Across Country: May 2012

Last month my mommy and younger brother Drew came to visit us(our first and most likely our last visitors) and we decided to take a five day road trip from Portland to California. Well, Tim and I planned it out in advance and if you know anything about our planning as of late, it is thorough and doesn't waste a second of time. We like to milk everything we can out of our little trips. And although we weren't positive that my mom and brother could keep up with our sometimes exhausting way of vacationing, they held on with us for the whole long and bumpy ride.

It would be too much to recount every spectacular detail, so pictures will have to suffice. There were over a thousand so I pared it down to about 150. We spent the day before the road trip eating and romping around on Mt. Hood in the snow. The first day on the road we all piled in the car, the four of us, the two pups, and all of our clothes. We drove for about twelve hours stopping in Modesto, California for the night. The second day we played in Yosemite National Park and visited the redwoods in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. The third day we made it all the way to the Mojave Desert. I plucked three cacti from the desert sand and we almost got stuck off-roading. The fourth day we cut back up the coast to San Francisco. We explored the city by day and toured Alcatraz Island by night. On the fifth day we drove up the coast stopping to play in the Pacific Ocean and to see the redwoods once again in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

We drove over 2600 miles in just five days and saw so much of California. It is definitely the prettiest and most diverse states that we have visited. I highly recommend it. You should go. Now. Like right now.

The day before the road trip we had many grilled cheeses for lunch.

Yum. At The Grilled Cheese Grill in NE Portland.

Drew eating The Grilled Cheesus, a burger with two grilled cheeses for a bun.

We ate on the second floor of a rickety doubledecker bus.

We went to the Timberline lodge on top of Mt. Hood. You can see the lodge in the background of this photo. It's where they shot the establishing shots for The Shining.

Newton loves the snow!

It was very snowy, very cold, and very windy. And those are the tip tops of trees in the background.
We were probably on top of at least 15 feet of snow at any given point here.

Tim was slightly under dressed.

Drew went to walk Persie and disappeared in the blizzard for a while. Then Persie came running through the trees alone. When we found Drew he was face down in the snow. Laughing. Just laughing like a crazy man.

Crazy Drew always gets extra wet in the snow.

Newton in his stylish vest.

Admittedly I was also a bit under dressed.

Oh and it was my mommy's birthday. Happy Birthday Mommy!

Walking on the edge of a cliff of snow. We could barely distinguish the sky from the ground.
Probably not the safest thing to do.

Bathroom photos after we fixed our snow ravaged hairs.

We found some safe hills and sledded down them in a Rubbermaid container. 'Cause that's how we roll.

My mommy is so cute :)

Especially when she wipes out ;)

Tim and Newton

Newton did not like it.

But that didn't stop Tim.

Birthday pie in the evening.

Mommy is five years old.

Morning rain in Oregon on our first day.

Apricot tongue.

Northern California

Cliff roads.

Coming up on Mt. Shasta.

All the tops were hiding in the clouds.

Mt. Shasta's little friend.

Shasta!

Newton is a motorist!

Happy Persie loves road trips.

Starting to see some orchards.

We saw olive, citrus, and pistachio orchards.

One day these will be trees.

Ah, palm trees are so California.

In California, things don't look real. Everything looks like a model. And you can see forever.

After driving vertically for a while we reached a lovely secluded vista point.

Wildflowers

My cute husband missed the sunshine, and the weather here was perfect. Just like you'd imagine California weather.

Love him.

Love both of them!

Down at the bottom there was a river that we could just barely hear.
Mommy had binoculars and we used them to look for Sasquatch.

One of our better self portraits.

We made it!

Our first peek at half dome.

Newton catching some air.

Wow. Just wow.

El Capitan is the formation to the right.

Half Dome

Biggest medallion ever! I need it!

Bark teepee.

Valley forest river.

Lower Yosemite falls. So much water!

The falls through the forest.

Upper and lower Yosemite Falls.

Rock cuts.

Color patterns.

Lovely cliffs.

Leaving Yosemite Valley, headed to the redwoods.

Coyote on the side of the road.

Giant Sequoias. YES!

Dinosaur trees.

They make me jump for joy!

Tim approves.

Tim is a monkey!

I actually don't weight that much.

Giant redwood pine cone! Yeah, I took one home with me.

Snow ball fights in short sleeves are the best.

I'm a crazy lady for pine cones.

Bigger than my head they are!

Californian countryside.

Happy cows.

Vineyards.

Gorgeous sunset in California!

In the desert, they don't get very creative with their street names. Or they get very creative, however you look at it.

The Mojave Desert.

Long straight roads.

Cinder cones from volcanoes and lava.

Off-roading through the sand.

Hot dogs.

Lovely pink ball cacti everywhere. They were too hard for me to pull up and take home.

Pink ball cactus!

Joshua trees.

Dunes! These were very far away and very tall.

Mommy and Drew lost in the desert.

Persie and I were hot and a bit tired at this point.

The dunes! Well, the big dunes were still a few miles away.

Desert flowers.

Lava fields.

Bought some California oranges at a fruit stand.

Dusky goodness.

San Francisco. Where they build houses on top of houses.

Weird creepy fog that rolled in and covered everything.

We thought it was some sort of toxic gas.

Awesome city.

Alcatraz!

Not too many sea lions out at Pier 39.

Chilly on the boat to Alcatraz.

Me and my bird buddy who followed the boat to the island.

Alcatraz greeting.

"Break the rules and you go to prison, break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz."

The yard at Alcatraz Penitentiary.

Tim in solitary confinement.

Painting done by the prisoners.

A sample cell .

A painting box. The prisoners had more art supplies than I do.

San Francisco covered in the fog.

The dummy head that was used to facilitate the only "successful" escape from the island.
They dug the hole under the sink with a spoon and made the head out of human hair and dried paint.