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.