West Coast Tour Part 1

Hello Everyone-

It has been some time since I have talked with most of you, so I thought that I would give you a little update about where we have been and what we have been up to. We have been unemployed for 4 weeks thus far and have been enjoying it very much, after moving that is. We were going to start our West Coast tour on Labor Day weekend, but we seriously thought about the traffic and instead went and spent the weekend at Heather’s parents cabin…it was a great time! So we started on our drive after Labor Day weekend and went down the Oregon Coast. Along the way we made a stop at Cannon Beach to take some pictures of Haystack Rock, then we cruised to Tillamook Cheese Factory in just enough time to buy some cheese curds, crackers, smoked Salmon and of course ice cream. We made it to Lincoln City around 8pm, threw our tent up and went to a local bar for a little Karaoke.

We woke up the next morning nice and early, poured ourselves some cereal and hit highway 101. We made many stops to take in the awesome views, but continued on into Northern California to the Redwood forest. We found ourselves a nice camping area around 5pm, went on a nice hike in the wilderness, then came back to make some dinner and then clean up very thoroughly because there were bears in the area and we didn’t want any run ins with wildlife this early in our trip. The Redwoods had to be the loudest forest that I have ever stayed in. We heard rustling all night in the trees, afraid it was bears so couldn’t go back to sleep, but in the morning we realized it was just a squirrel that was running around our tent! That morning we did a nice 2 mile run through the forest and enjoyed the big trees.

We drove about 70 miles south and came to the Avenue of Giants, which is more or less a tourist trap for people in search of Redwoods. There were a couple nice parks, but mostly it was little towns that had a tree you could drive through and a tree house inside a redwood, all a bit silly, but we did them all anyways for the memories! After viewing all the giants we pushed forward to Marin just across the Bay from San Francisco, stopped at a Borders books at 9pm, looked at a book about local campsites, picked one and we were off. Down in the bay area the weather was nice, but up on this mountain camp it was storming! We found a plot of land and in the rain and wind threw the tent up and went to sleep to wake up to blue skies which were perfect for some tourism.

We drove into San Fran across the Golden Gate and stopped off for some pics, then headed to the Wharf and goofed off all afternoon. We then decided we would stay there for a couple of nights so we hiked it to the Library jumped on line and reserved a room for 2 nights by the waterfront. We grabbed a bite to eat, head to the hotel to find out they made an error and had no rooms, but it was ok because they reserved a room for us at a different hotel. But it wasn’t ok, because the other hotel was 15 minutes out of town in the ghetto. Let’s just say I didn’t sleep well that night because there was a big fight next to our room and in the morning there was a guy in the lobby apologizing to all of the guest. Good news was that we got a credit from Expedia for the trouble we went through. That morning we did the tourist things like riding the Trolley, China Town, Clam Chowder in a bread bowl, etc. We then wanted to go to Alcatraz and they had a night tour, but it was sold out. They offered us standby tickets and we took them and made it on ok. It was fun and a bit eerie since it was night time.

After we marked off every tourist activity possible in San Fran we head south to Los Angeles. We had talked with a friend of mine Phil and he was kind enough to offer us shelter in the area. We planned on staying there for 2-3 days, but it turned in to 7 days because we were having such a great time in the area and Phil always had something for us to do, and we had car troubles. But to sum it up we did all these things: 1.5 hours of Power Yoga (in a heated room!), watch 40 Year Old Virgin (recommend it), got a guided tour of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Santa Monica Pier from Phil, went to a Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Baseball game with Los Angeles Phil of Colton, spent a day at six flag (didn’t puke, but could have), went to Universal Studios, fixed The Beast (the name of my car), played 27 holes of mini putt-putt, and more! Our last night in LA I laid on the floor in my clothes and woke up at 7am the next day in the same spot with my clothes still one so we must have played hard!
Today and yesterday we have been in San Diego visiting our great friends from college Forest and Erin. We arrived yesterday afternoon and went to a local Greek restaurant for some good eats, then went to the OB (Ocean Beach) for a stroll in the sand and then came back to their pad to chill and then went and ate some great sushi and drank lots of Sake! Good times. This morning we got a tour of Tijuana, the good parts, and then came back to do laundry, play some Playstation, and read some books.

Tomorrow we will relax some more in San Diego, Wednesday head over to Phoenix to visit our good friend Michael, then after that we are going to the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Arches, then make our way back to Seattle. We planned on being completed with our West Coast tour by the 20th of this month, but we are having such a great time, it looks like it will be around Oct 1st. but better not put a date on it just yet! Hope to hear from you all soon and hope you all are doing well. Bye!

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