Allen and Linda's Tour of the West Coast

Californi-aaaaaahhhh!

Greetings from Malibu, CA! My last blog had us leaving Seattle and heading to Oregon to go to Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. We had planned on driving to Crater Lake taking the interstate straight south making a pit stop in Albany, OR for the night. While heading south, I did some quick math (a HUGE feat for me and my non-numerical brain) and figured that if we headed back through Central Oregon where our family was, it was only a 10 mile difference so that’s what we decided to do. We figured we’d surprise them and just show up for dinner but around Boring, OR (yes, the town is called Boring…what does that tell ya?!) I remembered that Allen’s Aunt Dana was down from Alaska somewhere in the area so he called her from the road and found out that we were only 36 miles from her so we turned around and met up with her. She’s a true character and a real sweetheart and I’m glad we got to see her. We spent the night parked outside her dad’s house in Hillsboro, OR and the next afternoon, headed down to Aunt Colleen’s. We were all supposed to go to Crater Lake together on Saturday but schedule conflicts were making the plan a little difficult. Earlier in the day while IM’ing with Aunt Colleen, she informed me of the planning issues so instead of surprising them, I simply said, how about we just come over tonight for dinner so no one has to worry about getting together on Saturday? She replied with “Are you SERIOUS?” which was funny because she had no idea that we were only 150 miles from her house and headed that way. As always, Aunt Colleen treated us like gold and cooked up a great dinner. The whole family came by as well and we had another great night with the cousins.

The next day, Shawn, Seth, Allen and I set out to find this underground cave called “Skylight Cave” which had two spots where the rocks had caved in and opened up to big hole’s into the ground above where light shone down into the cave. It was a beautiful sight and we had fun “caving” for a little while. After that, we headed a natural spring that formed a river a few miles away (I wish I could remember the name?!) and took some great photos.

That night, it was off to our favorite bar in Bend, OR called McMenamin’s. Shawn, Mindy, Seth, Allen and I headed out and had dinner there as well as some good margaritas which they are known for. I also had their famous microbrewed Ruby Red beer and Terminator Stout mix drink called a “Rubinator”. Mindy works at the local La Quinta so she got a room so no one would have to drive home. After McMenamin’s, we headed to the South Side Pub (complete with NY Yankee and Giants parphenalia all over the walls…NICE) which was in the parking lot of the La Quinta to finish out the night. After some pool and Allen losing at Video Poker, we headed to the pool and hot tub at the La Quinta for some late night swimming and soaking. We stayed up way too late but had a great time as always.

The next morning, we met up with Aunt Colleen, Joe, Lindsay and Jeaneva to say goodbye before dropping off Shawn, Mindy and Seth. It was on to Crater Lake!

Crater Lake is in the middle of the mountains that was formed by a volcanic eruption that collapsed and formed this gorgeous lake. We headed up to the top and got some great pictures. There’s a cool video on picasa (along with every other picture from this trip) that I took of it being sunny outside but with one cloud over the lake that was actually snowing. There was also still tons of snow on the ground and after taking some pics, Allen blew up the inner tube he bought for just such an occasion so we could go tubing. Photos of that can be found on picasa as well. It was tons of fun!

After Crater Lake it was on to California! Being that it was Saturday, Allen made some real progress driving and got way into California by Saturday night. We stopped over somewhere south of Redding and continued on the next morning straight to Napa Valley. Napa is as beautiful as you would expect with rolling green hills and vineyards everywhere. We headed to the Napa Valley Visitors Center to get some info on which vineyard to tour but because it was Easter, they were closed but were nice enough to leave printed info on all vineyards that WERE open. We chose to go to the Domaine Carneros winery and it was AWESOME! The building that housed the winery was modeled after a French castle in Champagne and it was stunning. We did the Sparkling Wine tour and got to sample great wine while learning how it was made.

From there, we headed to San Francisco which is quickly becoming my favorite city…next to NY of course. What a BEAUTIFUL place! Having a city surrounded by mountains and the bay is awesome. We drove through the VERY hilly streets of San Francisco and headed over to the Fisherman’s Wharf and Embarcadero where you get great views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. We went roller blading along the bay and walked through this pretty park for the afternoon. Being that it wasn’t too practical to find an RV park in San Fran because all were too far from the city and with no way of getting there during the day while Allen worked, we said goodbye to the city by the bay and drove on. We wound up in Monterey and that’s where we called it a night.

