Day 40 (Friday, July 15, 2016)

We are home.  :)

We were up very early as we wanted to get home shortly after lunch.  We breakfasted at the hotel and hit the road.  We did about six hours up the 55, then the 57, then headed east on the 64.  We loaded up for fuel for the last time in Missouri-it was the cheapest gas yet on our trip ($1.75 per gallon!).  The highest we paid was in British Columbia right after Fort Nelson, and although they did not have it posted, with the exchange rate and price per liter, we paid close to $7 per gallon, definitely a little gouging going on there!! Maybe.  California was actually in the $2 to $3 dollar range as was Alaska.

We made a quick stop in Spencer County at a rest area, just for the heck of it.  Actually, we had to make a pit stop for a restroom break!!   We couldn’t make it home!  We probably hadn’t stopped there since it first opened in 1978!

We hit the driveway of home at 1:30 PM, same time on the clock we left 40 days before! 

If you are interested, here are some some stats for June 6-July 15.

*40 days and 40 nights

*12,862 miles of driving (254 hours of windshield time = 10 ½ days at the wheel)

*~2,000 miles on the ferry

*23 states (four new ones for Cheryl and two for Andrew) and three provinces in Canada

*26 nights on the ground in a tent (air mattress!)

*+1 night on the air mattress in Max’s apartment (Urbana, IL)

*Four nights on the ferry (Inner passage between Haines, Alaska and Bellingham, Washington)

*Two nights in worker’s dorm/camps (Coldfoot and Deadhorse, both in Alaska)

*One night at the Begle residence (Houston, Texas)

*Five nights in hotels using points (Anchorage, Alaska, Portland, Oregon, Oakdale, California, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and West Memphis, Arkansas)

*And our final night, back home again in Kyana.

*We had some great hikes, bikes, and kayaks.

The majority of our time we were about 4’ apart from each other, driving, sleeping, and sightseeing.  We did spread out a bit when hiking, biking, and kayaking, but not by much or not for long. 

FINIS.

And we could and will do it again, in a heartbeat. :)  Soulmates on a journey that only strengthened the bonds.  :)  Really.  

Day 39 (Thursday, July 14, 2016)

We woke up to a great “BB- cooked breakfast of biscuits and gravy with an egg on top(!) and “caravanned” with the Begles (albeit a Chevy truck followed by a Ford truck) up to Memphis-about another 600 miles and ten more hours on the road.  It actually took a little longer due to traffic in Baton Rouge and rain (actually RAIN!) through big stretches of Mississippi (HARD rain with high winds, three storms total with very limited visibility each time!).

We got to Memphis around 7:30 and stopped to visit the gates of Graceland and say hello to Elvis (BB and Eileen’s first time!!).  We then traveled to a hotel just across the river in Arkansas before heading down to Beale Street.  We met up with some of BB and Eileen’s softball era friends (daughters played college ball together at Lipscomb) that live near Memphis.  

When in Memphis, you eat ribs and greens, so we did at the Blues City Café.  YUMMY!  While also in Memphis, you stop in to a blues club and enjoy the music, so we headed to BB King’s Blues Club.  The band there did a fantastic version, with an amazing guitar solo, of “Purple Rain” which warranted a slow dance. J 

We wandered down to another club and caught another act called Mississippi Bigfoot!  The lead singer did a GREAT Janis Joplin, among others.  We had great seats and stayed until they were finished for the night.  

The food, atmosphere, and music of Beale Street is right up there with the other natural wonders we saw on our journey.  We headed back across the river to the hotel for our final night “on the road.”

Day 38 (Wednesday, July 13, 2016)

It was a drive day, as we needed to get to Houston at a decent hour.  The tent was just as easy to take down as it was to set up!  It was a cool 72 when we were ready to take off about 8.  Texas has speed limits of 75 on two lane highways!!  Zip, Zip, Zip!  It was a bit nerve-wracking at times and Andrew did the driving as he was in the zone!

There were lots of ranches on our journey today, all different sizes, with the gated entries that a person associates with ranches, and with names like the “Double D” and the “Triple S.”  Ranches were mostly of the cows and/or horses variety, but some hay fields, cropland, and a few oil rigs thrown in for good measure.  Several fields were FILLED with oil rigs, the rigs looking like giant praying mantises bobbing their heads up and down, like those “birds” that dipped and dipped up and down into water (surely some remember those!)!! The smell was extremely gassy as we drove by.  It was so strong I can’t imagine how those people that live there do it!  They really have to be used to it.

We passed fields of windmills and a field of adorable goats, along with subtle changes in the landscape—less flat and more of the flat-topped hills, sort of like Utah, and back to flat again!  We went through small towns and larger ones, and a city or two before dropping into Houston. 

Houston is a very large city; Andrew says it is one of the largest geographically, as it is really spread out.  AND, of course, with cities of this size, there are a zillion lanes of traffic to weave through.  It wasn't as congested as I thought it would be, but then again, Andrew was driving.  :)  Texas is a also pretty hot and humid state!  The temperature rose above 90 early and stayed that way for most of the evening nearing 100.  Apparently that is pretty normal for July.

Brian and Eileen were home and we sat to visit a bit before heading to a restaurant we'd missed the last time we were here, as we had an earlier flight to catch than our traveling companions and had to head to the airport.  Andrew and I shared a swordfish special  and grabbed a taste of Brian's flounder and Eileen's tuna and there were all truly AMAZING!  We then adjourned to a neighboring restaurant for a rooftop view and cheesecake!  This second restaurant hosted a celebration with Astronaut Alan Shepard Jr.  in 2011 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first American in space!  

