Road Trip, 2012, Day 9: From California to Mt. St. Helens

These trees are huge, like really, really huge. It’s very difficult to comprehend that they are living (or were living!) things.

The drive to Mt. St. Helens was uneventful. We at breakfast  in a little Mexican restaurant in Del Rio and kept trucking. Being the benevolent parents we are, we stopped at a Walmart in Eureka to buy the girls “Breaking Dawn.”

The big highlight of this drive was the Columbia River Gorge. OH MY was it beautiful! I knew it was the windsurfing capital (of the world, maybe?), but I didn’t have any idea it would like like it does.

There were waterfalls scattered throughout the cliffs and the views of the continuing gorge were spectacular.

We finally got to our camp pretty late at night, maybe around 10:30pm. We set up the tent in the dark, drizzling night with the sound of a bubbling creek somewhere nearby.

Road Trip 2012, Day 8: San Francisco and Avenue of the Giants

Oh what a beautiful bright and early morning! So far we have totally lucked out on the weather. We needed to buy more dry ice so we used Skyvie (our snazzy new Android app) to track some down. Along the way we went back to Lombard Street so we could get better photos of the curviest street on the planet (?). The photos totally do NOT do it justice, though, and there’s probably not a more entertaining way to go down it than by GoCar. We didn’t try it with the Sequoia!

There’s Alcatraz off in the bay. These streets really were nuts!

We also went to Golden Gate Park (which, by the way, isn’t actually that near the Golden Gate Bridge) and took a photo op outside the conservancy.

We walked around the park a bit and went over to the California Academy of Sciences Museum. I think this will be one of my very few regrets on this trip. We didn’t have time to really see the museum, so we just visited the gift store. It was also expensive at $100 for the family, so I’d like to get back to San Francisco to spend a full day and truly get to enjoy it.

Sadly, we got back in the truck and started to head out of the city. We went to Presidio Park, which is actually where the Golden Gate Bridge is, and wandered around for a few minutes. The photo opportunities were awesome, and the gift store was nice (I like park and museum gift stores more than any other stores out there!).

So now it was bye-bye San Francisco and on to the Avenue of the Giants, which is a 35 mile trek through some of the country’s tallest trees.

We did stop at a small winery, Saracina, but me being the huge wine-snob that I am, I was bummed they didn’t have any moscato (lol! love the stuff). Despite my depression, we purchased some olive oil made from their 130 year old trees, seen below.

The redwoods were totally and absolutely unbelievable. There is nothing I can write that will do them justice, but to say that you absolutely need to see them for yourselves. The campground, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Burlington area, was quiet, peaceful and packed (but you wouldn’t know that!). I wish we had planned for a couple of days there instead of one night.

In short, every American citizen needs to visit the California redwoods – but be sure to plan a couple days.

Road Trip 2012, Day 7: Big Sur, Monterey & San Fran

One thing we had discovered on the way to our campground at Arroyo Seco was that we were going to completely miss “Big Sur,” which is supposed to be the consummate Pacific coast drive. We decided we couldn’t be out here and miss that. So, being us, we decided to drive west. No, we didn’t have any clear idea of what road to take or anything, we just knew we needed to be on the other side of the mountain. We took something that seemed to be heading the right direction and happened upon an Army training camp, Fort Liggett. Fortunately, the guy at the gate told us to keep going across the little bridge and on through the mountains. Unfortunately, the MP’s didn’t like our 20 MPH over the 10 MPH bridge and we got pulled over in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, their radio service was crap and they couldn’t check out our registration and they just gave up, giving us a verbal warning.

The drive was pretty unbelievable: huge drops, scenic vistas and crazy curves. Eventually we made it to the Pacific Ocean.

The drive from there to Monterey was pretty awesome, but I’d be lying if I said it was the most incredible thing I’d seen. Now maybe the hype kind of made it not too jaw-dropping, but I kind of saw it as “west Texas rolling mountains meet the Pacific.” If you’ve never seen west Texas mountains, then maybe it would be more of an OMG kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, it was worth seeing, it’s just that other things in my life have wowed me more. Neither Brad nor I regret the several crazy hours it took to get us there, but I’m not booking our next vacation along that section of coast.

We finally made it to Monterey. The town was cute, but the breeze was terribly chilly. Even Brad bought a jacket. We decided to forgo the Monterey Aquarium. At first I had been really, really excited about going there, but the more I thought about it the more I remembered all the other aquariums I’ve been to and the diving and snorkeling, too.  Besides, we totally did NOT have the time to spend there…

…We needed to get to our GoCar tour!!!

