Meandered my way up the Oregon Coast today. Very pretty drive up US101. Stopped in Bandon on the way up and had some really good fish and chips. Also stopped at several lighthouses along the way. I don't know what it is about those things that I just love. Wish I would have had more time to explore some of the towns along the way becase a lot of them looked neat. It was a long drive, though, and the place that I'm staying (Seaside, OR) is a neat coastal town too. I went down to the main area on Broadway [View Full Entry]

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Drove to Crater Lake today. Beautiful Blue lake in the top of a volcano cone. Believe it or not, about two thirds of the drive around the lake was closed because of snow, but what I was able to see was really cool. Going to take a leisurely drive up the Oregon coast tomorrow and will be spending the night and the next day in a hostel on the norther Oregon coast. [View Full Entry]

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Long drive on Thursday. Got pretty as I started heading north. Arrived at the hostel in the Redwoods in time to take a shower and watch the sunset on the beach across from the hostel. Woke up early on Friday and drove back south about twenty miles to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. Beautiful! The mist was enshrouding the grove, and the sun was shining through the trees. Drove up north about thirty miles to Crescent City after I walked through the grove. Stopped to take a picture of the lighthouse there. Drove about 10 miles northeast after that and stopped [View Full Entry]

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Spent the day in Yosemite again. Started off by hitting a fall in the Valley that I had missed yestarday. Headed up north next to see a grove of sequoia trees. Continued on east after that to Tuolumne Meadows. A long and scenic drive. Had my Sound of Music moment there. Went on a hard hike up, then down into a meadow lake. It was very beautiful. On to the Redwoods tomorrow. It may be a long day of driving. [View Full Entry]

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Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. Slept in today, but still had a full day in Yosemite Valley. It is quite possibly the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. There are giant granite towers on all sides, lots of water, and pine trees everywhere. Saw a bear when I was walking back from Lower Yosemite Falls. Vernal Falls was a hike, but completely awesome when I got to the top. Got a little bit wet from the mist coming off from that. Going to get something to eat tonight and take a soak in the hottub. Planning on going [View Full Entry]

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Just got into the hostel outside of Yosemite after having spent the last three days in San Francisco. Had a great time in San Francisco. Everyone seemed happy there, although there were a lot of homeless people. Met up with Amanda and her friend Maureen on Saturday. We walked from our hotel down to the Presiderio (the piers) and back to our hotel. Stopped into this cool indoors Farmer's Market on the way back to the hotel and tried some samples. Met up with Amanda's boss Shelly and her Brother Paul and his girlfriend(?) Michelle. They were a lot of fun [View Full Entry]

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OK, I'm in San Fransisco now, and I'm able to be on the computer in my hotel. Spent the 17th in Flagstaff again. In the morning went to a volcano and ruins near Flagstaff. Around noon I drove to Sedona. The drive wound through the Coccino forest which was really neat. Sedona was a lot like Estes Park x10. Grabed something to eat, walked around a little bit, and went back to Flagstaff. For the rest of the night in Flagstaff I did some reading and went to see a movie (Angels & Demons). Left for Las Vegas on the 18th. [View Full Entry]

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Spent the last part of my Utah portion of the trip in Zion National Park. This was a really nice park as well once I figured out what I was doing. I ended up having to drive out of the park to park my car and walk back into the park. As with many of the parks that I have visited so far, Zion has a mandatory shuttle system to get to different parts of the park during the summer season, and all of the parking inside the park was full. Except for the huge red stone walls everywhere, the park [View Full Entry]

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Spent some time at Bryce Canyon today. Nice park. The park is known for its hodoos, which you will see in the photos. The Navajo say that the cayote, who is known as a trickster, turned the people into stones. The park was full of pine trees and had great scents, and the weather was great. Called it quits early today as I didn't stop until late last night. [View Full Entry]

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Saw two really cool things yestarday. First, I went to Monument Valley which is about 45 miles down the road from Bluff. Lots of cool red buttes. After that, I decided to go on to the Grand Canyon as the weather was not too hot. Very cool. I wasn't really excited about seeing the Grand Canyon, probably because of my fear of heights. The place was really cool, though, and the overlooks weren't too bad. Driving into the park, I was surprised at all of the trees. I wasn't expecting it to be so forested. As I was walking along parts [View Full Entry]

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