As we drove past the Johnson Space Center we saw the 747 that actually transported the shuttles from the East coast to the West, with a mock-up of a space shuttle (Houston wasn’t “awarded” a real one when they were decommissioned.).

We went back to their house to ready for our final two legs of the journey home.  We did watch a few episodes of “The Ranch.”  We rarely if ever watch TV, and this show had some really funny moments! 

We get to sleep in a most comfortable bed and take a wonderfully hot shower, before we take off around 8 in the AM.   

Day 37 (Tuesday, July 12, 2016)

After a fortifying breakfast courtesy of the hotel we were on our way.  It is so hard to believe we are heading into our final days of our 40 days and 40 nights.  It feels like a flash!  We could just extend it another 40 days?!?!

We had planned on driving, driving, and more driving today.  BUT we got sidetracked, and that is okay as that is what vacations are for! 

We got a notch in our belt of states we haven’t been in yet by driving into New Mexico.  It is truly enchanting!  It is, but that is also what the state sign says when you enter:  Welcome to New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment.  The sign also features hot peppers.  :)

There is so much open space.  You can drive forever in one direction and you can’t even see where it ends.  There are intersections that used to be towns, with abandoned buildings, where people attempted to etch a life in all of this barrenness.  There are pastures upon pastures of cows and horses.  There must be ranch houses somewhere but the space is so expansive you just can’t see any signs of life beyond the animals.  We did encounter a new sign to watch for bears crossing the road.  Most signs regarding bears was to just watch for them; this one was more specific, to watch for them crossing the road.  :)

Our first distraction was a volcano, and its surrounding “field” of volcanoes.  We debated about stopping because we knew it would be a delay, but it was a VOLCANO!!  And volcanoes are just intriguing in general.  We followed the signs and paid our entrance fee to the Capulin Volcano National Monument.  When we saw it from the main road we wondered if we could actually drive up on it as it “looked” like a road was spirally around it.  Well, you can drive up and park, and then walk INTO a crater!  And also AROUND the crater!  We actually walked down into the “vent” which had been plugged up for a long time by solid lava and looked UP.  It is hard to capture in pictures and words; the crater is about 100’ DOWN from where we parked our truck, about a quarter of a mile walk (fairly steep coming back up!).  The “rim” itself is about 1450’ wide, with the “tall” end about 415’ above the bottom of the crater.  The trail around the rim is about 1 mile around, with some of it pretty steep, but the VIEWS!!  WOW!  You could see forever, in that you couldn’t even see where it ended.  It just blurred into the horizon and sky.  You could see mounds of former volcanoes, and smaller craters, everything went on and on!  A delay well worth it!  Plus we did get some hiking in. :)

We commented that we should have bought a national park pass.  We visited a few while on our journey.  This year is the 100^th anniversary of the national park system, and all 4^th graders, and whoever are with them, get in free to ALL national parks.  The family we camped next to outside of Yosemite knew they were going to be camping all summer and decided to tour as many national parks as they could.  They “borrowed” their 10 year old nephew so they literally got in free to all of the parks.  He was taking part in the Junior Ranger program and earning badges along the way.  They said he was having the best time and loved learning so much about each of the parks. 

We are truly in the land of cowboys, as evidenced by everyone driving trucks, wearing cowboy hats and boots, ranch upon ranch of livestock, and silos that were ginormous!  Extremely ginormous, and not just one or two, but every so many miles!  The crop circles created by the irrigation systems became more frequent once we entered Oklahoma, another notch for our belt. 

Andrew actually studied the map and found if we took a side road, we could stand where Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma meet up.  So we did and we stood on the exact spot, surround by fields in all three states.  Andrew actually lay down so he could be touching each part!  Several trucks drove by, smiling and probably wondering why there were strangers standing near the intersection in the road, as not that many people would think that was even worth stopping for (but we did!), but just waving and driving on.  We drove along the panhandle of Oklahoma a bit before heading back into Texas.  That was our second so-worth-it delay.  A notch and another LIFE® card. We sure have accumulated tons of those this trip!

We were in Masterton when the truck's outside temperature indicator registered 102.  We’d been really spoiled with our journey with the highest temperature actually being 75 when we camped on the Arctic Circle, and then the mid-80s in Yosemite.    We miss those 50s and 60s from the California coast!  We witnessed the most exquisite rainbow that was so vibrant-each color so strong and individual(usually the colors sort of blend upon each other!) and then it doubled, and then, as one went away, the remaining one became a full ½ circle!  We drove through a rain, then hail, ending in rain storm all the while aiming for the blue sky on the horizon.

Landing in Lubbock right about 8, we searched and found the final resting place of Buddy Holly.  It was a simple memorial, placed flat in the ground, with flowers, pennies, and guitar picks from those pausing to pay their respects.  We drove into town and stopped at the Buddy Holly Plaza; there is a life-size statue of Buddy there as part of a music venue and museum of sorts.  We were too late to enter the buildings, but shared a few peaceful moments there. 

A local microbrewery offered a bowl of soup (green chili/cheddar) before we headed to a KOA for the night.  We set up our tent, the easiest set up thus far.  We didn’t have to set out a tarp under the tent, or put on a rain fly, or use a heavy blanket or insulator mats as it was dry and warm when we finally crawled in.  Ninety degrees to be exact, at 11 PM.  :)

Tomorrow is a drive day, all the way to Houston!  Begles, here we come! 

Day 36 (Monday, July 11, 2016)

We drove and drove and drove.  Our goal was the Denver suburb of Golden where we were going to meet Kim and Bryon and their families for supper. 

