4 days on one Highway

Wow what a week, so Joe and I had a great time traveling down the coast and doing the whole roadtrip thing for the past 5 days. Personally my highlight was being able to see Kyle hard at work, but there was lots of other stuff that went on. I don't have a whole lot of time, but you can look at my facebook photo albumns to get a feel for what went on the whole trip.

Here's a real quick review of what we did:

Monday night we started with a trip to downtown Seattle and the space needle, explored downtown and caught up. I got pulled over for making a MI left turn but no ticket (first time I’d been pulled over in almost 3 years if I remember right)

Tuesday we rode the train to see mom and dad and Kandace and Kyle and went out to dinner with them and caught up. The train ride was beautiful and seeing the family was great too.

Wednesday Dad hooked us up with a great car rental and we started our drive down the coast. We stopped at Cape Meares and Cape Lookout and a couple of other places along the way. We ate shark and fish in Pacific City and then camped south of Waldport on the beach.

Thursday we drove further down the coast, stayed on the highway 101 most of the way, we stopped at a few places to get souvenirs and fresh jelly and stuff. then we made it into CA and tried to keep close to the coast. We drove through the redwood national parks and saw Paul Bunyon and Babe the big blue ox. We missed our turn to get on the 1 and ended up 40 miles off track, so we had to drive the craziest road through the redwood forest back to the coast and the forests we were driving through were filled with smoke from nearby forest fires. We continues to drive these crazy curvy roads along the coast in CA were NO ONE lived and ended up in some tiny small-town BBQ roadhouse for dinner, it was really good. Then we managed to find our way through the darkness across the cliffs and past the occasional cliffside cow to northern San Francisco where we stayed at this scary looking motel for the night.

Friday we crossed the golden gate bridge, drove to San Jose ate eggrolls with Kyle his companion and a great investigator and then went back to SF. We tried to go see Alkatraz, but they were sold out of tickets and we didn't want to go on a lame boat tour so we ate at Bubba Gump on the pier.

Saturday we got off to an early start and drove down to Santa Barbara. There we started driving down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and stopped at a lot of beautiful vistas along the way. We laid out on the beach in Santa Barbara, had dinner in Malibu, walked the pier in Santa Monica and saw all sorts of street shows and crazy people in downtown Santa Monica/LA. We found a hotel to crash in by the airport and got some much needed rest that night.

Sunday morning we packed up dropped off the car and went our separate ways at the airport. Lines were ridiculously long at LAX and the only reason Joe didn't miss his flight apparently was because it got delayed. I made mine, but it was leaving 45 mins after his. I flew Virgin America, which is a newer airline with super fancy gadgets and entertainment systems at every seat. They had chat rooms for everyone on the flight and I played doom from my seat as well as watched live ESPN via satellite and a few on demand shows. I could have paid $.99 for an episode or two of the office, but was fine with the free selections they had. They also have radio stations, music, movies, food ordering, shopping, WWW, multiplayer games for the passengers and a ton of other stuff that was pretty cool. I got home to Seattle and it’s like 80+ degrees here, nice.

Dad Visits, I Travel, Car Costs

Dad came to visit this week and we got dinner together. Sure is nice that he can stop by every couple weeks and visit when here's up here for work. The weather FINALLY got warm again, I'm hoping we've seen the last of the gloomy rain season up here and can get PuMpeD for summer. My Xterra just about gave up the ghost last week and I need a new transmission. Dad and I talked options and some of the first quotes I got were for like $4k in repairs. I took it to a shop dad suggested and the guy said he'd be able to rebuild it with a warranty for just over $2k. SUPER expensive, but after hearing $4k and $3k from the other 3 mechanics I talked to, I feel like this is a great deal. I hope my car really loves me for putting over $5k into it over the past 4 months. It better work good for the next 30 years.

I went to a cabin up around the other side of the Puget sound on Saturday with some friends, it was really pretty, just relaxed, chilled by the lake and had a bonfire, played games and played pool, roasted hot dogs and s'mores. Good times. The area up here is real pretty and if it wasn't for the weather and the cost of living, I’d be sold on it being the best place to live in the country. Oh well you can't have everything.

Best friend Joe is coming to visit starting this Sunday. We'll chill for a few days in Seattle and then head to Portland to visit Mom and Dad for about a Day. Then we'll start our little trek down the coast. We're gunna be driving in a rental car and visiting friends/sites along the coast all the way till LA which we need to be arriving at on Sunday morning or earlier cause we both have flights home from LAX early Sunday afternoon. Anyone have any suggestions on where to go/camp/visit along the coast?