Seattle to San Francisco

I was knackered from the full day of buffoonery and Harley riding so our start was a little subdued.
Before we start on the rest of our trip I would like to take this opportunity to say an enormous thank you to our wonderful hosts in Seattle. Who I must say bent over backwards to make us feel welcome and accommadate us. They did far more for us than we could ever expect, disrupting their everyday lives to support and encourage us on the first step of this intrepid journey. I don't think we could ever repay the kindness shown to us by them.
Big love to Wolf, Sarah and family.
Now on with the journey.
Wolf kindly offered to take us to the airport to pick up a car. This was an adventure in itself. We had already entered the address for the car rental people in to the sat nav. When we arrived at the destination it wasn’t there!!!
When we did find it there was quite a queue. Wolf sat patiently with 2 tired and disruptive kids in the car. When I arrived at the desk I was told that the car we had ordered, a 4 door, was only available as a 2 door. I was quite annoyed by this as we had specifically asked for a 4 door with a decent sized boot. The guy offered us an upgrade to the next sized car for not a lot extra. Anyway after a lot of faffing we got a Chrysler 300 touring. When we first sat in the car it felt like the back seats were in a different postcode.
We left the airport in the pouring rain and found the freeway with out any fuss, which is very unusual for us, and headed on our way. The car is a 3.5 litre 6 cylinder so you can imagine the fun we had in the wet. It spins its wheels far to easily in the dry!!! I keep getting told off for using the kick down when over taking, but its great fun.
We arrived at the 4 mile bridge that takes you across the Columbus river in to Oregon in fog, mist and rain. You couldn’t see the other side so we got on to the bridge with a little trepidation, half expecting big octopusses and such to come out of the mist at us. Too many night watching pirates of the caribean me thinks.
Anyway we arrived in Astoria without any problems. We found a room in a motel, Chloe was scared by the lady behind the counter who talked funny and had odd teeth. We had a quite meal and retired to bed.
The following morning we woke late, washed some clothes and left. At least we could see the otherside of the river in the morning as the sun come out and the mist cleared.
Our next destination was a place called Newport. The scenery down highway 101 was breathtaking. You will have to excuse my memory at this point because I can’t remember what happened in what order but we saw lots of strange birds also some heron and a golden eagle, we think, there were also some seals basking in the sunshine on the rocks. Most of the journey passed in a blur but it was great fun. We stopped in Brookings the next night.
If you are ever in the south Oregon area check out a place called wild river pizza and brewing company. They have 5 outlets. The one we stopped in gave us loads of tasters of their beer. Good stuff it was and the pizza was quite good too.
The next bit was the redwood forests. Wow those babies are big. We tried to drive through one but the car was too wide. The hole in the tree was 7’ x 7’ but the wing mirrors made it too wide and they won’t fold in. They had hollowed out the inside of a tree and put a roof on it. What a great idea for the kids we thought then had to go in ourselves. Ellie and Aisha were a little bemused to think that adults could go in to a tree house and enjoy themselves.
We then drove down the avenue of giants. It is a 31 mile road through the middle of the forest. The trees are very close to the road which makes it interesting to say the least. We stopped to have a walk in to the trees and Chloe was a little scared by the amount the trees were moving in the wind. Due to the amount of swaying they made some disturbing and rather spooky sounds. Ellie and Aisha ran off squeeling to the car shouting that monsters were coming to get us.
Our next stop was a place called Willets in North California. If you ever get the chance don’t stop there don’t it is not a very nice place. We were too tired to keep driving so got the best place we could find.
We left early and drove to San Farancisco.

---

---