We ended the night before thinking we were in the foothills of the mountains, but we still had 300 miles to go.  We drove through different ranges but mostly canyons; we stopped and gawked at the “Salt Wash” and other vistas.  We went by canyon lands and Arches National Park.  The canyon landscape is another kind of beautiful, the colors and vastness and deepness.

The Colorado River snaked its way along the road, curving back and forth, sometimes on the left side of the road and sometimes on the right, at times seemingly going the “wrong” way.  We were heading down a steep grade while it was traveling downstream in the other direction—an optical illusion!

Then we were officially back into the “traditional” mountains.  The mountains changed their look.  The striations were different, their color more diverse and the layering of said colors.  Some layers were horizontal to the road, others at angles.  The ranges of colors varied from browns, reds, blacks, whites, and shades in between.  Some mountains were covered with scraggly trees, some bare, some just tinted green with new growth of the summer.  Some mountains looked just like sand dunes, the rock crumbled around their bases.  We had traffic congestion and encountered those irritating drivers that still zip down around you even though the signs say to merge right long before then.  We spent time in tunnels through those areas we could not cross, one such tunnel where the railroad was “under” the road, or at least it appeared to be!  The rail followed the road and then it curved towards the ONE tunnel entrance and then curved back out again upon exiting the tunnel. 

When signs said “falling rock” you literally crossed your fingers when you went past those cliffs.  Some of those rock faces looked like they were just hanging on by a thread!  Piles and piles of rock of all shapes and sizes make up the landscapes. 

We drove by a huge lake (Sevier Lake) that looked like it might have been much larger.  It turns out it is usually “dry” as many of the tributaries that feed it are diverted for water, and has been completely dry in its history.  It is also one where it salinity is really high, higher than an ocean’s.

We saw several signs referencing Gerald Ford and wandered why.   Gerald was apparently an avid skier!  He first “discovered” Vail in the late 1960s and loved skiing there so much he bought a house.  His vice-presidency and presidency brought even more fame to the area.

Andrew enjoys driving so he did all of it today.  I spent time looking at mountains and deserts and finishing the book I was reading, “Changes” by Jim Butcher.  HOLY COW!  It is one of the Dresden books and I was completely caught off guard by what happened in that book, and it ended so I really, really, really want to read the next one.  It is a pretty addictive series (Harry is a private investigator and wizard. J), so I can only read a couple and then I have to put them down for a while or I wouldn’t do anything else but read.  I have that kind of addiction to really good books!  

One thing I HAD to do before I returned home was to get my hair looked at.  Full disclosure:  I have been coloring my hair for a LONG time and it has to be done frequently now as it is, for the most part, literally all gray.  Being gone from home for 40 days doesn’t help my “schedule,” and we have a wedding to attend on Saturday and I needed to make sure my hair was done before then.  Vanity.  It's all it really is.  I am just not ready to look into a mirror and not recognize myself because my hair is gray.  Someday, yes, maybe.  But I have never been be completely gray as I’ve been coloring it since it was just individual gray hairs, so it would be like looking at a stranger!  So, to find someplace to do this.  We got to Golden a bit early for this reason and I knew it would take a couple of hours.  I had to call seven different places to find someone that had an opening for a "walk-in"!  Then I was thinking, “I hope whoever I get is good!!”  Not a lot of places were even open as it was Monday, but we drove a short distance and Heidi worked her magic.  I have been wearing a hat most days to keep the sun off of my nose/face so it has been flat and hat-shaped.  She said actually part of the flatness is due to lack of humidity.  She colored and toned and trimmed and then actually kept it straight when she syled it.  It is a bit darker than what I have been doing lately, but my hair had really faded due to the things it’s been through, mostly campsite showers' varying mineral content and sweat from hiking and biking.  It feels really good, but a good cut and color will do that to you!  Andrew also got his buzzed off to nearly bald level while we were there.  He was ready to go bald but then he'd have aw white head with a tan face!

My family was already at the restaurant when we arrived.  Everyone looked great.  It is hard to believe how grown up Kim’s kids are.  When we saw them last, little Aspen literally took a running leap and launched herself at John-Paul (To luck he was quick and caught her!).  That was about 10 ½ years ago.  Tre is now going to be a junior in high school, Trent a freshman, and “little” Aspen an eighth grader!  Kim looked the same--how can that be!! Still great!  We also met her boyfriend Mitch and his two kids, their ages between Kim’s kids!

Bryon and his wife Michelle and little one Lily also joined us.  Bryon also looks the same and Michelle brought us some pictures for us to keep-what a very thoughtful thing to do--of their wedding and of Lily.  Lily is the lucky recipient of the curly gene pool with the most amazing blond tight little curls.  I finally got to hold her and got a smile out of her before we left.  She is only 19 months old so I am good with a smile and quick hold.  We did get to visit for 2 ½ hours.  Thanks to the staff at the restaurant for letting us invade their space for that long. 

We said our goodbyes and let’s not wait another 10 years, before we headed south.  We need to get New Mexico checked off our state list.  We debated about setting up camp at this late hour, or a hotel using points.  We did stop at a campground but then opted to drive another 20 miles and use the points. 

One thing that keeps occurring to me and I don’t understand:  why do people shoot road signs?  So many signs, literally almost all of them on the roads that aren’t Interstate.   And it isn’t just in Colorado, but really every place we’ve been the signs have holes or bullet-shaped indentions.  It didn’t matter what kind of sign, there was no discrimination on whether it was a stop sign or a moose crossing sign…they were indented or holey.  Sigh.  

