Seattle

I missed Seattle.I forgot I missed it. It was weird sleeping in the same condo and taking the same walk down to the P-I that I used to.

We stayed in Seattle for two days with Derek and Andrea. I got to visit the P-I and see where they work from now. It still kicks ass. It's remains my homepage for a reason.

Seattle is great. Sleeping here feels kind of like coming home.

Now we are off to Vancouver, where apparently no one in the entire city has a couch. Wish us luck!

Oregon

Greetings from Portland! We made it into Oregon two days ago and couch surfed in Coos Bay with a fantastic surf nut, Tony. If you're reading the blog Tony, thanks again for letting us stay with you!

He took us to a GREAT solstice party up river from Coos bay complete with a drum circle and huge fire. It was a wonderful way to spend the evening. Unfortunately, no pictures.

Yesterday we left Coos Bay and headed up along the coast through the Oregon dunes.


We road an insane dune buggy. Going down practically 90 degree angles, it felt like a roller coaster without tracks. Tons of fun.

We eventually made it up to Portland, where we're crashing with Ellen Stultz, another Saint Margaret Mary's survivor. We'll be here for the night and then make it up to Seattle tomorrow.

Redwood Forest

We made it to the Redwood Forest on our way out of California. We looked through the tour book to find which forest to hike through and we saw that this one was special. They filmed Return of the Jedi and Jurassic Park 2 here. So this was our choice.




Just like at the Grand Canyon, I thought I knew what the Redwoods were, until I got there. I could live there my whole life and still be amazed by those trees. Gorgeous. Huge. Ancient. I wish I had a better vocabulary to describe what I saw.

Oysters and Oregon

We ate our first oysters yesterday. One great thing about oyster festivals: the start serving local beer at 10 a.m. I am into that. They had some brew with tangerine in it. WONDERFUL. And the oysters weren't bad either!

We finished the California coast and made it into Oregon.

Official Couch Surfers

We joined couch surfing before we left, and when camping prices along the coast became astronomical ($45 a night?!) we looked into couch surfing.

So we stayed with two commercial fisherman in California, got a good dinner, slept on a mattress enjoyed the evening.

We are heading to Arcada with them now to the Oyster Fest!

San Francisco

San Francisco... people live here!

We spend two days in sunny Oakland with Brad. Amazing. Great beer. Finally I found Trader Joe's so perhaps I can get some jelly made with grapes instead of concentrated grape juice and corn syrup.

We hung out in San Fran yesterday. We walked up and down the infamous hills and I am paying for it today. First stop was at the old Franciscan mission.

We walked all over trying to find it, and when we finally got there, Ricky refused to go in. Well, to be more accurate, he found it morally abhorrent for them to charge $3 to enter a church. I considered it a nice donation to a national landmark and went in alone.

It worked out well, actually. I was the only person inside San Francisco's oldest building, predating the Declaration of Independence. There was tons of cool old Saint Francis stuff and I was able to say a quick prayer.

I also got to tour the cemetery in the back with old 1800s graves. Pretty cool.


This is the basilica next to the mission. Big. I like the small mission instead. It feels more... Franciscan I guess.


Next we went to Haight Ashbury (no pics) and ate some of the greatest pizza on the planet. I realized in Haight Ashbury what a drag it is to hang out in a neighborhood that's only appeal is its cool shops. Since I didn't have any money, I decided not to go in, so there wasn't a lot to do.

Next was Golden Gate Park. Beautiful park in the city. We saw the cops bust a drug deal. Crazy. It was like out of a movie. One cop started chasing down a guy and before you knew it, swarms of cop cars came form all angles to stop him. It ruined my outdoor nap.

Now I am off the the Redwood Forest in honor of Woody Guthrie and then up to Eugene, CA.

Las Vegas

Again, no pictures. And that Grand Canyon pic took me all of three days to draw, so I didn't do any car drawings of las vegas. Instead, I will give you this:


We played Blackjack all night with this man. Once we realized we couldn't afford to do anything other than breathe the air on the strip, we decided to drink dollar beers at our hotel. Well, one thing lead to another and Ricky and I would up at a $4 blackjack table and Nathan told me when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

Eventually the cards got so bad for Ricky and me that we ordered blackjacks along with our drinks. "Excuse me, miss. We will have two gin and tonics and two blackjacks, please. PLEEEAAASE."

It didn't work, but it was a great time.

More importantly, though. I got to see the cousins. This was a pic taken at Thanksgiving of the whole bunch. We ate a dinner for for kings.

What I had at the buffet: Chinese stir fry and mac and cheese. Plus 150 desserts.

The next day we went swimming all day. I wish we could have hung out longer. They are the BEST!

We left Las Vegas and made it to the end of Route 66 yesterday. Will Rogers Beach in Santa Monica. Now we are in Oakland with Brad Pearson, getting ready to hang out in San Francisco for the day. More on that later.

Grand Canyon

Since my camera broke, I drew the grand canyon from an old WPA post card. You get the gist...

Guess whose camera broke right outside the Grand Canyon? Yup. So, we took a couple of sad sack pics with our phones and then we're on to disposables.

The top is me at the petrified forest and painted desert. Ricky is hanging off a cliff over the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon was AMAZING. I thought I knew what it looked like but I was shocked. The first day, we walked about a mile into the canyon and huffed and puffed our way back out. We camped outside the park.

I made dessert of the campfire! I made a box of cake batter, hollowed out a grapefruit, filled it halfway with batter, wrapped it in tinfoil and threw in on the fire. 20 minutes later... boom! Dessert. Tasty, wonderful dessert.

Day two at the Grand Canyon we hiked around the rim, ate lunch on a cliff overlooking the southern edge and hit the dusty trail.

We made it over the Hoover Dam and into Las Vegas. More on that later.

Day four: Arizona

Welcome to Holbrook, Arizona, home of the Wig Wam Village motels. We couldn't book a room here, so we stayed at the $26.95 Holbrook Inn, also a Route 66 1950's original. trust me, nothing has been changed in this hotel since the place was busteling back in the 50's... including the sheets.

Han Solo on the dashboard has been guiding us along the way.

Car drawings

Ten hours a day in the car produces this:

Day three: Texas

Shamrock Texas was pretty much a bust, but the state redeemed itself with Cadillac Ranch. We drove out to the ranch near Amarillo and got caught in yet another epic thunderstorm. We drove back into town and waited out the rain at a Hooters (kids eat free on Tuesdays ?!).




It was unbelievably satisfying to spray paint these cars. We found half used cans, and stuck around for over an hour stagging such slogans as "Blow up your TV (John Prine)," "I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom (Humpty)" "ODB Needs Yo' Money" and "Can't Stop the Bum Rush (Will Smith, ha ha, ha ha)"

We spent the night in a podunk New Mexico town. Gorgeous views of a lake at sunset overlooking miles of desert. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. We spent the evening drinking tall boys and watching reruns of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" on my computer. God Bless electrical hook ups at camp sites.

More tomorrow!

First stop on Route 66: Carthage, MO

We made it almost through Oklahoma yesterday. Slept through a giant lightning storm in the car, got eaten by mosquitoes.

Yesterday we visited Will Rogers birthplace in Claremore, Oklahoma. He is my new hero and his museum in outstanding.

Now it's 10 a.m. and I am sucking down Cokes at some McDonald's because Ricky kept waking me up last night because he thought he heard a coyote.

Anyway, onward and upward.






What I have learned so far:
1. Always keep the ice in the cooler
2. AAA is useless. Maps tell you everything you need to know.
3. Will Rogers died in Alaska
4. Highways are rarely patroled
5. Just because it says "Route 66 landmark" does not make it so!