Blog posts from our first extended cross-country road trip – June 2013
Link to Oregon Facebook Pictures When I woke up, Molly had already been up for awhile and gotten some things done. She made Ramen noodles and coffee on the propane stove, took a “shower” using the solar shower, and was just hanging out by the river. I got out of the tent, took a shower myself, got in the car, and started heading up the 101. There was another scenic byway that went through the Redwood National Forest, which we …
Link to Avenue of the GIants / Klamath Facebook Pictures So we have experienced the fourth of July on the road! To start the day, we continued driving up the coast. We made our way to a small town to get gas (can’t remember the name of it) and there was an actual brush fire going on below a bridge. There were a ton of firetrucks, and even a helicopter carrying water to dump on the fire. Naturally, we pulled…
Link to San Francisco / Muir Woods Facebook Pictures We woke up today and drove out to San Francisco. When we caught our first glimpse of the Golden Gate bridge, the fog was almost too thick to see it. We parked at a small “overlook” but could only see a piece of red through the fog. It wasn’t even worth taking a picture! We drove across it, and from the other side we had a much better view. This time,…
Link to Up the Coast Facebook Pictures After a terrible night’s sleep, we continued driving up the coast. We were all disorganized after having spent most of the prior week indoors – our cooler was out of ice, we didn’t have any lunch meat / sandwich supplies, our car was all types of disorganized. In short, we weren’t comfortable. We were both cranky, and Molly mentioned being homesick. That was the first time that I started realizing that I might…
Link to Pasadena and Santa Barbara Facebook Pictures Today we woke up and planned on heading out around 10:30am. The parking sign on the street that I parked on said “2 hour parking from 9am-6pm”, so I figured 10:30 would give us a good window of time to move the car without getting a ticket. I was wrong. When I got to my car, there was a ticket underneath the windshield wiper. It said I was being ticketed for “Parking…
Link to Hollywood and Pasadena Facebook Pictures We woke up around 11 and headed out of San Diego. We bid farewell to Matt, and only ended up leaving one item at his apartment accidently (Molly’s orange towel). Oh well!! We started driving toward Molly’s friend Reera’s apartment – she lives in Pasadena. The GPS took us on I-5, but I quickly decided to try and find the 101. The 101 is more of a local, scenic byway which runs right…
Today we tried surfing. We woke up, hung out at the house for a bit, and then went to Pacific Beach to try surfing. It was about $21/ea for an hour of surfboard and wetsuit rentals. Not too bad. I thought an hour was going to be too short, but BOY was I wrong. We parked at the surf shop, walked down to the beach, and took a few pictures before we started surfing. Molly lost her glasses within the…
Link to San Diego Facebook Pictures Today was our first day in San Diego. Matt had to wake up early (around 5:30 or 6:00), but we slept in until 8:30ish. His dad is in town for a little while as well – they recently did a 100 mile hike in the John Muir wilderness. They summated 6 mountains in 7 days, the highest being about 14,000ft above sea level – the highest in the continental US (Mount Whitney). Molly and…
Today was our last day in Vegas. We had to be out of the room by 11am, so we slept in until about 9:30 and then took showers. We packed the car with all of our luggage, and then left the room keys in the hotel room. I will miss having a hotel room with A/C and a hot, untimed shower whenever I want it. It was a nice treat! We walked around Circus Circus for a bit, to get…
Link to Las Vegas #2 Facebook Pictures Today we went to explore the other side of Las Vegas – the opposite side of the Strip that we didn’t get to yesterday. We decided to buy a bus ticket, which is only $8 for a 24-hour pass. We got that about 1pm, which gave us until 1pm on Thursday to ride around on the buses. We immediately took the bus to the end of the Strip, and then started walking upwards. …