Day 35 (Sunday, July 10, 2016)

The wind bearing down on our tent during the night was amazingly weird!  I thought our tent was going to blow away, or at least our rain fly.  Thank goodness we stopped at a hardware store back in Pacifica and invested in the heavier tent stakes.  The ones that actually come with tents are ridiculously bendable!  The air smelled wonderfully of sage as the field behind us was sage and another bushy plant I didn’t recognize.

We didn’t leave real early as we had such a strenuous day the day before (hiking UP, remember, :)).  We took off and decided to give Mono Lake a quick explore.  The lake has what they call petrified springs in it and around it from when it was “fuller.”  Los Angeles apparently gets their water from the tributaries that feed this lake and the lake dropped dramatically as LA was diverting all this water; since it doesn’t drain, and was now literally only ½ full, it salinity jumped to now two times saltier than the Pacific.  Where the springs feed into the lake, the minerals solidify by building on each other, gradually creating these upward shapes called tufa towers.  They look like something from a science fiction movie!  They actually have an arrangement that LA can’t divert water away from the lake if it falls below a certain level.  It is very close to that number now.  The water was also home to a certain fly larva which feeds the zillions of birds that migrate through the area and was food for the original natives of the area.  Apparently tasty?  It was a nice hike from the parking lot to the lake and around.  The severe droughts of these past years isn’t helping the environmental health of this area.  

Then on the road again, destination somewhere between here and Denver!  Our entire drive today was through deserts.  There is amazing diversity in deserts. You’d think it just piles of sand everywhere, but that would not be a correct assumption!  Some are covered with sage and the other previously mentioned unknown round bush, some are brown grass, some short trees, lots of varying rocks, varying in size and color, and the sand apparent in all environs.  It is such a stark beauty.  We started the day in the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada’s and ended the day in the far western slopes of the Rockies. 

The world stretches for miles and miles of open space out here.  One stretch was 14 miles from 1 “hilltop” to the next…  the next stretch was another 16 miles!  We stopped in middle of the road and got out and took a picture of the long ribbon of highway behind us.  The next stretch of straight road went for over 21 miles with NO turns!  There was a sign when we left Tonopah, an old mining town, one of the few we passed through, stating that it was 163 miles until the next service station. We passed towns that used to be towns but are not abandoned houses and barns, unmended fence rows.  Crossroads that once boasted gas stations, rental cabins, and such also left behind in the sand. 

We’d see cow crossing signs and no cows, horse crossing and no horses, deer and tractor crossings but not deer and tractors.  They do have “cattle guards” on the road so apparently there are cows crossing the roads at some points.  We did see finally cows grazing in the desert areas of Nevada.  We wondered how they could possibly survive on what was growing between the sage brush!  Perhaps their mountain views kept them happy or, more logically, they bring in hay.  Once we got closer to our destination for this evening, and the Interstate, we saw more and more cows and hayfields.  In order to actually produce hay, it has to be irrigated, so there are giant green circles of hay in the middle of brown.  (There is a LOT of brown in California, Nevada, and Utah thus far—unbelievable how brittle everything looks.)  One ranch went on for miles and miles, with cows just enjoying their evening sup.  Those fields were at the base of some of the uniquely colored Utah mountains.  What a view for those bovine! 

At one point we saw a mountain side that looked like it was a victim of a fire in recent past.  It was waving this way and that and looked like it had started up the mountain.  Andrew has sharp eyes and suddenly took a left turn.  It was not the victim of a fire after all, but an actually a giant lava bed. Yes, lava, as in volcano.  We drove a dirt road around the flow of black rocks (maybe 20 feet plus high at spots) for a few miles into the desert before turning around.  It was literally a “dust” road-it was too dry to be considered a dirt one.   Andrew “borrowed” a rock from the flow-the rocks we collect keep getting bigger.  The one yesterday from the top of Yosemite was heavy enough as Andrew lugged it down the 2800 vertical drop in his backpack…. Others from glaciers, Arctic Ocean, etc. add ballast to the truck as the trip rolls on.  Some people collect sea shells, others feathers, we collect rocks. 

We crossed through Nevada and are spending the night about ½ way through Utah in Salina (my 41^st state! I will add two more on Tuesday – New Mexico and Oklahoma – plus tomorrow will make Colorado an “official” counter as the only other time was just a previous layover point when flying back from San Francisco and I didn’t leave the airport -- as we zig zag our way down to Houston --- the New England states (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut) and Hawaii are yet to be conquered in future journeys).  The entire trip was mostly two lane highways – most of our trip since leaving Cordelane, Idaho has been two lane roads, other than a little from the Canada border down to Portland, and some while in San Francisco (more like 8+ lanes there sometimes :) ).  

Tomorrow we get on I-70 through the mountains into Denver, and most of rest of trip then home is via interstates.  The trip odometer rolled over the 10,00- mile mark today also (plus estimated ~2000 on the ferry).

Day 34 (Saturday, July 9, 2016)

Up and at ‘em!  We wanted to be at the park early enough to avoid the heat of the day and give us plenty of time to get our hike in.

We got a great parking spot next to a field containing several deer with their velvet antlers!  Many were traipsing onto the grass, right past the sign that says, “Give plants a chance-please don’t step off the path.”  

Andrew started our app we use when we hike, bike, or kayak and started at 8:30.  It went UP, and UP, and UP.  It was dry and sandy which made many parts of the trail very slippery.  I am a VERY slow hiker as I need to watch my footing so we had many pass us up.  Funny though, some of those speed demons we passed on later and we just passed each other.  Steady and slow!!  That’s me, and Andrew is great about walking just ahead and waiting on me.  There was a part of the trail that leveled out!! YES, I thought prematurely.  Another part went down, and I was confused by that too as our goal was way UP.  But we meandered back and forth for a zillion or more switchbacks, climbing rocks and rock steps, back and forth.  Finally someone heading down said it was only 45 minutes further!  That last part was pretty steep but the view of Yosemite Falls from above them was breathtaking!