We were stationed across the street from Marina beach so while Allen worked, I walked along the beach. It was still pretty chilly (only about 58 degrees) and VERY windy but it was still nice and the beach was at the inlet of Monterey Bay so you could see the land curve out into the water. From there, we continued on to Big Sur taking the Pacific Coast highway which is probably my favorite road of the trip so far. The views are simply breathtaking and we stopped to take a ton of photos along the way. We came to Big Sur because of the hot springs I heard about at the Esalen Institute. Apparently, they are these natural mineral springs that empty into these baths carved into the cliffs that overhang the Pacific Ocean. The crazy thing is, they are by appointment only and are ONLY open from 1-3 AM! Of course, we had to see what this was all about so I made a reservation and Allen and I hit the sack around 8 pm to sleep for a few hours before waking up at midnight to drive to Esalen. We drove VERY carefully along the curve PCH and found Esalen with no problem. Once we got there, we waited for the guard to let us in and give us the rules of the hot spring. (A little background for ya: Esalen was very popular in the 60’s and 70’s as a holistic/self improvement “retreat” where people go to find themselves and learn about different energies and whatnot. Today, not much has changed. For a small fee about at $1500, you too can attend a workshop to find your “center”. The place was pretty trippy and felt like something out of a movie. The “residents” slept in these rustic cabins in the California redwoods and we had to be very quiet so as not to disturb them. My take on the place: it felt like a glorified insane asylum where people who’ve lost their minds go to get them back…but that’s just me!)

Once our guide showed us to the baths, we began our VERY early morning soak. It was surreal! Here you are in the middle of the night soaking in these super hot mineral baths overlooking the Pacific with waves crashing under you. There were also some baths inside this spa-like room also overlooking the ocean. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience that we are so glad we took advantage of.

We got back to the Fernwood campground around 3:30 am so Allen could get in a little more sleep before waking up at 5:30 am to do his job! I got to sleep until 9 so I was happy as well.

Once Allen finished working on Monday, we continued on the PCH making our way to LA for the end of our trip. We stopped at the Hearst Castle visit center in San Simeon then continued on to Santa Barbara where we stopped for the night.

It was a pretty town so I did some walking and made my way to the mall for a little while. Then, I got a pedicure and by the time I was done, it was time to make the last leg of our trip into the L.A area.

Currently, we are at the BEST RV park of the entire trip...Malibu Beach, CA! The park is situated in the mountains on the Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the Pacific. I can actually hear the waves loud and clear as I type this. We're literally ocean front and it's awesome!

Tomorrow, we've rented a car so I can go visit with some friends before leaving from LAX on Friday. I will blog one final time for this trip tomorrow evening...I can't believe we're down to two days

Stay tuned for the final installment…

Man how time flies! I can't believe our trip is almost over. We left off in Oregon last Thursday which was supposed to be our last day there. Aunt Colleen didn't want us to leave nor did we really want to so by the time Allen got done working late Thursday afternoon, we convinced him to stay one more night so we could all go out to dinner. Naturally, he agreed because we simply love Oregon and our family there. We all went out to dinner at the Terrebonne Depot which was an old train station depot turned into a restaurant. It was really cute and it had a lot of history so we had a nice night.

We then left on Friday and began making our way to Seattle, WA. Since Allen didn't have to work on Saturday, he drove all the way from Central Oregon to Olympia, WA which was some pretty good progress. Along the way, we stopped at our favorite restaurant in Oregon called the Rendezvous which is by Mt. Hood. Later, we stopped for the night at a campground in Olympia and got up early Saturday morning to finish the trek to Seattle.

We drove straight into the city arriving around 10 am. Our first stop was the famous Seattle Space Needle, a predominant fixture of the Seattle skyline. It's 520 feet tall and you can take an elevator to the top to get panoramic views of the city, Puget Sound and the Cascade mountains. On a clear day, you can also see Mt. Ranier.

