We made a quick exit from Redding and steadily picked up traffic down I-5, although it was not yet the terror it was to become and thus we made steady progress.

The most interesting thing about northern California is the fact that it has big cities that simply stop. Cow pastures are located right next to huge shopping centers, unlike other states where there's a more gradual change.

We entered Sacramento from the north amidst an increasing amount of traffic. With four lanes, each going a different speed and each one liable to just dump you into another with no warning, getting through the city was a zoo. We exited and made it to a Food Network-featured place called Dad's Kitchen.

In the tiny strip shopping center in which it is located, patrons fill up all of the seven or so parking spots pretty much immediately. We wound our way in and out of various parking lots around the area and realized that the locals parked many blocks away and walked to it. After accidentally going through the McDonalds drive-through and avoiding having to order anything, we finally grabbed the last reasonable parking spot in front of the restaurant.

Dad's Kitchen looks like a hole in the wall, but belies a long and eclectic interior full of funny signs and husky waitresses. We waited for a little while before getting our seats, which gave us a chance to look at the pictures of Guy Fieri on the walls, the three pinball machines (of which two are out of order), and—of all things—a working pay phone in its original tiny hut. I don't know how they got the whole thing inside the building.

We all ordered "Dad's Burger." This thing was a delicious monstrosity: an 8-ounce patty encrusted with 2 ounces of chopped bacon and 2 ounces of blue cheese crumbles. Lettuce, tomato, and red onion, though large, were mere garnishes. Topped off with a Aleppo chili spread and a big enough bun to hold all of this in, and the resulting burger was nearly as big as my notoriously large head.

While this alone could have filled us up for days on end, the sides were meals unto themselves. Between us, we split hand-cut sea-salted potatoes, onion rings the same circumference as the burgers, and a homemade spicy mac and cheese that was simply the best we'd ever tasted. We couldn't figure out what kind of white cheese was inside, but it hit the perfect balance of texture and creaminess.

There was still much on our plates when we got back out, and as it turned out, we needed all of the energy that we could get, because I-5 turned into the biggest zoo on the planet. Mile after mile of 80-MPH bumper-to-bumper flying would be followed up by 50-MPH brake-fests because one truck way up ahead decided to cut in front of someone else to get in front of another truck in passing debacles that could last for ten minutes.

We arrived in Stockton and exited directly into the slummiest part of town for a pennant collection from the Stockton Ports. While Stockton's economic claim to fame is in its deep-water port that goes out to the Pacific Ocean, its biggest cultural event is their Asparagus Festival. Their alternate hat is basically Popeye holding a massive asparagus, and I got one of those as well. The girl who rung them up was the front office receptionist when we initially walked in, but was clearly bored half to death and enjoyed telling us about the history of the club and of their decade-old stadium.

After this, we got gas and then quickly got out while what appeared to be a gang came near the building. We got on California route 99, which outdid I-5 in its status as "infernal road to end all infernal roads" (in my mom's words). The scariest part came when a construction-looking vehicle cut in front of us and a large metal item fell out of the back and danced across the lane, which we barely swerved to avoid while trying to alert the driver of his problem. The horrid traffic around us moved at a constant enough rate, however, and we somehow managed to exit in Modesto, home of the Modesto Nuts.

The Nuts and the Ports are two of the northernmost teams in the California League, as most of the teams are located in the L.A. metropolitan area. The Nuts stadium is in much worse shape than is the one in Stockton and in fact is little better than one of our high school fields. Like Stockton, the employees there were ready to help us and the girl in the pro shop looked and acted almost exactly like the one in Stockton.

With another pennant and hat for the ever-expanding collections, it was off to our hotel, which thankfully did not require us to get on the freeway again. After relaxing in the room, we went downstairs and ordered three salads, as we were still full from earlier but did not want to go to bed even slightly hungry for tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Yosemite National Park, and hopefully an early start to help get us there.