OK, OK, I know I’ve neglected the blog. That’s why it’s barely a blog, remember? Anyway, very blog-worthy, Meghan and I took off for two weeks at the end of August and beginning of September for a good old-fashioned road trip. We packed up my little old car with camping gear and hit the road on August 29th.
Day One: Drove to Florence, Oregon, and stayed at Honeyman State Park. Sand dunes on the coast.
Just a speck in the sand.
Eating in style the first night…basil burgers.
Day Two: Still at Honeyman. Kind of a cold place, as I guess was to be expected.
Brrrr…The coast in Florence, Oregon.
Day Three: We woke up at the crack of dawn and drove a hundred miles down the coast to Cape Blanco State Park and snagged a campsite for Labor Day weekend. It was our home for three days and turned out perfectly. We pretty much just relaxed the first day.
The gorgeous Cape Blanco, Oregon. Our home for Labor Day weekend.
We bought a cheap dish towel for drying dishes. Note how not only does it not absorb water, it vigorously repels it.
Putting the dish towel woes aside, we enjoyed the sunset over the Pacific from our campground.
Day Four: On our second day in Blanco we hit the beach!
Meghan contemplates the Pacific at Cape Blanco.
Day Five: Our history tour day. We checked out the lighthouse, toured an old Victorian homestead, and then hit the beach and saw some wayward gray whales that apparently forgot to migrate to the Arctic this summer.
The lighthouse at Cape Blanco, they even allow people to go to the top and look at the Fresnel Lens.
The luxurious waterfront estate we built. Note the lagoon in front and the moat surrounding the property. The boat house is under reconstruction after a catastrophic filling of the lagoon. Sadly, we built it a little too far from the water line and never got to experience the total destruction which occurred that night. Perfect sand castle sand, though!
Day Six: A day of road touring through Coastal Redwood country. We walked a lot of groves, we did. We ended the day on the California coast and had our only night of rain for the trip.
The aptly named Big Tree, a coastal redwood at Humboldt Redwoods State Park
Day Seven: We continued down the coast on the pulse-increasing Highway 1 to Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco.
The Pacific continued to impress along the California Coast
California State Highway 1, or, as we call it, the freakiest highway in the world. I’m happy to report the my brakes never gave out, plunging us into the ocean.
Coastal California meadows
Day Eight: Took a day trip from our campground to the Marin Headlands and then into San Francisco.
The Golden Gate and San Francisco as seen from the Marin Headlands.
When in Rome…a lunch of crab and shrimp at Fisherman’s Wharf.
Day Nine: Day nine…hmmm, no pictures. We drove all morning from Point Reyes through the ungodly central California valley and then powered my car up into the mountains and Yosemite (with the heater blasting to keep the engine cool). We found an excellent campsite in Yosemite, away from the crowds and squarely in bear-country. I woke up that night to a nervous shaking Meghan and the sounds of a bear checking the locks on all the bear boxes.
Day Ten: We drove down into Yosemite Valley and went on an amazing hike. Yosemite has got to be one of the most gorgeous places on earth. Incredible.
A shot of Vernal Falls in Yosemite, a measly 317 ft drop.
From the top of Vernal Falls, looking down into that pool in the last picture.
At the top of our hike, on the bench above Nevada Falls.
Looking back at Nevada Falls, a 594 ft fall. At least the trail up the side of this one wasn’t quite as vertical as Vernal Falls. Liberty Cap rises to the left.
Day Eleven: Today we packed up our campsite for the drive through northern Yosemite across Tioga Pass. Granite and pine trees, pine trees and granite. But first a stop in one of the three groves of Giant Sequoias in Yosemite.
Little Meghan and a big Giant Sequoia.
More Meghan and more granite!
A rugged tree on Pothole Dome…which is made of more granite!
We had two of these bags of Tim’s Cascade potato chips. The other exploded on 10,000 ft Tioga Pass. Disappointing for a product with such an alpine name.
After screaming down the other side of the mountains and dropping about 3,000 feet in a like 6 miles, we found an excellent campground above Mono Lake and set up our tent on the banks of Lee Vining Creek.
OK, we thought it was a nice campground until we got attacked by deer. Note Meghan’s hunched, defensive shoulder as a deer eyes her burrito. The one in the foreground followed me to the car and then started snorting and hissing at me when I wouldn’t give up my burrito. Generally, I would guess that a deer would not enjoy a steak burrito, but these ones seemed a little more savage than your average ruminant.
Day Twelve: We explored the Mono Basin and ventured as far south as Mammoth while seeing the sites. We attempted to get to a place I’ve been before, the Obsidian Dome, where you get to feel like superman and lift boulders that look like they should be much heavier, but the dirt road and my car’s axles did not agree.
A good-lookin’ tensile fault near Mammoth.
We did not eat here. Don’t be disgusting.
Tufa in Mono Lake. Meghan and I went swimming nearby. Mono Lake is twice as salty as seawater, which makes for some excellent buoyancy. It also makes for some nasty feeling slippery water, abundant black flies along the shoreline, and millions of brine shrimp dying at the end of the summer. Oh, and stinging cuts. and really crusty hair once it dries. It called for a jump in Lee Vining Creek once we got back to camp. Brrrr.
Day Thirteen: Heading towards home.
We were supposed to drive a lot this day. Instead we drove 12 miles from Mono Lake and then got distracted for 3 hours by Bodie, an excellent ghost town. This as a (dilapidated) sawmill. The town is amazingly preserved and served as an excellent alternative to driving.
Day Fifteen: We drove from an excellent campground near Mt. Shasta back to Seattle. and then unpacked. and then showered. our bodies rejected all the soap and deodorant we applied and became somewhat itchy, but now we’re assimilated.
And now it’s over….sad:
On another sad note, the Mariners apparently only have won twice since we left. There went our playoff dreams (and our $40 playoff ticket deposit). Oh well, I knew all along a major correction to their record was inevitable, I was just hoping they could hold out for another month. Meghan and I will go to the game and cheer them on tonight, anyway.
September 14, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Well after much time spent googling “cold wet bycycle weekend verily but barely” i have to say….it was worth it. sounded like fun.