After the Space Needle, we headed over to the EMP (Electronic Music Project) museum and had a blast. It was a museum on the history of music of all types. They had the evolution of guitars and bass guitars, music memorbilia from the Seattle grunge movement of the early 90's and lots of other great exhibits. After EMP, we went back to RV to have lunch and a nap.

Around 3pm, we headed over to the SFM (Science Fiction Museum) which is attached to the EMP and each ticket gets you into both museums so we went. Needless to say, being that I HATE sci-fi, I was pretty sure I was going to hate the SFM. It wasn't SO bad and if you like sci-fi, this is your mecca. As for me, I would much rather go to EMP twice than to SFM but that'd besides the point.

After visiting the city, we headed out to Renton, WA a suburn where our friends Matt and Stephanie live. We met Matt and Steph on our honeymoon last year and have stayed in touch via e-mail. They told us if we were ever in Seattle, we were more than welcome to come stay with them. Little did they know we would actually DO it!

After arriving in Renton, we went to the Acme Bowl entertainment complex to play some pool, have some food and drinks and then do some bowling. As usual, I stunk but surprisingly, I actually managed to bowl a 104 thereby beating everyone else. That was a first for me and beating Allen was even sweeter.

Once we were done bowling, we went to the movies to see Blades of Glory which was hilarious. If you like Will Ferrell, go see this.

Sunday morning, we woke up and headed back into downtown Seattle to go to the famous Pike's Place Market where they throw the fish. Unfortunately, the fish throwing was over so we just did some shopping and bought various fruits, vegetables and lots of halibut to make for dinner. We went to breakfast at The Crumpet Shop and had tea and crumpets while sitting out on the city street. It was a great day.

That evening, our friend Matt, who is a Seattle police officer, had to work and invited Allen to do a "ride along" with him. Allen happily accepted and proceeded to work Matt's 7-4 am shift with him. The next morning when he came home, he excitedly announced "Honey, I saw my first crack head!" It was a proud moment. He said he had a great time and learned a lot. Matt was a great teacher and proceeded to explain everything to him as they went along and Allen found it very interesting. He now has a whole new respect for police officers and what they have to go through.

Stephanie and I stayed in and cooked dinner. I made halibut wrapped in bacon with asapargus. It turned out really well for my first time and Steph who doesn't normally like fish enjoyed it so I'd say it was a success. We had a great dinner and WAY too much wine which left me feeling pretty sick the entire next day up until around 7 pm. I spent most of the day eating soup and laying down while Allen worked. Later on, I went inside and took a shower and finally began to feel human again. Allen cooked us a great meal of beer battered halibut and I made a tomato and mozzerella salad and some more asapargus (can you tell what we bought at the market?!). For dessert, Allen made some great bananas foster so it was another nice night.

Yesterday, we met up with Allen's friends Carrie and Mandy from high school and Mandy's son Ryan who's 5 and adorable. We went to the Washington Park arboretum and then the Japanese Garden. It was a beautiful and uncharacteristically sunny afternoon and we had a great time being outdoors. After that, we headed over to Carrie's house to pick up her husband Brian and then made our way to Kirkland, WA for dinner. We called Matt and Steph and invited them to meet us which they did. Mandy and her husband Jeff and another HS friend of Allen's, Melissa and her husband John, joined us as well for dinner at the Wilde Rover Irish Pub. It was a nice place with good food and a good atmosphere. It was really great for Allen to catch up with his old firiends and nice for me to get to meet them as well.

Today is our last day in Renton. As soon as my laundry is done, we'll be heading out and making our way to Crater Lake, OR where our Oregon family will meet up with us on Saturday to spend the day. That's all for now. Sadly, we're in the final stretch of our trip.

More to come...

Ever since we left Buckeye and the Sirulnik B&B I've been meaning to post this entry. After being here in Oregon and seeing the extreme talent of Seth Reed on guitar and vocals, it prompted me to give a shout out to Liana and Alex for their original song Majie and the Mouse.

Lilo surprised me with her guitar talent (we already knew she had the most amazing singing voice) and after Alex told me about the new hit single Majie and the Mouse, that they co-wrote, I was determined to hear it for myself.

