used to work at a community college.  She goes on some community college spiel and DL(16) is intrigued.  She's also excited about the possibility of community college becoming free.  I guess that's being discussed politically.  I am just, "Um, it's already free."  Has been free in our state for a couple of years, and before that it cost pennies.  We have always been very pro community college but I can tell from this conversation that no one has ever really explained community college to DL.  He's kind of just, "I didn't know that, I didn't know that's how it worked."  Which I guess is where we failed, as clearly no other adult (in his life) is particularly pro community college.  Anyway, while MIL is like readying his room for him (he can live with her while he goes to college!) - she's a *lot* - I expect he may change his mind a few times during these next couple of years.  But I think it was a really fruitful trip in that I think he's getting more realistic about college options (re: what will actually work for him).  & he is intrigued by the middle ground of maybe going away to college in more of a "baby step" kind of way.  Up until this point, he's only been talking about going to college out-of-state. 

So I guess we got some serendipitous college exploration out of this trip.