We woke up and went to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was beautiful, and kind of amazing that they could build a bridge over the "Golden Gate" since it's ridiculously deep and cold and the waters are fast.

We drove almost nine hours up the coast of California, and stopped rather briefly in Montecito for dinner. But then we got distracted by a beautiful beach-cliff thing. The funny thing about the above photo is that he doesn't know that he's standing on a big sand cave.

I walked over this. It was fun.

Right before we stopped for the night, there was a turnoff for the Chandelier Tree, which is unfortunately closed at night. But we got to see the road towards it! and also the sign with a painting of the tree!

Next morning, we ate breakfast at this inn where we were staying. I had pancakes.

We drove up the Avenue of the Giants.

It was rather exciting.

Made me feel short.

We drove all the way to Portland, getting there at 10:02, and went to sleep.

 For breakfast we got Voodoo Doughnuts because Uncle John and Aunt Crystal were kind enough to read our brains and get them for us. We had been going to go there anyways, and then they went there for us! Peanut-butter and Oreo, maple and smoked bacon, and the classic ginger-doughnut-man with red filling that you stick pretzels into. Get it? Like a voodoo doll?

 We played around the worldby Kellen's rules on their fancy Sportcourt, and then talked about Lord of the Rings while Kellen chucked flip-flops at us from the balcony.

 Then we got in the car and drove past Tacoma and into Seattle. We got stuck in some really bad traffic which you cannot see in the photo above, thank goodness.

 It was a really cool road that was all up on bridges.

 Parker and his daughter Sylvie took us to see the fish ladder, where there were some salmon going up the dam and into Lake Washington. Sadly, there were only like thirty. Parker said that there were many, many, many more in the a) middle of the day, and b) sometime closer to July fourth. Then we went to a delicious pizza place.

Road Trip 2013: Monterey, Monterey to San Francisco

The power cord for my dad's computer is broken. I really did try to post stuff, but alas.

Oh well.



We started out our day by going to Cannery Row for breakfast at this little Mexican deli place. 

Delicious hot chocolate. Although it was (as always) ridiculously hot when it arrived, and I had to wait like a HALF AN HOUR to drink it without burning my tongue off.

 Then we walked down and by the beach past this industrial wasteland kind of place, the old canning company.

 There were all these little shops.

 My dad would have bought this hand-made Turkish lamp, if it didn't cost six thousand dollars. Or something like that. Imagine my mom's face when he brought home a lamp and said, "Honey, we got you something!"
She would have been so THRILLED!!!













But we didn't. OR maybe we did. You'll just have to wait and see when we come home, mother dearest. (;

 Then we went to the aquarium. Which was big, and I wish we could have spent more time with the jellyfish, but my feet were killing me already at like noon, and our parking meter was about to run out. So we went back to this little place and got paninis within sight of where we were parked.

 There were starfish, and jellyfish, and these schools of minnows, and manta rays as big as I was, and sharks, and a sea turtle, and shrimp, and seahorses, and crabs, and sea bass four feet long. It was pretty cool.

We got into the car and drove to Carmel along the Seventeen Mile Drive which dad was really pumped about but was kind of just more beach views. We went to the Carmel mission, which really has some long Spanish name but I can't remember it.







It was gorgeous.

We ate dinner at this Mexican fast food place that wasn't Taco Bell, and there were lots of these evil-looking blackbirds around. They kept trying to steal our food.
Dad set out a plate for them, on the banister, and it fell. He did it again, and it fell again. So he put the plate on the ground and watched the evil birds fight over it. I told him that they were scary looking and next they would try to eat him like in that one Hitchcock movie, but he didn't believe me.

 We headed up to the Tickle Pink Inn, where they give you little chocolates just for coming and fold your toilet paper fancy.

We watched Skyfall and drank Martinelli's.

The view out the window was lovely. My dad spent about half an hour peering through the complimentary binoculars not at the dolphins and seals but into the richie-rich people's houses on the other side of the inlet.
I think that he wanted to watch a baseball game or something.

 Next day we woke up and went to the beach at Carmel. Sadly, it was freezing (you can't tell from the picture, but it was indeed) and you aren't supposed to actually swim in the water. Just look at it or something.
But there were really pretty sand dunes.








Then we started our drive up to San Francisco. It was long and very curvy.

 Once we arrived, we barely made it to Coit Tower before it closed, and then drove all the way up that street that you can see in the picture to a famous curvy road.

It was a rather ridiculous road.
Why would you build a road like that? It zig-zagged tightly between these people's backyards, and there were lots of German and Chinese people taking photos.









 We didn't get to see much of San Francisco, but what we did see was beautiful.