After much begging on mine and Allen's part, Lilo finally played the song for us before we left there. You see, the way Alex and Liana described the song to us, it was a joke. "Majie", is their cat Major and "the mouse" is about his toy mouse. Naturally, a song about their cat seemed like a joke right?! Well, that's what we thought until Liana performed it for us. The song was SO great and with her beautiful singing voice, it was the sweetest song ever.

Since hearing it, every so often, while either cooking dinner or hiking, etc. a few lines from Majie and the Mouse pop into my head.

Just thought I'd share...

Margaritas and darts...fun party game or lethal combination? The answer is...fun party game! Well, when they're plastic dart heads anyway.

Monday night, everyone was kind of busy so Allen, Aunt Colleen, Uncle Dennis, Jeaneva and I had some pizza, hung out and looked at some pictures from our various travels. It was a nice, relaxing night. The next day, Allen took off so we headed over to Seth's house, picked up lunch and then re-routed to Shawn's. Mindy, Shawn's wife, was working but was good enough to pick up some supplies on her way home so Shawn could make his famous margarita's for everyone. (NOTE: Shawn used to be a bartender and has mastered the art of margarita's!) Mindy came home, Shawn started blending and we all started playing darts. It was a great afternoon spent with our cousins. After that, we all going to Aunt Colleen's for a bbq so we headed over around 7 and Allen grilled some steaks and chicken that Aunt Colleen and cousin Joe spent all morning marinating.

During dinner (Mindy-this one's for you), we had a highly intellectual conversation about the serious art and skill of making the perfect Kraft macaroni and cheese. Yes, according to Allen and Joe, there is a right and a wrong way to the order and mixing process of the highly complex ingredients of milk, butter and powered cheese! Mindy and I agreed that the boys were somewhat delusional and that velveeta shells and cheese was better anyway...you know, for those days you feel like eating like you are still in college!

After dinner, we were treated to some music from the Reed/Senko brothers band. With the extremely talented Seth Reed on guitar and Joe and Shawn on back up vocals, we had a blast sitting around Aunt Colleen's living room singing along. (Video and pics have been added to picasa already) After we were all sung out, we headed back a local bar to play some pool and have a few drinks before retreating to Shawn and Mindy's for some poker...well actually, Mindy and I went to bed and the boys stayed up playing.

It was extremely cold that night and when I retreated to the RV to hit the sack around 1:30 am, it was nice and toasty. I then woke up around 4:30 am because it felt a little "chilly". I also realized that Allen was still inside the house so I got out of bed and checked the thermostat. The outside temperature read 22 degrees while inside was a whopping 43 degrees...I was in shock! Somehow, the heat had stopped working and it was COLD! I went inside the house to find Allen passed out in the recliner so I woke him up to come outside and figure out the heat issue. It turns out, we had run out of propane and at 4:30 in the morning, there was not much we could do about it. Allen turned the car on for a little while to heat it up which worked and around 9 the next day, we headed right for the gas station to refill our propane.

When we got back to Shawn and Mindy's we tried to figure out a plan for lunch and the day so after picking up food, we decided to go hiking (poor Mindy had to work and couldn't join us). We made one stop and hiked along the river and then headed off to the trails behind Crooked River Ranch where Aunt Colleen lives. Seth, Shawn, Allen and I hiked for about 5 hours up and down the Descutes river FINALLY finding Steelhead Falls which was pretty impressive. After a long day of hiking, we picked up some dinner, ate at Shawn's house, took Seth home and headed back to Aunt Colleen's for the night where we could plug in and use electric heat again.

Today, Allen is working and once he's finished, we'll sadly leave our wonderful family in Oregon and head to Seattle to see a bunch of friends.

Next stop...Washington State!

Greetings from Central Oregon!

