I'm sorry we haven't been blogging too much recently. You see, we have been very busy exploring the world! (And Sean is often very distracted by singing Lady Gaga these days.)
This morning we drove/walked around Monterey and Pacific Grove, two towns that are bordered by the Monterey Bay to the north and the Spanish Bay to the west (although we pretty much think of it all as the Pacific!) Cannery Row, an area of touristy shops, hotels, art galleries, and smelly sardine canneries, was a fun walk. It used to be called Ocean View Avenue, but they changed the name after Steinbeck made the area famous with his 1945 novel Cannery Row.
We also took a scenic driving tour of Pebble Beach, a pretentious private beach area where rich people live and, as far as I can tell, play golf all day. We saw lots of birds, otters, seals, and sea lions. One huge rock we passed was covered with hundreds of birds and probably about 200 sea lions/seals. It was very cool, especially since we couldn't see all of the poop from out vantage point!
After this we made a loop through Carmel, where Clint Eastwood used to be mayor. We picked up some real-estate papers for a cute multi-million dollar cottage overlooking the Pacific. When I started to get serious about staying in one of the bed-and-breakfasts, Sean immediately sped up because I'm pretty sure a night in one is probably roughly a million bucks too.
We are currently setting up camp (Sean is setting up while I blog) along the Big Sur coast, which has been called "The greatest meeting of land and sea." The drive to our state park was amazing, and our campsite is a cute little alcove in the woods with a huge fallen tree in the center. I think we are having ham again tonight because that's what happens when you buy a huge hunk of ham and only have two people to feed.
We had a great time in San Fran. Thanks to Mr. Sean and Meggan's hospitality we enjoyed dinner and a hotel room right in the middle of the city bustle! I directed Sean on a driving tour up and down the crazy steep roads of Nob Hill, and we made our way down Lombard Rd, also known as the "crookedest street." Other than that our visit was filled with lots of wandering along the bay, watching sea lions, dodging high homeless guys, and trying to figure out if certain outfits were Halloween costumes or just typical west-coast fashion.
We did a lot of wandering around the Redwoods on our first few days in Cali. Those are some BIG trees!! I already posted some pictures of our treks through the old-growth areas, but if you have not been to the Redwoods yourselves I suggest you make that a priority for your week!
Instead of taking 101 all the way down cali, we opted to drive scenic Rt 1. Warning: those wishing to actually observe anything scenic while driving on this road should plan to travel with a driver-buddy and sit in the passenger seat. The driver will be way too occupied with staying on the road/not driving off cliffs into the Pacific to really take it all in. Still, definitely worth the extra time it took!
Crater Lake in Oregon is a gorgeous geologic wonder. The crater was created when Mt. Mazama collapse in on itself during an enormous eruption. Over the years, the remaining 6-mile crater was filled entirely by rain and snow (there are no springs running into or out of the crater). The result is one of the cleanest large bodies of water in the world. The water appears crystal clear and a beautiful shade of light blue around the shore, but it is deep blue in the center where it reaches depths of over 1,900 feet. Luckily we did not encounter any snow on our trip to the lake; I'm not confident the Santa Fe would have weathered the steep mountain hills very well in that condition!
The night before we got to Crater Lake we camped in Collier Memorial State Park, and the temperature got down to about 14 degrees. Let me tell you, that is a cold night in a tent! Everyone else had RVs and campers (as is the norm in the northern part of the country around this time), and they came around to our site to wish us luck and tell us they hoped we didn't freeze to death. I wore so many clothes to bed that I felt like an obese person and couldn't even roll over.
Well, in reverse chronological order, there is a summary of our last week!
We still haven't uploaded any more pics from our cameras, but I always try to take some pictures on my phone to include here. Unfortunately, they don't like to upload from my phone to the blog in an orderly fashion, so you will have to interpret them for yourselves (or ask us questions about them and we will further explain!)
Love you all!