Thanks to one of those group deal coupon websites, we got a twilight tour of San Francisco for like $30 per car. The cute little car has GPS built in so as long as you’re following its directions it will tell you all about the area, like how Telegraph Hill has a population of wild conures and how the merchants at Point Park would watch to see what types of cargo were coming in. They were a blast to drive and we got lots of laughs and stares, especially as we drove down the curviest street, Lombard.

After our tour we raced back to our hotel to meet my brother, Brandon and his significant other (fiance? girlfriend? Need clarification!), Ayuri. Brandon and I had never met before; he’s one of my two half-brothers who both grew up in California.

We met excitedly and trotted off to find some good grub, ending up at a pizza place called “Patxi’s Chicago Pizza.” We ate way too much, talked tons and really enjoyed each other’s company. The girls were surprisingly well behaved and I think we had a great night. I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with Brandon & Ayuri.

Our hotel, the Capri Motel, was a great deal – perfect location near the marina district, free parking and free wifi. The only issue was that it only had mini-blinds and no curtains. Since it was east-facing this was kind of a huge deal because at sunrise we were utterly blinded. Well, at least that got us up and moving pretty early so we could enjoy some more of San Fran before we had to drive out to see the redwoods.

Road Trip 2012, Day 6: From LA to Arroyo Seco

This day started in a very untraditional vacation manner – with haircuts. I finally convinced Caroline that getting a haircut in Hollywood would be the ultimate of coolness so we walked up the street from our hotel to the Supercuts, which opened at 8am. We literally sat on the curb waiting for the doors to be unlocked so we wouldn’t have to wait – we wanted to get on the road!

Note that I’m sportin’ my new GAP jacket (and like 2 layers under it). Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with my family that they all wear little, teensy clothes when it’s frigid and only in the 60’s!

We once again packed up the Sequoia and hit the road. This time – and this is the only time it’s happened – we didn’t have quite the sense of how to get where we were going. The key is that we wanted to get to the Pacific Coast Highway but our GPS was all set on taking us on major interstates more inland. We finally pulled over and a nice police officer helped us get going to the right way.

At a suggestion from Paula & Bob, we drove up the coast to Piedras Blancas beach where there is a population of elephant seals that hang out in the sunshine. It was a great suggestion. We’ve now swum with harbor seals and mooed with elephant seals!

This is a crazy lone male who kept popping his head up and bellowing for 20 seconds or so.

After the beach we headed a good bit inland toward our campground, Arroyo Seco. I have no official idea what that means, but I think it’s something like “deep in the mountain, far from anything and cold.” It’s very difficult to reserve camping spots in California in the summer and this campground was between LA and SF so I figured it would work out. It could have been better, could have been worse. The drive there was a LOT like driving through west Texas: rolling hills of brown grasses dotted with trees. However, we did hit some farming areas and they looked kinda cool.

The night was freezing. Like totally, massively freezing. I think it hit around 42 degrees. Eeek.

Road Trip 2012, Day 5: Hollywood and around

We started off this beautiful day in LA with a trip right down the road, to the La Brea Tar Pits. Now this is my idea of fun! I love the smell of asphalt in the morning…

Seriously, the Pits were well worth checking out. They have made a beautiful garden around the whole area so you have no idea you’re about to step right into goo as you round the corner by the hydrangea or roll/get shoved down the grassy hill – you never feel it coming! The gardens are really nice and the life-sized elephant family on the shoreline of the stinky, black – and fenced – pit of tar is very explanatory.

 

The Page Museum is also right there. We didn’t go in the actual museum but did hit the store for several minutes and left more than several dollars poorer.

From there we headed up the hills to Burbank to the Warner Brothers Studio VIP tour. I took lots of pictures of houses and sets; I’ll probably never remember the importance of most – except I do remember the house from Gremlins, the steps where Ross played his keyboard waiting for Rachel at prom and the tree from The Last Samurai.

We were shown the full sets for Pretty Little Liars and The Big Bang Theory, which is filmed with a real audience. They also have the original Friends set exactly as it was the last day of filming. It was way cool to see how the filming is actually done. I’m not totally sure the kids got it, but maybe someday I can remind them. Warner Brothers is a good tour that I would definitely recommend for anyone traveling through LA.

An added bonus to the tour is that the studio is in Burbank, near the Griffith Park Observatory. We drove on up there and enjoyed views of the Hollywood sign and the whole valley. They have a cafeteria-style restaurant with yummy foods by Wolfgang Puck and an astronomy museum..