I temporarily lost Andrew even though he had seen me pop up over the last crest and thought I had seen him.  I was walking and chatting with a gal from Australia who had been waiting on her sister about ½ hour!  We wandered over to the edge, my still looking for Andrew.  The views were amazing but at this point we couldn’t see any waterfalls, but we could hear them and feel the mist.  We turned and walked towards where we’d come as we thought perhaps we’d missed a trail marker.  A gentleman leading some friends told us to turn back around as the falls were definitely in that direction.  It turns out some people were standing directly in front of the sign pointing to the overlook.

The overlook was a narrow rock stairway down just a bit, and if you wanted to see more you could butt slide across a very large slippery looking rock or you can take a narrow one-person rock step trail.  Andrew had resurfaced at this time and was very giddy and excited as he’d just come from the narrow trail.  His words were something like, it is a narrow trail for just one person and there is a handrail by the rock but the other side drops off and you have to do it!  So my Australian friend and I went down and took some pictures, opted NOT to do the butt sliding scenic view, and she went down to the trail first.  She opted not to go further, and I sort of agreed as I hadn’t seen it yet.  Once she was done and had come back up, and others came from her general direction, I got my chance to go down. I took some pictures, and then looked.  Hmmmm.  The rail was attached to the rock, the trail was one-person wide and I was one person, so I did it.  It was enough to make your stomach do a few twirls, but the view was worth it.  We were at the TOP of the UPPER Yosemite Falls!  And it only took use 3 ½ hours, from the parking lot.   We had brought a very basic snack up (banana and protein bar) so we sat down to rest, snack, and rehydrate.  It was pretty hot climbing up to this point.

We began our descent.  People we didn’t recognize were appearing to descend also.  Perhaps we just didn’t notice them.  It took us LONGER to get down!  The sand of the trail made going down even more slippery.  Many a hiker that looked like they hiked daily :) even had slippery moments.  I used my trusty walking sticks, and we did it, one slow step at a time.  

For a time we had a young man and his girlfriend hiking with us.  They were from New York and he was doing an internship with a start-up in San Francisco (Nylas?  Something to do with email, but I haven’t had a change to research it yet).  He attended MIT and would be going back for his senior year in the fall.  His gal was just visiting for the week and this was her first hike ever in her whole entire life!  What an indoctrination.  That is how we got to talking:  we passed each other several times, back and forth, on the way up and then encountered them again on the way down!  She was going back to school to start her Physician Assistant training.  He had a rainbow colored Mohawk! 

How long were we on this grand adventure?  By the time we go back to our truck, it was just short of 8 hours.  That does include a bathroom break before going up and a longer one after coming down due to the line, but we won’t discuss that here.  The time that was “suggested” for completing the trail says “6-8 hours.”  We feel we did pretty darn good considering we had parked a mile away.  The trail was 3.5 miles UP 2800 feet elevation change.  My only complaint are my toes.  My boots for some reason don’t like hikes over 7 miles and my socks get bunched up and so my toes were really cramping by the time we made it back to the truck.  I had a different set of insoles when we walked the bridges in San Fran so I also had a blister on one of them.  When we got our new bike hitch, I also got a new pair of insoles.  They were so much better but I think my sore toes today were sort of residual from our bridge hikes.  They didn’t get worse, but they were freshly irritated. 

We drove to the lodge to grab a bowl of soup; I had the black bean and vegetable soup while Andrew had the chili, and both were excellent.

It was time to say goodbye to Yosemite.  We went out a different way than we’ve ever done.  Yosemite is a HUGE park.  We drove literally two hours before we were out of the park.  The landscape changed and there were different colored rocks of the mountains, and grasses and meadows.  The rocks look like someone just set them here and there but there were left hodge podge by the glaciers.  We were tempted to kayak by a gorgeous lake we passed but I was just too tired to stop.  By this time it was 7.  We wanted to get out of the park and find a shower and a burger to replenish ourselves after our long hike. 

We lucked out to find a tent site, even though the office closed early.  We could fill out the form and leave it in their drop box for a night registration, but the showers required tokens which we couldn’t get until the office reopens at 9 am.  We got our tent set up in the windy area, next to a field at the base of a mountain.  I am going to miss these views!  Then we went to a local restaurant for a burger and a salad.

 

We are back to update the blog IYeah for Verizon LTE!) and hit the hay.  We are some tired peeps this evening.  Tomorrow we start the drive to Colorado to visit Kim and Bryon; we will be meeting them on Monday evening for supper.  

Day 33 (Friday, July 8, 2016)

The quote of the day:  It’s another kind of gorgeous.  And it certainly is!  Every day is a new kind of wonderment.  We thought Alaskan and Canadian mountains were incredible, but now we are at Yosemite and the mountains are straight up out of the ground, straight sheets of rock face, smooth and dangerous, right in your face!  We didn’t get here in time for a first come, first serve campsite for the night but that is okay!  We have been pretty good about going with the flow! :)

Yosemite is also a very BUSY place.  There are tons of people everywhere, walking and cycling and driving.  All kinds of great people and then those that literally stop on a dime and open their car door so they can take a picture, which means we had to brake and stop.  They looked at us like it was our fault!!  And parking is a privilege.  We did find our first spot sort of easily and did our first hike to the Bridal Veil Falls.  LOVELY!  BUT since it is the first in the park (more or less) it was so crowded. It was hard to imagine that many people, all jockeying for parking and walking spaces!

