Heading East and Back into the Desert

Greetings! Just a quick post as we finally turn direction and head east toward AZ/TX. Spent our last night in the San Diego area last night (La Mesa/ El Cajon) and are heading east on Route 8 in Southern California to finish up the state. I am typing this from El Centro, CA and we expect to hit the Arizona border this afternoon.  It is strange to be back along the Mexican border - although a part of it we have never traveled before. Our surroundings have turned arid, rocky, and brown - with a notable absence of the color green except for on the sides of the Border Patrol vehicles!

We were shocked at how quickly we felt like we were in the desert again and how little time it took for the thermometer to register 90, then 95, then approaching 100.  I did note with pleasure that our destination for the weekend in Marfa, TX is only supposed to be in the mid 70's or around 80 degrees, with cooler nights. That's good, as we will be camping out in the desert during the Trans Pecos Music Festival from Thursday through Sunday morning.  Then we have a camping spot reserved for two nights in the Panther Junction residential housing area near our old friend Ranger Rob's home in Big Bend National Park. We will be celebrating Andre's 51st birthday with them on Monday night at our old haunt, The Starlight Theatre in Terlingua, TX. It was a no-brainer. After all, everybody who read our blog last summer knows that Monday night is burger night at the Starlight....

For now I'll say goodbye...

Goodbye Beautiful Pacific Coast

 

 

Goodbye California Highways

Goodbye Pacific Coast Seals & Sea Lions (WA, OR & California)

Goodbye West Coast Breweries...

And Cheers until the next destination......

Avenue of the Giants

It seems we have been seeing giant trees ever since we hit the west coast.  We saw Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park in California. These were in select groves of old growth forest with just a few very large trees, some named.  We saw more giant trees in Olympic National Park (Redwoods, I think), and they were just as stunning. Then, in the last few days as we crossed into California along route 101 (and route 1 in places), we hit Redwood National and State Parks and hit the jackpot of giant trees.

 Although we did stop in at one of the National Park Visitor Centers, we would not have had to enter either of the parks to see the beautiful and bountiful redwood forests that dot the northern California coastline. We drove through grove after grove of the amazing straight, tall, proud trees just along the roadside.  I hope you enjoy these photos from the famed "Avenue of the Giants".

 

Looking up into the majesty

 

A rather large stump!

 

 

View from the front seat

 

A week in the life

Acknowledging that Andre and my postings have bounced around a bit in the past week, I thought I would take the time to fill in some blanks about where exactly we are and the geography of our travels over the past 7 days.  Tonight, we are in a hotel room in Eugene, Oregon. By tomorrow we expect to cross into California once more and begin heading south in earnest.  Now that football season is in full swing, we have developed a pattern of timing our hotel stays for Sunday nights so we can enjoy the games all day Sunday and Sunday evening.

On that note, it has been quite an adjustment getting used to being on the west coast (Pacific time) for football games. The first games are on at 10AM, which is usually the New England Patriots time slot, so it has been an adventure finding sports bars that are open at that time to watch the game. Last week, when we were in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula no such place existed, so we listened to the game on-line via satellite radio.  This week, although we were slated to be in a small town on the Oregon coast today, we detoured an hour and a half inland to put ourselves in a city big enough to have sports bars that would have  NFL Sunday ticket and be open early for the early football games. We enjoyed watching the Pats game in Wetlands Brew Pub and Sports Bar - although it was weird sitting down in a bar at 9:30 Am.  It was likely the first time we were ever in a brewpub and Andre didn't have a beer! It was just too early. We enjoyed the game and then checked into our hotel in the early afternoon.

When we are traveling, our hotel nights usually serve multiple purposes. It gives us a chance to clean out the van, to do laundry, to fully charge all of our electronics, catch up on e-mail, pay bills on line and any other necessary business/finance stuff. We usually take the opportunity to re-freeze all of our ice packs and clean out the Yeti cooler, dry out anything that might be wet, and also make any necessary small interior or exterior van or equipment repairs that have crept up during the week. Of course we also take long enjoyable showers and to indulge in some cable television while we are at it!  Last Sunday we performed this ritual in Port Angeles, Washington. Here are some photos of the what happened over the course of the week in between...

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK

 (BOTH THE COASTAL PARTS AND THE RAIN FOREST)

 

An Elk in the HOH Rain forest

ÏI

Coast Guard Lighthouse near Lewis & Clark State Park

 

 THE SEASIDE TOWN OF ASTORIA, OREGON

AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER

 

Hundreds of Sea Lions pause for a rest in Astoria on their way to the
 Sea Lion Caves further south along the Oregon coast

 

Not an inch of space to spare on these docks!

 

THEN IT WAS A VISIT TO PORTLAND OREGON BREWERIES -

OUR FIRST STOP WAS AT THE HAIR OF THE DOG BREWERY

 

GOING

 

GOING

GONE!

 THEN DRIVING ON THOUGH BEAUTIFUL COASTAL OREGON

 

 

 

NOT A BAD SEVEN DAYS......

Into the Twilight - Forks, Washington

Anyone who has seen the movie series or read the TWILIGHT books by Stephenie Meyers knows that the teenage heroine Bella and all of her various Vampire & shape-shifter-wolf friends went to Forks High School and the story takes place in the quiet, rainy, remote, slightly eerie town of Forks, Washington. Well the town really exists and we drove through it today.

Located on the far western side of the Olympic Peninsula close to the nearby Quileute Indian Reservation, the town boasts roughly 3100 residents - although I'm not sure if that includes vampires or just all the regular people.  Anyway, although the movies were not actually filmed in Forks, the town none-the-less has still drawn over 200,000 visitors since the publication of the Twilight books and release of the films.

Despite our best effort to turn over every stone and look in every coffin, we did not turn up any vampires during our short visit, but did get a pretty good coffee for just .75 cents at the gas station and ate lunch at the SUBWAY where they actually still had a $5.00 foot-long sub that was pretty tasty (not sure why Stephenie left that out of her books)...  Anyway, here are some photos for all you Twilight fans out there.

There was one other funny thing we saw, but I didn't get a photo of it. One of the hotels had a sign that said "Edward Cullen did NOT sleep here".  If you've read the books, you'll get it (If not, you'll probably have ignored this entire entry anyway).  Cheers!

At the end of the world – or at least country! (Andre)

This will require some additional work besides just reading, but I hope you may find it worth it. ‘Google Map’ (or whatever map program you like) Cape Flattery, Washington State. Then look at the pictures below. This is where Laura and I watched the sunset last night. Enjoy, we did!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few photos from Seattle

Just a quick post of a few photos before we take off for the day heading into Olympic National Park today. Spent two days in Seattle enjoying some city life then headed for the Olympic Peninsula and a few days at a hotel to clean up, watch football and make plans for the next leg of the trip. We spent the last day and a half at a hotel in Port Angeles, WA which is directly across from Victoria Island, British Columbia. This is where you catch the ferry to BC, and we have been watching cars and RV's pour on and off ferries for the last two days.  That said, this is still a very small town and has a very remote feel to it.

Being here feels very very far from our home state of Rhode Island! It is about as far west and north as you can get in the continental U.S.  Later today we may actually drive to the furthest point, Cape Flattery, which is literally at the Northwestern edge of the United States. For now, here are some photos from our time in Seattle.

Started with a tour of Pike Brewing Co.

It was really funny being downtown in Seattle during the
 World Champion Seahawks opening home game!

An interesting sentiment...

The famous fish markets at Seattle's Pike Market

The space needle (hidden behind lots of buildings!)

If you look closely at this photo you can see the snow-capped
 Mount Rainier in the distance. Really cool view.