The Road Trip of Amazingness
Be warned. This shall be long because there is much awesomeness to discuss from our California Road Trip.
Flashes from THE TRIP:
* DAY 1: Visiting Chisana
---touring Arcata and Humboldt( AKA: Hills and Stairs University)
*DAY 2: Traveling through the Redwood forests for the first time
---Climbing in burnt out hollows in living gigantic trees (Found a used needle in one)
---Seeing a fallen giant tree weighing a million pounds
---Hugging ancient trees
*Stopping at random Big Foot places: museums, wood carvings sites, ect
*Staying in Santa Rosa for the night in the first hotel that any of us had reserved and paid for ourselves.
*DAY 3:Driving to my friend Heidi's house and then riding into San Fransisco on the BART
---Riding a trolly car
---eating clam chowder in a fresh sourdough bread bowl on the warf
---playing in the Museum Mechanique with a ton of ancient coin driven machines, including the famous Laughing Sal(she is fricken creepy)These machines were amazing, goofy, funny relics spanning the past few centuries.
---Visiting China town and meeting up with Peter, a friend from SOU
---Breaking away from the boys with Heidi to go frolick in Sephoria. (Makeup can be very very fun)
---Getting accosted by crazy panhandlers on the streets who took a liking to us.
---Eating delicious spinach alfredo with smoked salmon and prawns at a classy restaurant while being serenaded by old school jazz musicians. (The band leader was a riot and he shook each of our hands as we left)
(We were dang lucky to have a tour guide like Heidi, otherwise we would have been lost little lambs who probably would have gotten my car stolen or impounded.)
*DAY 4:Visiting the Jelly Belly factory and Santa Cruz
---Buying hugenormous bags of Jelly beans
---Getting/wearing Jelly Belly hats for pictures with a huge blow up jelly bean wearing easter rabbit ears
---Walking on the beach below the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
-*****---Being with Andrew for his first view of the ocean and his first steps into the waves
---Finding by accident the perfect place for watching the sunset. A spot complete with boulders to climb, beautiful trees, stark rock cliffs, golden colores waves, soft sand and friendly serfers.
-*-*-Spending the night in a hostel(my first ever) under the shadow of a historic lighthouse. The view that night of the stars, the crashing waves below, the moon and the lighthouse beacon made it impossible for me to go inside willingly.\
*Day 5:Sun lounging day
---exploring the area surrouding the light house in the mellow morning light
---camping out on a beach blanket to soak in the sun. (Thankfully I used sun screen, so I didn't burn. The boys however chose not to partake in my offer to share the sun screen, so they got burned to a crisp in a few locations. I shouldn't feel smug, but I do:)
---We went swimming in the ocean, despite it's freezing temperature. It was marvelous, I adjusted to the cold suprisingly well.
---There was a family of seals that we got to swim with. One jumped up within four feet of Andrew.
---We went to a great restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz, before further stuffing ourselves at Cold Stone (UMMMM!)
---We got to play hacky sack with my new dirt bag for a while, but then I left my keys there, which caused a big raucous until we could find them later.
---We drove to Monterey to stay with Andrew's awesome friend Tasha, where I got to watch V for Vendetta for the first time.
Day 6 part 1:Monterey and driving
---We stopped by this town called Pacific grove which had the most beautiful clear water and little coves. I fell in love with this spot where snorkelers explore clear blue waters and the beach is compromised almost entirely of bits of shells. There was this great huge boulder that just screamed for us to climb it.
--- I found a treasure trove of sea glass at this beach!!! (Did I mention that I am addicted to searching for sea glass? Andrew had to drag me away from this gold mine of beautiful tumbled green glass.)
---We got stuck in crazy traffic around San Fransisco, but we got to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge
---We ate at In-and-Out Burger (It was both boys first visit, so we got paper hats)
---We stopped and ate dinner at Denny's with Chisana in Eureka
Day 6 part 2: The epic journey home
We were making rather good time on our trip home, but eventually we realized that we were still driving along the coast, when Ashland is inland. In the dark, we had gotten stuck on a coastal road many miles north of Ashland. We then preceded to be ridiculous and tried to go on a back road short cut to try and get back on course as fast as possible. Our gas started to run low around 2 in the morning and we were driving in the middle of nowhere. We stopped at a Ranger station for help, but no one was there. We then tried to use their gas pumps but they were locked. Thankfully, we weren't very many miles off the original main road, so we turned back around and prayed that we atleast made it back to the main road before our gas ran out. Miraculously, our gas supply made it back, but it was quite a while before we were able to finally find an open gas station since everything in Oregon is self serve. Man were we relieved when we saw that friendly gas station attendent. Well, we then preceded the ridiculously long trek back south to Ashland. If we hadn't gotten off track, we would have reached Ashland around 2 in morning. With all our complications, we didn't get back until 8:30 in the morning. At least it makes for an interesting end to our story.