We decided the best way to see large chunks of Yosemite Valley was to park once and bike around, so we found a spot we thought looked good for parking (We were the first to park here, but there were two smaller RVs parked on the other side of the tree so we thought perhaps it as okay?) and unloaded our bikes and took off.  We could see a lot this way as we didn’t have to drive and park.  We did have to stop and brake for other bicyclists, pedestrians, cars, trucks, more people, etc.  We did hop off from time to time to wander up various trails:  Lower Yosemite Falls, Mirror Lake, and too many to mention. 

We decided to leave that area and drive up to the trailhead for Sentinel Dome.   John-Paul and family hiked this last year and said it was a nice hike, and it was.  Considered “moderate” it meandered about 1.1 miles and the reward was a stupendous view—a 360 degree view!  We were looking DOWN on even the Upper Yosemite Falls!  HOLY COW!   It was truly breath-taking and really not too hard to hike!  Highly recommended if anyone is traveling to Yosemite!  We drove up to Glacier Point to see even more from the top.  Looking down onto Yosemite Valley was unnerving as you didn’t really see people as they were way too small.  The hotel even looked tiny and the cars looked like ants!  There were such nice people up there:  a young girl who was just smiling and gushing how “real” everything was and so intense (we took her picture for her) and a family visiting from UK.  The mom was born in Scotland, the Dad in Ireland, but the kids were born and they live in England, sort of close to where Shakespeare lived.  Interesting!  They flew in, and rented a car and were leaving from Los Angeles in a week.

We noticed as we drove DOWN, DOWN, DOWN back into the valley so we could leave that there were really hardly any people and cars left!  We asked at the gate and this park never closes!  So it would seem to make more sense to go early in the morning, head out around noon or one, and then go back in the evening!  I would be more afraid of bears even though we didn’t see any; personally, if I were a bear, I would hightail it out just because there are people literally and figuratively crawling all over the place.  We could probably even sleep in our truck and no one would notice!  :)

It occurred to me later that people could actually live out of their vehicles in San Francisco.  We slept in ours, which wouldn’t be idea on a daily basis.  But we have encountered some really amazing tricked out vans!  A gentleman at Half Moon Bay State Beach was cooking over a small cook stove in his van and I noticed he had a bed set up as well in there.  Everything you need!  The family we met at Prudhoe Bay had converted a 15 passenger van to be completely self-contained for a family of 5, everything!  We also met a couple that did the same thing to their 15 passenger van.  Then a person could conceivably stop anywhere!  No one would really notice. 

We really lucked out and found a campsite only a few miles/minutes from the entry.  It is an RV site so our neighbors are RVs.  One family is from Iowa and they are taking the entire summer to travel, and the other from Switzerland-they flew into New York to visit and then San Francisco and rented an RV.  They are driving down to Costa Rico to visit their daughter and then flying home.  Our “back” neighbor is also from Switzerland and are renting a van that is simply converted with a simple stove and sink and refrigerator “drawer” but the outsides are painted really neat!  Peace signs, and flowers, and such. 

We are going to go for our final BIG hike tomorrow, to the top of Yosemite Falls.  It will be challenging but we have tackled bigger.  Wish us luck!  We’ll let you know how it goes.  

Day 32 (Thursday, July 7, 2016)

July 7, 2016--Happy Birthday, Donna!

We made it through the night sleeping on the streets of San Francisco.  :) The vehicle parked in front of us left sometime in the wee hours of the morning but there were still tons of us parked there.

 

We got up at 5 AM so we could drive to Oakland and watch the sun rise over the Oakland Bay Bridge.  The bridge is really pretty, and long and white.  An earthquake in the late 1980s damaged the original road and they fixed it but with new orders to build a new one.  It was fascinating to watch workers dismantle the old road/bridge.  Some of them were really high up there, with their protective ropes and harnesses.  

We parked out a bit and then began our journey.  We couldn’t walk all the way to Treasure Island; it looks like that phase should be done sometime this summer.  But we still got a little over four miles in; it is hard to realize something is THAT long but you can see the beginning and end!  There were a few bicyclists, and a couple of walkers we met up with at the very beginning.  We aren’t sure how much they actually walked.  We never did see the sun rise as it was yet another gray, drizzly, foggy day.  It does make everything look really cool!  The fog just lays on everything.  It’s been colder here than when we were in Canada and Alaska!

From Oakland we went a different way to park at the Golden Gate Bridge.  We ALWAYS walk this bridge when we are here.  We hiked from the North side this time, our first as we usually park and walk from the San Francisco city side.  It was windy again today but not as busy this early, at least to start.  As you walk more and more people show up.  We don’t think many actually cross the entire bridge but start from one side or the other and walk ½ way, then turn and walk back.  Bicyclists do tend to go the whole way and back. 

It is about 2 miles total when you count walking from the truck and across and then down to the gift shop (I buy a post card each time we walk it and stamp it with the date while I am there!) and back again.  The fog was starting to clear up a little bit on the north side which made it really gorgeous with blue and green and blue/green waters on the left of our view merging with the grayness of the right. 

After our hike we opted to go to Pacifica and grab some lunch.  Pacifica has a great beach and we have stayed there several times via AirBNB.  There is a place there that makes really great crepes and we always eat breakfast there at least once when we visit.  I had a Chicken Pesto crepe (YUMMY!) and Andrew opted for an omelet this time.  We hopped over the hill and stopped with hopes of seeing whales at Gray Whale Cove, but no luck.  We have seen them here before but their spring migration is pretty well over so there are only random stragglers. 