After getting all the good photos of the city and The Sign, we headed down to Hollywood to see some stars.

All the stars we saw were built into the sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard, unfortunately, but it was pretty cool that they made one for us.

We also stopped in at an Army Surplus store and bought me wool socks and a huge wool blanket. I just know I’m going to die camping in the mountains and the canyons.And we got Grace some Converse sneakers just because they were a good deal.

After checking out the utter craziness in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater (the Tom Cruise lookalike was H.O.T.) we headed to The Grove, LA’s cool outdoor mall that’s supposed to the the hangout of the Hollywood Starlings. We got me a jacket at the GAP because I’m always cold and we walked around but we never did see anyone who was anyone except Shrek.

Back to the Beverly Laurel Motor Inn, which was a fun place to stay and in a really GREAT location to rest up for the next day’s trip. Right down the street we had a brand spanking new laundromat where we washed all the icky, dirty clothes. It had big screen TV’s and free wifi!

Road Trip 2012, Day 4 (part 2) – Malibu & Santa Monica

We met Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob at Paradise Cove Café in Malibu. Many years ago Brad’s mom & dad had also eaten there with the Castruitas. We had a yummy meal and caught up on each other’s lives.

The beach there is pretty wide and well populated with families out for a fun time. We kicked off our shoes and wandered down to the water’s edge. The girls, loonies that they are, go into the frigid water a little bit and Grace wandered off exploring under the pier (which was the scene of a Hummer commercial where the Hummer drives off the end of the pier at full speed).

It was great to see Paula and Bob; the last time we saw them was at Megan & Eric’s wedding several years ago. Our visit had to be fairly speedy though, because they were leaving the next morning for a family vacation in Yosemite National Park. We said our goodbyes and turned the truck north towards Santa Monica Pier.

I was really concerned that the kids would want to play there all night, but we managed to make it a really speedy trip. The pier is neat, but it has nothing on the Ocean City, NJ, boardwalk. It looked similar except the boards were more in disrepair and it’s maybe half a mile long compared to the many miles long boardwalk. Grace bought a sweatshirt and we got photos of the sunset and we left Santa Monica for the Beverly Laurel Motor Inn in west Hollywood.

It was a cute hotel, kind of kitschy with a Hollywood theme for the rooms. It has low cost parking (I had though it was free – I’ll have to look that up) and a pool. Best aspect though is its location. Oh, and that there’s a great restaurant called Swingers right downstairs.

Road Trip 2012, Day 3: San Diego Zoo

This is where some strange alignment was going on in the universe. Some background: last summer, our great neighbors, the Petersens, moved and left our little happy Katy neighborhood for the great wilderness of Alaska. The girls were particularly upset because Megan, their younger daughter, was a good buddy to both of them. We hoped to be able to travel to Alaska to see them but my research indicated we would either spend an eternity or a couple arms and legs to get there. A couple weeks ago Wendy Petersen texted me saying that Megan and her older sister, Emilie, were in Austin so maybe we could get the girls together out there. I was really bummed to reply that our girls were in Oklahoma and they would be so sorry they missed the opportunity to see their friends.

So, that brings us to Friday in San Diego. On Thursday night Wendy texted me that the girls, their Aunt Michelle and Uncle Dave and cousins Audrey, Alec and Amanda were going to be in San Diego for a football tournament that Alec was in. She gave me Michelle’s phone number and I texted that we would be there and we were planning to hit the San Diego Zoo the next day. Michelle replied that they were planning to go the next day, as well, since that day they just happened to have a bye during the tournament. So far that’s three big coincidences to this point.

We wandered the reptile house and took photos of cool reptiles for Kris Swanson, then met up with the Dickersons, Megan and Emilie.

The San Diego Zoo really is a bucket list kind of item. It’s like Disney for animal people. It even has some amusement rides, a Skifari and evening entertainment. If you’re anywhere nearby you really shouldn’t miss it.

I do have to say though that after experiencing so many of these animals in the wild in Kenya it was kind of depressing to see them in enclosures, no matter how awesome they look. When we saw elephants they were on the move. They might stop at a bush to grab some leaves but they would move on, as a large group, in just a few minutes. These guys looked lonely and bored. The lions were less troubling since they are such loners in general anyway.

We really did have a fabulous time at the zoo, made all that much better with the terrific company of old friends.

And of course, the day wouldn’t have been complete without the requisite knee-licking by Uncle Dave.