California Dreamin'

We crossed into California fairly late in the afternoon and continued on to Crescent City, CA.  We had dinner at Denny's.  Anytime I get to have breakfast for dinner, I am a very happy person.  After that we found a hotel and planned out the next few days of our trip.  I was ecstatic to be in California because I had been looking forward to driving down the Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur for years.  But we wouldn't get down to Big Sur for a few more days.  First we had to see northern California.  The next morning we spent our time exploring the redwoods in Crescent City and driving through Redwood National Forest.  I've never seen Jurassic Park, but I assume the setting of the film is somewhat like what we saw in the Redwood Forest.  In fact, one point of interest in the area was part of the park where Jurassic Park was filmed so I know that the movie must look like this.  One of the highlights of this part of the trip was the "Tour Thru Tree," which is essentially a giant tree with a hole in it through which you can drive your car.   

Hugging a giant redwood

Me driving through the Tour Thru Tree

After Brianne and I each took turns driving through the tree and taking pictures, we continued our tour of the redwoods.  After several hours, during which time we had continued to drive south through some of the most amazing forests I have ever seen, we exited redwood country and set our sights on the San Francisco/San Jose area.  It was a fairly long drive and, unfortunately, I was asleep for most of it.  I did briefly wake up as we drove through the Napa area, but I didn't see much.  We were heading to San Jose to stay with my best friend's (Nick) roommate from Yale, Harry.  Since San Jose isn't too far from SF, we decided to stay in San Jose (thanks to Harry and his family for their hospitality!) and just drive up to SF when we wanted to go.  We did, however, have to cross over the Golden Gate Bridge (which was more expensive and less exciting than anticipated) and drive through SF to get to San Jose.  We got to Harry's house (which is awesome and beautiful), got settled in and then the three of us headed to dinner.  I had made plans for us to have dinner with Marisa, a friend of mine from my study abroad program at Cambridge.  I hadn't seen her in 2 years and it was great to catch up!  After dinner we headed back to Harry's house and called it a night.   

Sandboarding in Oregon

After we left Vancouver, we drove about 7 hours to where we were staying for the night in Oregon.  We got in very late, but we were only spending the night there before heading west to the coast.  I was asleep when we drove though Portland, but apparently it's a pretty cool city and I wish we had gone there.  Anyways, in the morning we drove to the coast and this is what I consider to be my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean.  I remember driving up a hill and when we got to the top, there it was right in front of us -- the mighty Pacific.  I freaked out.  I love the ocean and I was so, so excited to see the Pacific for the first time!  The best part of the whole thing is that my first sighting of the Pacific was in Newport, Oregon which means that I have now been in Newport, RI (for those of you who don't know, RI is my home state) and Newport, OR -- coast to coast (I've also been in Salem, MA and Salem, OR, but that's not as cool as the Newport twin cities).  As soon as we got out to the beach, I had to go in the water and it was absolutely freezing!  But it was still awesome!

First picture of the Pacific!

Just taking a dip in the Pacific :-)

We didn't really have any plans for things to do in Oregon, but we soon learned that Oregon is known for its sand dunes so we ended up going to Sand Master Park in Florence and doing some sandboarding on the dunes.  Neither of us had ever been sandboarding before.  Actually neither of us had even heard of sandboarding before.  It turned out to be a ton of fun.  It's essentially like snowboarding on sand.  We had a lesson with a guy named Joey who is a world class sandboarder.  He was predicted to be the world champion in 2011, but got in a car accident and couldn't compete.  I don't know if he won in 2012, but he was expected to...the competition was after we were there so I never found out what happened.  Anyways, Joey claimed that we would probably fall, but that it wouldn't hurt.  That was a lie.  I only fell once, but it really hurt haha.  After our lesson, we had rented our boards for the rest of the day, but we only spent a few hours sandboarding and then we rode a dune buggy which was intense, but so great!  Our driver was crazy and we were bouncing all over the place.  It was fantastic.  After our dune buggy ride, we headed out and drove down to California.

Oh, Canada!

We left Seattle the next morning, decided to make our cross country road trip into an international adventure and headed to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada!! This would be my first time in Canada and I wasn't expecting much.  Honestly, is there any American who hasn't been to Canada and who thinks it's an awesome place?  Probably not.  Well, we Americans are dead wrong.  Vancouver was incredible and both Brianne and I wish we had gotten to spend several more days there.  As we approached the Canadian border, we had our passports ready and, after sitting in line at the border for awhile and being interrogated (not really) by the border guard, we entered Canada for the first time!  We drove to our hotel, rested up for a bit and then figured out what we were going to do with our time in Vancouver.  The first thing we decided to do was go to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.  If you're ever in Vancouver, go here because it's awesome!  Upon entering the park, which is actually a temperate rainforest (so cool!) you come across a bunch of exhibits about the history of the area and the bridge.  As you walk further in you encounter a bunch of totem poles! 

