So after I got back from the wedding in NC, I officially began by descent from the upper reaches of Canada (see flower flag below). I picked my madre up from the airport in Seattle and we began our Road Trip. On the agenda... well, we didn't know. I tried to get her to pick some places to go to, but instead we played it by ear. Stop 1: Seattle.
Put that on a Postcard
On the way down I-5, we came across Olympia. I have driven by Olympia and you literally don't even recognize you went through a city. I knew it was the capital city, so we made a stop. Disclaimer: it was sunset at the time, which makes everything in the world 100x more beautiful, but I don't think the city really needed the sunset to be beautiful. It had an awesome capitol grounds and it also had a concert in the park down the street. All in all, it looked like a great place to live.
Capitol Grounds (put that one on a postcard too)
After waking up, we made an inland journey to Mt. St. Helens. An hour of driving later, we came upon a foggy mess. We could see the ruins of the eruption, but we literally could not see the mountain/volcano. The two of us were pointing at distant ranges and smaller mountains. Finally the fog cleared enough for us to see the ginormous mountain in front of us. It was right in our face! Yet it took us an hour to recognize that with all the fog. Anyway, the visitor's center was really informative and had a nice recount of that day in 1980. It even had a story of a man and his wife floating down on trees away from the blast. Crazy!
This one is not postcard worthy, thus, I bought a postcard from the Visitors Center
Driving down I-5 South, we came across Portland. I had been to Portland once before and absolutely loved it. I told my mom and she seemed less enthused. She would have been happy to go through it, because she did not know of one touristy thing to do. I kept telling her, we got to stop... it is such a wonderful city. So we stopped and in the end, she tells me, "I wish we had more time here." CMON! We stopped at Powell's (the local bookstore that fills a city block) and ate lunch at a local brewery (which had ornate carved archways). A stop at 'Cupcake Jones' afterwards and my mom was hooked. Below is a tavern we ran across.
Turns out the phrase 'Life of Riley' means 'Living the Dream'.... how awesome is that?
After a night in Eugene, OR (home of University of Oregon.... the team that the Utes are going to throttle this coming year in football.... you heard it first right here), we headed southwest towards the coast and Redwood National Forest. There are not enough words to describe how awesome and spiritual those forests were. I took probably 50 pics of trees, but probably should not put them all in this post (believe me, there were plenty of postcard worthy pics too). Yet the pics really don't do them justice, as the trees just don't looks as tall and thick in diameter in the picture. You really need something (like me hugging the tree....here it comes, call me that environmentalist name) next to the tree for perspective. The 'treehugging' (hate the animosity behind that word when people use it... hell, I enjoy hugging trees...it's better than hugging a car or building) picture below is a middle of the pack redwood tree too.
I took lots of upwards pics, to try and capture the enormity of them.
Don't say it.....
After about 3-4 hours of tree viewing we finally came across 'Big Tree'. One of my mom's favorite stories of the trip is me seeing the road sign for 'Big Tree' and slamming on the brakes and pulling onto the shoulder to look at the tree the arrow was pointing to. We both thought it was an average redwood and were confused why we drove out of our way to see something we had already seen. Getting in the car, we drove a quarter mile more and saw the parking lot for the Big Tree. The sign earlier was just letting us know to take a left, and it was not pointing at any tree in particular. I'm college educated....
Creative Name...
We saw a herd of about 25 elk just outside the forest... pretty neat to see them that close.
After driving through the redwoods, we came upon the ocean. My mom had never been to the ocean and she honestly got a little giddy when she saw it.. I pulled a NASCAR-like maneuver and parked the car so we could go walk the beach. We got the feet wet and gathered rocks/seashells for the nieces and for her pond at home. We also got some pretty awesome vistas from the historic 101 Pacific HGWY. Here is one of them:
Ocean Vista Postcard, count it!
At this point of our trip, the ole Suzuki Forenza had to do some serious mountain climbing, winding up and around many ranges. The first was during the night (and come to find out, with only 1 headlight. I credit our survival to my awesome driving). The second was on our way to and through Lake Tahoe (where we stopped because that is where my mom and dad got married). We looked for the romantic wedding chapel, but could not find it (still interesting to see where it all started). Instead, we got some good looking views of the lake (specifically, Emerald Bay).
Finally, after Lake Tahoe, we kept the best for last. Driving I-80E to Salt Lake City. There is nothing better than driving ~500 miles from Reno to SLC than going through such glorious cities such as Winnemuca, Battle Springs, Elko, and Wendover. If you want classy sophistication, look no further. Too bad I took no pictures to show you :)
1 comment:
Okay I have not commented thus far, but really Alyson, the first time seeing the ocean?!?!? You are a young middle aged woman for crying out loud. I blame Max for this :) You two need to get out more!
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