Road Trip 2013: San Simeon to Monterey

 START AT THE BOTTOM BECAUSE I'M TOO LAZY TO REARRANGE THE PHOTOS!

The Bixby Creek Bridge is a really high bridge that we went over. There is also a Death Cab for Cutie song about it (although they call it the Bixby Canyon Bridge in the song). The niceness of the day had passed by this point sadly, and fog was on top of us again. It seems to be following us.

We stopped at Nepenthe for dinner, which was a cool restaurant on the edge of the cliffs with yummy (if rather expensive) food and a very hip gift shop.
 

 Above: the Lagoon and the falls.

 We went on a beautiful short hike/walk at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to Pfeiffer Falls. The little lagoon (not above, that's the other side, although it's beautiful as well) looked like it belonged in Neverland.

 We made a stop on the side of the road so that I could climb some cool asphault stone rock things.

The Greek Pool at the Hearst Castle was my favorite part. It was so beautiful and I just wanted to go swimming in it.

 The view from the castle. There was a road that wound up the hill that was one of the most beautiful drives in a bus that I have ever driven.

So, we woke up and went to Hearst Castle. This was fascinating an beautiful (when I get old I'm going to have a house like this). It also has a fascinating history, which you should learn about if you have the chance. Anyways, we went on a tour of the castle which only showed us a small portion, but it's really enough for me at least. The grounds and pool(s) were the really spectacular part.

Road Trip 2013: Los Angeles to San Simeon

Saturday, July 13

 

We woke up and went to the farmer's market.

 

I got a pastry and a smoothie.

 

There were many stalls selling different kinds of food. Korean, American, Mexican, French, Caijan, and lots of sweets places with huge candy apples.

 

Dad and Dave Rennie got gumbo (for breakfast) and then we headed to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see the James Turell show there which we had tickets for.

 

There was a three-story escalator and perhaps the largest elevator that I have ever seen in my life. It was ridiculously huge.

 

We went upstairs and saw the other exhibits as well...

 

... and wandered through the giant Richard Serra sculpture on the first floor.

 

There was also this cool contraption (the noise gave you a headache) which had seemingly millions of cars racing down the tracks, with little toy trains weaving in and out of them. It looked like it belonged in a children's museum somewhere.

 

There was a line of food trucks across the street from the museum which we looked into, but since we had eaten breakfast at eleven o'clock, none of us were hungry. 

 

And Coke / Sangria doesn't count as hungry.

There is this amazing outdoor exhibit that's been outside of the LACMA for years which is a series of lampposts (like from Narnia but lots bigger) in a square... it's hard to describe. When my dad and I came down the the museum before, it was nighttime, and the lights were on. 

We drove through Hollywood on our way back. Above is the walk of stars.

There was something huge going on, and all these people were walking around with Star Wars costumes on and wandering through the middle of the street outside of that Chinese Theatre place. 

 

We set out for Santa Barbara and beyond.

The coast was foggy but beautiful. There were lots of surfers in the water.

There would be these dry-looking hills....

..interspersed with orange orchards. It made me want to eat oranges even though it isn't Christmastime.

 

 There were all these oil rigs off of the coast, in the shadows they only look like faint shadows, maybe some kind of transformer monster lurking in the fog, but in real life they were much more starkly visible.

 Okay. Lame thing of the trip. Psych is NOT actually filmed in Santa Barbara. It's filmed in Vancouver, Canada. So, for all of you Psych-freaks, here's the real SBPD.

The upside of this stop was that the city of Santa Barbara is amazingly beautiful. I think that I might want to move there.

We kept driving, out of Santa Barbara and north again.

There's this tourist-destination place Solvang which is supposed to be like a whole town built in traditional Danish style.

It was kind of lame. Dad thought it was fascinating; but we both agreed that it was like a full-scale and completely operating Fantasyland (like from Disneyland), even if it did have good Danishes.

We kept driving again.

Norther and norther until we saw the turning for the Madonna Inn.

If you haven't heard of it, it's pretty cool actually. A huge, kitchy, unique hotel just to the south of San Luis Obispo. Every room is different, over-the-top, and very cool. Dad described it as "Elvis". There are photos of every single room online, if you are interested. It was surprisingly an interesting stop. I wish that we could have stayed there, but I'm not sure that I ever would have been able to fall asleep in one of the extreme rooms with their one-of-a-kind electric pink rose-patterned carpet. And matching bedspread and chairs. We got postcards from the gift shop.

I would tell you about the hotel that we are staying at, but it's a Motel 6, and no where near as fascinating as the Madonna Inn. The pool closed too early, though.

Definitely a good day.