Sorry I have not been blogging regularly.... It has taken us a while to get into the swing of things... driving all day, checking in and out of hotels, getting gas, food, ect. So far things have been going great and the scenery has been beautiful!
Our journey began in Salt Lake City and on our first day we made our way to Reno Nevada. If you have ever been anywhere in the state of Nevada you know what I'm saying when I say how horrible that state is... There is nothing redeeming about Nevada besides the fact that I-80 is incredibly straight and you can quickly make your way to the border. We stayed in a very nice hotel that night in Reno (Holiday Inn Express will never disappoint me) and we made the good decision to leave our room as little as possible. We at at the local Applebees and stopped by the Harley Davidson store next to our hotel but other than that we were safely inside of our hotel and blissfully unaware of the nastiness outside of our window.
We promptly left Reno and found ourselves at Lake Tahoe. Leaving Nevada we had to cross the border into California... As we were approaching the gate I remembered that California always checks the produce coming in and out of the state.. I quickly remembered that I stole two apples that morning from our hotel in Reno and that they were currently hiding in the backseat in our very apparent red cooler. Maya and I start shouting about whether or not we should lie to this man about said apples.. They looked so delicious did I really want to expose their identity and risk having them taken captive by this man in an orange vest? If we lied and said we didn't have any apples would he somehow know we were lying and then arrest us on the spot? We both decided it wasn't worth lying about and as we approached the gate the first question the man asked was "where are you coming from?" Where am I coming from? What is that supposed to mean? "UTAH!" I blurt out not knowing if I should have said that or Reno... I knew what question was coming next "Do you have any produce with you?" He asks looking in the backseat... "YES! WE HAVE TWO APPLES!" I almost shout... (I am not good at lying). The man in the vest starts laughing at us realizing how nervous we were and told us we were fine and that our apples most likely came from California if we got them from our hotel in Reno. We thanked him and were quickly on our way. (Those apples were delicious and I'm glad we didn't have to sacrifice them to this man in the bright vest).
Lake Tahoe was beautiful and we took a route around half of the lake and ended up on the outskirts of San Francisco. San Francisco wasn't too spectacular... We waited in traffic for over an hour and.... yep that's about it.
After that we went down highway 1 and saw our first glimpse of the ocean from the highway. It was a very exciting moment. We spent some time in Half Moon Bay which was a really fun surf town. On one side of highway 1 were a a lot of farms with rows of some sort of plant life and the other had views of the ocean. It was great. We spent some time on the beach before heading to Redwood City to spend the night at a cheap motel. Redwood City is a fun little city with lots and lots of restaurants. It was fun to walk around for a minute but we were also tired and quickly retreated to our room for some sleep.
Today we continued our way back through San Francisco (still glad we escaped that traffic) and up north to Eureka. On our way we stopped at a couple beaches and took some photos and stretched our legs. Maya (the champ) drove almost all day today while I had to close my eyes because "I was experiencing motion sickness." :)
We passed through a mini Redwood Forest which was really fun. On our way we kept seeing signs saying "COME DRIVE THROUGH A TREE!!!!" We were stoked... To say the least. We faithfully followed the signs and quickly made our way to this famous tree. We pull up to a gate and a lady asks us for five dollars "It's going to be worth it" Maya told me as we handed the lady our precious five dollar bill. We followed a windy dirt road commenting on how pretty the landscape was... We felt like we found this secret gem and we felt like we were exploring a new land. Well we get to this tree and it is not nearly as big around as we were expecting... There was a line of minivans in front of us creeping their way toward this tree you can drive through. We made fun of them as we waited in line for creeping through so slowly but before long it was finally our turn! We approached excitedly but quickly realized we probably weren't going to fit.... There we were making fun of the minivans for driving slowly and then it turns out we couldn't even fit at all! The Mustang is a really wide car and the rearview mirrors don't fold in.... We backed up in shame and drove around the tree to the parking lot. We thought we would find redemption in the gift shop but this was obviously a big tourist scam... The gift shop was full of crap (it was seeping from the port-a-potties outside... sorry TMI!) BUT we recovered from this fail and continued on our way. We drove down the Avenue of Giants which contains some Redwood Trees much like the ones I'm assuming we will find tomorrow in the national park. Eureka has some charm but it is definitely a town I won't exactly miss. I need to go do some research about where we are going tomorrow so I must part. Sorry it took me so long to post this first entry I promise I will be better! Thank you loyal readers and I will keep you updated!