We headed down to Half Moon again.  We wanted to take some time to relax on the beach one more time before we headed away from the coast.  The beach was busier than before and there was an older gentleman with a remote-controlled surfer.  I kid you not!  It was fun to watch.  We thought it was the young guy sitting ort of close to us, but it was the older man!  It turns out he used to surf in his “former life” and this was a way to keep on doing it.  He had three surgeries on his shoulders and just couldn’t surf himself anymore.  What fun!

We headed back into Burlingame to look into fixing our bike hitch.  The journey has taken somewhat of a toll as it is tilting.   We, well, it was really ME, so I was worried the hitch would eventually just snap from metal fatigue and our bikes would go careening down the road.  We couldn’t find any adaptors that would work to secure it again, so we hunted up the address of a Dick’s Sporting Goods that was on our way to Yosemite and headed out.  We found a “sturdier” hitch although it has the same problem:  we have a 2” receiving hitch but the bike hitch is only 1 ¼ so it has an adaptor.  This should take care of our trip home though and I can rest easier and not keep watching my side view for pieces of bicycles scattering the roads.

We are staying at a Holiday Inn Express so I could update the blog and finish just a few notes for work.  We used points again so that is a good thing and we are only a couple hours at most from Yosemite.  We are heading out really, really early as they have campgrounds that are “first come, first served” within the park.  That could be interesting as it is a Friday and many people may be wanting to hike as much as we do.  We are planning right now on spending two days and two nights here and then head towards Colorado.  Our time is winding down fast now!  I will miss this side of our country but it is time to head home. 

Day 31 (Wednesday, July 6, 2016)

We woke to waves crashing at the shore and foghorns.  It was gray, foggy, and drizzly but not really raining.  When you are at the beach, you must walk on the beach!  So we packed up camp and headed to the beach.  Half Moon Bay beach is a lovely beach to walk upon.  Each beach here is so diverse, it is amazing.  Pacifica is very “rocky” so you can find rocks or you have to avoid them.  Half Moon is more of a small shell beach.  Some beaches have neither! 

We encountered something we have never seen before, ever.  We passed a dead sea lion.  It was up pretty high up on the sand but we were walking at low tide so we are assuming that is when it washed up.  It was sort of reminiscent of the movie “The Birds” as there were ravens pecking at it.  Blah.  But I guess it is the circle of life.  Down the beach another sea lion, this one very much alive, was being corralled by a “rescue” person (that is what his shirt said) and two life guards.   It was very interesting watching them as this sea lion was on the edge of the water and would go back and forth and they apparently really wanted to capture it.  They eventually got it netted and put in a super-large dog crate.  The life guard said that it had been acting up and they didn’t want it to bite their camp they were holding. 

We wondered what was going on as we walked up the beach as there were a bunch of kids doing exercises and digging sand castles.  There were small boogie boards and surf boards lined up as well as many wetsuits.  In turns out those kiddos were attending a Junior Lifeguard camp!  How exciting to have that opportunity.  We watched them run into the water and some were swimming to shore from further out and some were learning to jump up as waves crashed around them and some were going under the waves.

We walked all the way to the end of the beach, crossing one area that would not be accessible during high tide as it was pretty rocky.  What a glorious 4 miles!  (Two miles there and two miles back—not eight total!)

We rode into San Mateo to get our oil changed.  It was literally called Oil Changers.  They were great and no pressure as they don’t work for commissions.  They gave us coffees while we waited and we were soon on our way.  They wondered why we were there when our plates said Indiana so we gave them a quick version of our story.  Everyone always reacts the same way when we say we went all the way to the Arctic Ocean and then slept on the Arctic Circle—mouths drop open and they comment:  No, kidding!

We then made an impromptu stop to Edmodo. We really lucked out with parking, right in front!  We aren’t used to a big truck let alone one with a 3’ hitch hanging off the back!!  We went in and ask to see John-Paul Verkamp.  The guy at the desk said he’d never heard of him.  We looked at each other and asked how long he’d been there and he said 1 ½ years.  Then he said, “Verkamp, oh JP!”  Of course everyone else calls him JP but we still call him John-Paul.  And of course we knew he wouldn’t be there as he is working remotely in Indiana now, but it was fun messing with them.  We met his team and left shortly thereafter so they could get back to work.   :)

San Francisco is an amazing city.  We knew we wanted to bike today so we parked at the fort we always park at (Fort Point—great views when you stand at the edge!) and unhooked our bikes and took off.  We rode across the Golden Gate Bridge having to brake and swerve and avoid walkers and other bikers as the West side that is usually reserved for bicyclists is closed during the day.  We kept on going and headed DOWN into Sausalito. That is such a pretty community!  

The wind was SO strong today that it was actually quite a workout biking.  I had to actually pedal really hard to go down a hill!!  Yes!!  Really!!  It was blowing that hard against me!  We stopped and checked the ferry schedules and realized we needed to head back sooner than we planned. The ferry docked us at Fisherman’s Wharf and so took a left; Andrew detoured us from the Pier road and landed us up at the Trans-Ameria Pyramid.  We went in and the gentleman at the desk told us that what we wanted was around the corner, past the Wells ATM.  What he didn’t tell us was that it had closed at 4!!  He had to know this as this was near 6 by this time!  But we did get to walk around this amazing building, even if we didn’t get to go in and watch the cams. 