Sorry for the length, but that trip deserved at least that much space on lj by virtue of its sheer radness.
Flashes from THE TRIP:
* DAY 1: Visiting Chisana
---touring Arcata and Humboldt( AKA: Hills and Stairs University)
*DAY 2: Traveling through the Redwood forests for the first time
---Climbing in burnt out hollows in living gigantic trees (Found a used needle in one)
---Seeing a fallen giant tree weighing a million pounds
---Hugging ancient trees
*Stopping at random Big Foot places: museums, wood carvings sites, ect
*Staying in Santa Rosa for the night in the first hotel that any of us had reserved and paid for ourselves.
*DAY 3:Driving to my friend Heidi's house and then riding into San Fransisco on the BART
---Riding a trolly car
---eating clam chowder in a fresh sourdough bread bowl on the warf
---playing in the Museum Mechanique with a ton of ancient coin driven machines, including the famous Laughing Sal(she is fricken creepy)These machines were amazing, goofy, funny relics spanning the past few centuries.
---Visiting China town and meeting up with Peter, a friend from SOU
---Breaking away from the boys with Heidi to go frolick in Sephoria. (Makeup can be very very fun)
---Getting accosted by crazy panhandlers on the streets who took a liking to us.
---Eating delicious spinach alfredo with smoked salmon and prawns at a classy restaurant while being serenaded by old school jazz musicians. (The band leader was a riot and he shook each of our hands as we left)
(We were dang lucky to have a tour guide like Heidi, otherwise we would have been lost little lambs who probably would have gotten my car stolen or impounded.)
*DAY 4:Visiting the Jelly Belly factory and Santa Cruz
---Buying hugenormous bags of Jelly beans
---Getting/wearing Jelly Belly hats for pictures with a huge blow up jelly bean wearing easter rabbit ears
---Walking on the beach below the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
-*****---Being with Andrew for his first view of the ocean and his first steps into the waves
---Finding by accident the perfect place for watching the sunset. A spot complete with boulders to climb, beautiful trees, stark rock cliffs, golden colores waves, soft sand and friendly serfers.
-*-*-Spending the night in a hostel(my first ever) under the shadow of a historic lighthouse. The view that night of the stars, the crashing waves below, the moon and the lighthouse beacon made it impossible for me to go inside willingly.\
*Day 5:Sun lounging day
---exploring the area surrouding the light house in the mellow morning light
---camping out on a beach blanket to soak in the sun. (Thankfully I used sun screen, so I didn't burn. The boys however chose not to partake in my offer to share the sun screen, so they got burned to a crisp in a few locations. I shouldn't feel smug, but I do:)
---We went swimming in the ocean, despite it's freezing temperature. It was marvelous, I adjusted to the cold suprisingly well.
---There was a family of seals that we got to swim with. One jumped up within four feet of Andrew.
---We went to a great restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz, before further stuffing ourselves at Cold Stone (UMMMM!)
---We got to play hacky sack with my new dirt bag for a while, but then I left my keys there, which caused a big raucous until we could find them later.
---We drove to Monterey to stay with Andrew's awesome friend Tasha, where I got to watch V for Vendetta for the first time.
Day 6 part 1:Monterey and driving
---We stopped by this town called Pacific grove which had the most beautiful clear water and little coves. I fell in love with this spot where snorkelers explore clear blue waters and the beach is compromised almost entirely of bits of shells. There was this great huge boulder that just screamed for us to climb it.
--- I found a treasure trove of sea glass at this beach!!! (Did I mention that I am addicted to searching for sea glass? Andrew had to drag me away from this gold mine of beautiful tumbled green glass.)
---We got stuck in crazy traffic around San Fransisco, but we got to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge
---We ate at In-and-Out Burger (It was both boys first visit, so we got paper hats)
---We stopped and ate dinner at Denny's with Chisana in Eureka
Day 6 part 2: The epic journey home
We were making rather good time on our trip home, but eventually we realized that we were still driving along the coast, when Ashland is inland. In the dark, we had gotten stuck on a coastal road many miles north of Ashland. We then preceded to be ridiculous and tried to go on a back road short cut to try and get back on course as fast as possible. Our gas started to run low around 2 in the morning and we were driving in the middle of nowhere. We stopped at a Ranger station for help, but no one was there. We then tried to use their gas pumps but they were locked. Thankfully, we weren't very many miles off the original main road, so we turned back around and prayed that we atleast made it back to the main road before our gas ran out. Miraculously, our gas supply made it back, but it was quite a while before we were able to finally find an open gas station since everything in Oregon is self serve. Man were we relieved when we saw that friendly gas station attendent. Well, we then preceded the ridiculously long trek back south to Ashland. If we hadn't gotten off track, we would have reached Ashland around 2 in morning. With all our complications, we didn't get back until 8:30 in the morning. At least it makes for an interesting end to our story.
Sorry for the length, but that trip deserved at least that much space on lj by virtue of its sheer radness.