Our journey began in Salt Lake City and on our first day we made our way to Reno Nevada. If you have ever been anywhere in the state of Nevada you know what I'm saying when I say how horrible that state is... There is nothing redeeming about Nevada besides the fact that I-80 is incredibly straight and you can quickly make your way to the border. We stayed in a very nice hotel that night in Reno (Holiday Inn Express will never disappoint me) and we made the good decision to leave our room as little as possible. We at at the local Applebees and stopped by the Harley Davidson store next to our hotel but other than that we were safely inside of our hotel and blissfully unaware of the nastiness outside of our window.
We promptly left Reno and found ourselves at Lake Tahoe. Leaving Nevada we had to cross the border into California... As we were approaching the gate I remembered that California always checks the produce coming in and out of the state.. I quickly remembered that I stole two apples that morning from our hotel in Reno and that they were currently hiding in the backseat in our very apparent red cooler. Maya and I start shouting about whether or not we should lie to this man about said apples.. They looked so delicious did I really want to expose their identity and risk having them taken captive by this man in an orange vest? If we lied and said we didn't have any apples would he somehow know we were lying and then arrest us on the spot? We both decided it wasn't worth lying about and as we approached the gate the first question the man asked was "where are you coming from?" Where am I coming from? What is that supposed to mean? "UTAH!" I blurt out not knowing if I should have said that or Reno... I knew what question was coming next "Do you have any produce with you?" He asks looking in the backseat... "YES! WE HAVE TWO APPLES!" I almost shout... (I am not good at lying). The man in the vest starts laughing at us realizing how nervous we were and told us we were fine and that our apples most likely came from California if we got them from our hotel in Reno. We thanked him and were quickly on our way. (Those apples were delicious and I'm glad we didn't have to sacrifice them to this man in the bright vest).
Lake Tahoe was beautiful and we took a route around half of the lake and ended up on the outskirts of San Francisco. San Francisco wasn't too spectacular... We waited in traffic for over an hour and.... yep that's about it.
After that we went down highway 1 and saw our first glimpse of the ocean from the highway. It was a very exciting moment. We spent some time in Half Moon Bay which was a really fun surf town. On one side of highway 1 were a a lot of farms with rows of some sort of plant life and the other had views of the ocean. It was great. We spent some time on the beach before heading to Redwood City to spend the night at a cheap motel. Redwood City is a fun little city with lots and lots of restaurants. It was fun to walk around for a minute but we were also tired and quickly retreated to our room for some sleep.
Today we continued our way back through San Francisco (still glad we escaped that traffic) and up north to Eureka. On our way we stopped at a couple beaches and took some photos and stretched our legs. Maya (the champ) drove almost all day today while I had to close my eyes because "I was experiencing motion sickness." :)
We passed through a mini Redwood Forest which was really fun. On our way we kept seeing signs saying "COME DRIVE THROUGH A TREE!!!!" We were stoked... To say the least. We faithfully followed the signs and quickly made our way to this famous tree. We pull up to a gate and a lady asks us for five dollars "It's going to be worth it" Maya told me as we handed the lady our precious five dollar bill. We followed a windy dirt road commenting on how pretty the landscape was... We felt like we found this secret gem and we felt like we were exploring a new land. Well we get to this tree and it is not nearly as big around as we were expecting... There was a line of minivans in front of us creeping their way toward this tree you can drive through. We made fun of them as we waited in line for creeping through so slowly but before long it was finally our turn! We approached excitedly but quickly realized we probably weren't going to fit.... There we were making fun of the minivans for driving slowly and then it turns out we couldn't even fit at all! The Mustang is a really wide car and the rearview mirrors don't fold in.... We backed up in shame and drove around the tree to the parking lot. We thought we would find redemption in the gift shop but this was obviously a big tourist scam... The gift shop was full of crap (it was seeping from the port-a-potties outside... sorry TMI!) BUT we recovered from this fail and continued on our way. We drove down the Avenue of Giants which contains some Redwood Trees much like the ones I'm assuming we will find tomorrow in the national park. Eureka has some charm but it is definitely a town I won't exactly miss. I need to go do some research about where we are going tomorrow so I must part. Sorry it took me so long to post this first entry I promise I will be better! Thank you loyal readers and I will keep you updated!