Back to the pier areas, and my comfort zone.  I am very klutzy so riding a bike can be challenging. Negotiating traffic and pedestrians and such was just a bit stressful for me. :/ The bike lanes routing down the piers are no less busy but they are marked bike lanes so it feels better.  It seemed so less busy than any prior visits.  Perhaps it was the gray drizzly day or perhaps it was because it was late in the day.  I prefer it that way!!  I love no crowd days!  We got back to the truck, having to walk a few of those hills, and putting 22.24 miles on our trusty Indiana bikes!  YEP!!  What a day. Our new gel seats work great.  :)

We were a bit tired but we wanted to go to Haight-Ashbury yet.  Haight-Ashbury is the birth of the hippy movement, way back in the day.  We thought we’d see people walking the streets, music flowing freely from every building, peace, and love, but we found most places locked up for the night.  Literally!  We did find that Magnolia’s Pub was open so we had a great snack:  cheddar cheese on a board along with pickled veggies, some fruit compote that was amazing, and some bread, and some sausage with small bowls of sauerkraut. I know, some of you are probably going WHAT? But it was really good and they had 31 ales on tap!  :)

We didn’t have sleeping arrangements made for San Fran since we weren’t sure how long we’d be, so we slept in our truck (It is really comfy so no worries!).  We slept on the streets of San Francisco, along Golden Gate Park!  MANY other vehicles were parked there as well, including a few short RVs, so we know were okay. We knew we needed to get up really early to make sunrise on the Oakland Bay Bridge so getting a room or pitching a tent for six hours of sleep seemed silly.  

Day 30 (Tuesday, July 5, 2016)

We are at Half Moon Bay. It is later than we thought but Highway 1 is VERY curvy and it takes time going back and forth along those hairpin turns and switchbacks, but what views-sheer cliffs, rocks both humongous and small sticking straight up out of the churning waters.  The waters varied from green to blue/green to brownish near the shore, some with whitecaps so they looked a bit “angry.”

When we left our campsite this AM, we stopped to take pictures of their “Stump Tree.”  It is gorgeous, literally a small “cabin” build on TOP of a redwood stump.  It had stained glass windows, and wooden shakes and shingles.  It looked new so perhaps they are upgrading some of their accommodations to include sleeping in a tree!  LOVE IT!

We started our day literally at the beginning of the Avenue of the Giants.  Like everything else on this trip, it is so hard to describe them and pictures don’t do them justice.  Redwood trees that tower and tower even higher.  They are so wide you can’t even reach around them and many, many of them are hundreds of years old.  We maneuvered through them, mouths dropped open for most of the miles through.  We sat in some, climbed up some, attempted to drive in some, but our new truck is just a bit too wide, and we’d have only had a couple of inches to spare on one and none on the other.

 

One thing we didn’t think of was to get gas before we started to meander through the hills.  We wrongly assumed there would be gas here and there, but the towns here and there were SO small they didn’t offer gas. One station did but the lines were LONG!!  We looked at our truck gauge, telling us we had plenty until E, and then headed in.  Miles in we began to rethink as the truck began to rethink.  I guess it depends on if you are going up or down hills and everything else.  We did finally find gas at a small mom and pop shop in Westport.  It as expensive but it turns out that there weren’t any gas stations beyond that town, so we made a good call to go ahead and get it.  In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t add up to that much.  We supported the local cause by buying some local cheese (with onions and chives and garlic—very tasty!).

 

We have seen several lighthouses already, and we got in a couple today. The first was Point Cabrillo near Mendocino.  It was actually a functioning light and not a typical looking one as it was painted clapboard and not really that tall.

Our second one was one we were actually anxious for as we could walk up to the top---115 feet! That one was the Port Arena Light near Port Arena!  It was very tall, the tallest on the West coast, and it was a working one but not with a Fresnel lens.  The view from the top was spectacular as it was 360--pastures with cows, the river, the ocean, the bays and some eroding cliffs!  She said they only lose about ½ - 1 inch per year but it all adds up and they are already thinking about 60-70 years in the future as they will most likely have to move the lighthouse.

We popped into Port Arena for a couple of cups of chowder-Andrew had the Manhattan Chorizo and I had the Thai.  Yes, they are not traditional but they were both winners of the recipe contest put on by the Whales and Jazz festival.  The Thai was the winner for this year and the Manhattan Chorizo was from last year.  Yummy.  While here we had our first cat sighting.  EVERYONE has dogs, and I’ve heard cats in various campgrounds but this was our first real one.  It was pretty concentrated on something in the flowerbed so we just snapped a quick picture and let it be.

Actually then I drove.  Andrew’s been doing the bulk of the driving.  I do offer but when we stop to get gas or if nature calls, or we hike/bike/kayak, we’ve had a break and Andrew just lands up driving.  I do enjoy driving but I had to remember that this truck is bigger than the jeep, and we have the hitch hanging off the back with bikes!  Back and forth, back and forth.  We passed fields that got browner and browner the more south we came.  I have no idea how the cows, horses, and sheep survive!!  They did have some sprinkling going on in some of the fields that looked like hay fields, and some brown fields had spots of dropped hay in them that the animals were gathered around, munching away.

I actually then drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, and we parked at Baker Beach to watch the sunset.  We didn’t know if we’d ever make it as we were stopped right before town for about 20 minutes. Apparently a LONG semi was stuck in the ditch around a turn and we had to wait for him to get it out.  But we did and there were so many clouds we were just going to leave.  I happened to look up and the sun just peaked out (sort of clouded over but the sun just the same!) and we got to see it sink into the horizon!  We love sunsets over the ocean; they never fail to give you that sense of Ahhhhh for the end of the day. 

Back into the truck and I was still driving.  Truth be told, I have NEVER driven out here on the big roads.  I have driven a side street or two.  It was not scary but weird driving the 1 in the dark.  I had to really watch for the turns, as you can’t see very far ahead as you can in the daylight.  But we are here, listening to the waves crash ashore, ready to call it a night.  The weather tomorrow will determine if we are hiking or biking!