Totem poles in Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

After taking pictures with the totem poles we headed to the bridge.  Capilano Suspension Bridge was built in 1889 and is 450 feet long and sits 230 feet above the Capilano River.  After listening to the safety instructions (basically don't run or jump on the bridge), we proceeded to cross, taking a billion pictures along the way of course! 

Capilano Suspension Bridge

We made it!

Once we made it to the other side, we decided to do the Treetops Adventure which consists of a series of suspension bridges that run between the trees.  We also decided that, since we are clearly children and not 2 twenty-two year old's who had recently received their Masters degrees (oh wait...), we wanted to participate in the scavenger hunt that was associated with the Treetops Adventure.  It was so funny.  Along the route we had to find the answers to a variety of questions and it was actually pretty fun.  We also saw a 1500 year old Douglas Fir tree which was pretty awesome.  After finishing the course and acquiring our Treetop Adventurers pins (yes, I'm serious) we headed back over the bridge to head to the Cliff Walk.  The Cliff Walk was intense.  It consists of a series of cantilevered and suspended walkways that jut out from the face of the cliff that runs along the river.  At one point, the path juts out very far from the cliff in a half circle shape and is only attached to the cliff by a few cables.  It was a bit frightening and I'm not even afraid of heights.  The signs telling how the force of water continuously wears away the granite on the face of the cliff were probably not necessary.  There is even one spot when all that separates you from the canyon below is a glass platform.  It was really cool.  After we finished the Cliff Walk, we got our last stamp indicating we had completed all the adventure activities at the park and obtained our certificate of completion.  Then we headed to dinner and rested up for our next day of adventure.  

Treetop Adventure

Cliffwalk

On the Cliffwalk

On a glass platform jutting out above the river

Fun hat I tried on in the gift shop :-)

The next day we went sea kayaking!!  I've been kayaking a million times, mainly in Bonaire, but also in RI and probably elsewhere that I don't even remember, but Brianne had never been!!!  I didn't even know how that could be possible, but it's true.  So I decided that at some point on our trip we would have to go kayaking and Vancouver was a great choice.  We went with Deep Cove Canoe and Kayak and, since nobody else had signed up for our tour time, we had a private tour.  Despite going kayaking many times, I had never used a sea kayak so that was fun.  Unfortunately, it was suggested that I not bring my camera so there are few pictures from our excursion, but it was so much fun.  We kayaked out to a rocky little beach on the opposite shore, met some other kayakers, had really good donuts and bonded with our tour guide.  On the way back we learned more about all the beautiful houses that were right on the water.  The water was fairly cold, but not terribly so and I couldn't resist sticking my hand in several times.  Sadly, we didn't see any seals, but Brianne really enjoyed her first kayaking experience anyway.  This was also, technically, my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean, but I don't really like to count it because it felt like we were more in an inlet than anything else.  In order to get out to the open ocean we would have had to kayak for awhile.

After our sea kayaking adventure, we headed to Stanley Park which is an urban park on the border of downtown Vancouver.  It has a bunch of different stuff in it, but we basically just drove through some of the forest, walked along the seawall and took more pictures with totem poles.  The park is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, but I also don't consider this as being the first time I saw the Pacific (I'll get to that soon enough though).  The park was really nice and had great views of downtown Vancouver, but we didn't get to stay there too long because we had about a 7 hour drive to our next stop in Oregon.   

Totem poles at Stanley Park

Floating gas station?

View of downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park

Montana and Seattle

After we left Yellowstone we were looking at a 12 hour drive to Seattle.  Instead of doing this all at once, we ended up driving for about 3 hours and staying in (I think) Butte, MT for the night.  As we headed out of Yellowstone and further into Montana, we discovered that MT is a breathtakingly beautiful state.  I don't think I'd want to live there, but I wouldn't mind taking some vacations there.  We stayed in a sketchy little motel on the outskirts of town for the night and prepared for a long 8 hour drive to Seattle the next day.  We left Butte fairly early the next morning and I was once again immediately struck by Montana's beauty.  One of the first things I saw on our drive that day was one of four or five rainbows we would see in Montana.
We arrived in Seattle, also known as "The Emerald City", in the early afternoon and didn't really have any plans for what we wanted to see apart from the Space Needle.  So we checked into our hotel and headed over there.  It turned out that the Space Needle was just about the only thing we did in Seattle, but it was worth it.  We took the elevator to the top and it was typical Seattle weather -- gray and cloudy -- but we still enjoyed it.  Overall, I didn't really like Seattle, but we were also only there for a very brief time so I think I need to give it more of a chance before I make any judgements.

Fail

So I failed miserably at keeping up with this blog.  I hate when people say they are going to keep a blog and then don't follow through, but now I'm guilty of that exact offense.  In order to make amends for this I am going to completely catch up on all the travel I've done since I last wrote.  Get ready for some awesome posts, even if they are six months late.