I've been DYING to figure this one out!
I found a photo of the receipt online. The header of the receipt reads "Valero Country Store." This is a Valero gas station/mini mart. She most likely purchased gas.
First thing to remember is that this receipt is from 2008, so who even knows if the Valero Country Store she visited then is still in operation...
But assuming that the Valero Country Store is still in operation, there is a Valero located on I-5 in Gustine, CA, which is 79 miles south of the McDonald's in Lodi, CA. This particular Valero is located just north of the highway exits for CA-152, which is the route Jodi would have taken to travel from Lodi, CA to Monterey, CA.
(She took I-5 South from Redding, and since she is documented as having been at McDonald's in Lodi at 7:32 PM, the most reasonable route from Lodi to Monterey, where she spent the night at Matt McCartney's, is via CA-152.)
Google Maps approximates the trip from Lodi to Gustine to take 1 hour and 11 minutes. If she made a purchase at McDonald's at 7:32 PM, and a gas purchase at Valero Country Store in Gustine at 8:41 PM, this matches up pretty much exactly (give or take).
But here's what I really wanna know...
Why did Arias choose to travel from Redding to Monterey via the town of Lodi? It's a somewhat peculiar choice. Most people would take I-5 South from Redding to I-680 South to Route 101 South. Route 101 South would take Jodi right into Monterey.
Instead, Jodi chose to stay on I-5 South beyond Sacramento, and then take CA-152 West into Monterey.
Her choice added 30 minutes to her trip.
This route does not create a huge delay--and she wasn't yet "on the run," so she perhaps wasn't in a hurry--but it's still a bit unusual.
Furthermore, in her telephone conversation on June 25, 2008 with Detective Flores, she discusses her road trip in some detail. We're all well aware that she lied to Detective Flores on myriad occasions, but the lies she told him in this particular phone conversation were amidst truths, and so I wonder if the lies don't indicate something very important.
In the telephone conversation, Jodi told Flores that her own car was in poor mechanical condition, so she decided to rent a car. She said she picked up the rental in Redding, and was driven there by her future sister-in-law.
Upon picking up the car, she then "went back" to her brother's house to nap, as she had been up all night. Jodi doesn't state which brother, and she doesn't state where that brother lives.
She continues by telling Flores that she got on the road (after the nap) and visited friends in Santa Cruz, first, and later visited friends in Monterey, where she spent the night.
Okay, since she's still an innocent woman at this point in her trip, why would she feel the need to state that she visited friends in Santa Cruz (a coastal community) when she really took I-5 South from Redding and ended up at McDonald's in Lodi at 7:32 PM that evening? Santa Cruz and Lodi are not near each other. It's a lie that only makes sense if she needed to hide something about having been in Lodi, or having been along I-5 South in the Sacramento area.
Incidentally, she picked up the rental car at 8:04 AM on June 2nd. And she purchased $15.00 in gas in Yreka at 5:37 AM, before departing Yreka with her sister-in-law for Redding. If Jodi was simply going to go back to her brother's house and take a nap after picking up the rental car, why would she not just continue sleeping in Yreka and pick up the rental car later in the day on June 2nd? I suppose it's possible that her sister-in-law was only available to drive Jodi to Redding at a certain hour of the day...
Anyway, the drive from Redding to the McDonald's in Lodi takes 3 hours. Jodi rented the car at 8:04 AM and she is documented as having been in Lodi at 7:32 PM. That's a span of 11.5 hours to drive just 3 hours. What happened during the other 8.5 hours???
Yes, she said she napped at her brother's, but I'm not sure I'm buying it...
Again, why the heck was this monster in Lodi at 7:32 PM?
And why state she visited friends in Santa Cruz?
What is she hiding so early in her trip???
In the time since I've written the above post, I've learned the following about "Santa Cruz" from watching a video of Jodi's testimony on Day 19. (Everything is according to Jodi, so God knows what's accurate.)
On Monday, June 2nd, Jodi pumped $15.00 gas into her Infiniti in Yreka and drove it to Redding. She parked it at her brother's house. Her brother lived in Redding with his fiance at the time.
Her future sister-in-law drove her to the Budget location at the Redding Airport. Once she obtained the rental car at 8:04 AM, Jodi went back to her brother's house and took a nap, because she had been up all night talking to Travis via telephone.
After her nap, she got on I-5 in the "late morning" and began her trip to Monterey, to visit friends. Along the way, she remembered that she was supposed to meet Gus Searcy in San Jose, but felt too tired, so she pulled over and slept in the parking lot of a McDonald's in "one of those small towns north or south of Sacramento. I think it was Corning."
(Sidebar: Corning is located just 49 miles south of Redding--not even near Sacramento!)
We know from documentation that Jodi actually visited a McDonald's in Lodi at 7:32 PM on Monday, June 2nd. Whether or not she arrived earlier than 7:32 PM and took a nap in the parking lot before purchasing the french fries and bottle of water is anybody's guess. I think she may have gotten her hair dyed between Redding and Lodi...
Her final destination for that day was Monterey, to visit Matt McCartney (and Darryl Brewer), but she spoke with Matt McCartney while driving and learned that he was in Santa Cruz, so he told her to drive to Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz is 2 hours from Lodi, but 70 minutes after having purchased the french fries and bottled water in Lodi, Arias purchased gas at a Valero Country Store. I haven't been able to find a full receipt for the Valero Country Store purchase, so I don't know where that Valero was located, or how much she spent.
Nurmi asked Jodi what time she had arrived in Santa Cruz. Arias said, "It was dark, but restaurants and bars were still open..." She stated that she and Matt (and a friend of his) went to The Red Room in Santa Cruz and had appetizers. After The Red Room, they went to a karaoke bar. At the end of the evening, Jodi followed Matt and his friend to their apartment in Monterey. The apartment was part of Matt's friend's parents' house, but "sectioned off."
The next morning, Jodi visited Darryl Brewer at his residence in Pacific Grove.
So that's the clarification on Santa Cruz, I guess. I don't know. Something still smells fishy. Well, everything smells fishy, but I feel there's something that Jodi is hiding with regard to her activities in the Lodi area. In Day 19's testimony, she remembered the exact price of gas in Yreka on June 2, 2008, and she remembered that she had omelets for breakfast at Darryl Brewer's, so I feel that having stated Corning as the town where she slept in the empty McDonald's parking lot--a town just 50 minutes from Redding, where she had just gotten up from a nap!-- is an intentional lie, not a memory gaffe.
I am confident that she remembers exactly the location where she pulled over to sleep in a McDonald's parking lot, IF that's actually what she did between "late morning" and 7:32 PM, when she was documented as having been in Lodi, after purchasing french fries and bottled water.
Is it possible Jodi slept in a McDonald's parking lot in Corning, just 50 minutes after beginning her road trip, then purchased french fries and bottled water at a McDonald's in Lodi at 7:32 PM? Yes, it is. Is it likely? No, it isn't.