Day Twenty One Con't

When you last saw us, we were in Park City, UT about to snowboard. We got out all our gear, I got up as many nerves as I could to attempt careening down a mountain with both feet attached to a board and we headed to The Canyons Resort to snowboard. Upon arriving there, to our (and by our I mean mainly Allen's) disappointment, the snow on the mountain was pretty much slush and what WAS there was man made. Being from the Northeast, I'm used to man made snow so to me it was the norm. To Allen who has only skied on what I've heard of as the infamous "powder" (which is supposed to be way better conditions than east coast skiing), these conditions were unacceptable. He did not want me to have my first attempt at snowboarding be in bad conditions because #1-I most likely wouldn't like it and #2-The icy slush would hurt a lot more when I inevitably fell than the powder would so we opt'd against the snowboarding in Park City. I was just as nervous as I was excited to learn the sport so I wasn't terribly disappointed by this but poor Allen was. I then said that maybe there would be better snow up north where it was colder so maybe we could board in Washington State when we got there. Instead of snowboarding, we went to lunch and later on hit the notorious Main Street in Park City which was really cool and filled with great restaurants and art galleries. We had a nice night just walking down the street in this quaint snow town.

Day Twenty Two

The next morning, we got up and proceeded to start our northwesterly journey heading to Oregon to see our family on Allen's side. Being that it was a weekend, we could drive further than during the week when we can't get started until Allen finishes work around 4 pm west coast time. We were originally scheduled to drive to Idaho, stop over and then continue on into Oregon on Sunday, stopping again before finally reaching our family on Monday. Once we got going, we drove through Salt Lake City, saw the mormon temple and continued north. We made really good progress so after stopping for gas and then later for lunch and dinner, Allen had no problem pressing on. We wound up just driving through Idaho (Nyse, Franch and Lilo-yes, we did go through Boy-see) we made it to Oregon and stopped for the night in Unity, OR which was kind of a scary little place. I'm sure there's no crime because the town was probably population 10 but it was a really, tiny depressed and old looking town. Clearly, we didn't spend any more than the night there and when we woke up around 7:15 the next morning, we high tailed it outta there.

Day Twenty Three

Since we made it so far on Saturday night, we wound up only being about 150 miles from our family so we just headed straight here to the Terrebonne/Redmond/Bend area. On the way, we hit some snow for the first time and with this, Allen began to get very excited. By the time we were 20 miles out and started seeing the beautiful mountains in the area that we recognized as the famous (well famous here anyway) 3 Sisters covered in snow, Allen said, let's go snowboarding here! I looked at at the map and saw that the Mt. Bachelor Ski area was about 30 miles from where we were at so instead of heading straight for Aunt Colleen's, we re-routed to Mt. Bachelor which had just gotten 5 inches of fresh "powder" the night before. Allen looked like a little boy on Christmas morning as we drove up and the snow on the ground started getting deeper and deeper. By the time we hit Mt. Bachelor, he was simply giddy with excitement and pulled his snowpants and gear on faster than I've ever seen him doing anything. I was glad he was going to be able to snowboard and being the trooper that I am, geared up too and got ready for my first lesson. Unfortunately, by the time we hit the slope it was about 1 pm and we only had our rental equipment until 4 (which is when the ski shop closed) so we didn't have as much time as we would have liked/needed but it was great none the less. Allen was a great teacher and extremely patient with me which helped. Snowboarding was fun yet challenging and with time, I could get good but living in a warm climate doesn't offer me the time I need to hit the slopes enough. After spending two hours trying to teach me, I realized that it was almost 3:30 and poor Allen didn't have enough time to REALLY snowboard so I called it a day for me and told him to go and have fun on the REAL trails so he could enjoy himself. Unfortunately, this meant he only got two real runs in but at least he got to do it. Right from there, we headed over to cousin Seth's house for a little while before coming over to Aunt Colleen's for a much needed shower (it was really hot on that mountain believe it or not). We got ready and then went to dinner at Ranchero Mexican with cousin Joe, his girlfriend Lindsay and cousin Seth. It was a great time as always with them so we'll probably extend our Oregon stay here for longer than our usual two day stint in each location.

Day Twenty Four
Today, we're just relaxing (well at least I am while Allen works) and spending some quality time with Aunt Colleen and little cousin Jeaneva. Allen took off work Tues and Wed too so Seth, Joe, Allen and I might go tubing tomorrow back at Mt. Bachelor which looks really fun. Welll, that's all for now. I'm sure we'll have a lot of good stories from Oregon.

More to come...