After the highly technical camping experience in the KOA campground by Olympic Park we never were able to blog again till tonight (Sunday) at Phil and Joyce's house in San Francisco! We were also just super busy exploring and driving and trying to find camp sites in the middle of the night!
For those of you who have not heard CC was fine (we think she just needed a rest) but after that night of positive thinking she has not smoked from her back end again! Fingers crossed-because tomorrow we are heading to Yosemite and that is a pretty steep climb for CC who is almost my age! :)
So the adventure managed to continue in Washington because once the car was tested by a mini test drive for twenty minutes around Port Angeles in search of my sunglasses which I had lost in the craze of events. We had am incredible hike in the rainforest. The problem with the trails there is there are not many options. there are two very short hike's that are between 2-3 miles approximately and then there is the 17.5 mile hike to mount Olympus...well can you guess which one I wanted to do? Don't worry we saved that hike for another visit, although we did start on it and managed to do a total of about 7 miles round trip. We still got to see a lot of really interesting landscape with all kinds of neat waterfalls and contrasting settings like super rocky beaches on one side along the river and then dense rain forest on the other. We talked for an entire 4 hours and "we" ( well really Elena) shot tons of pictures which I know you will all want to see but putting pictures on is actually pretty complicated so you may have to see those in person!
One thing I did realize while we were walking is that walking is great!!! I think we forget how wonderful it can be to just go on a walk. So if you have not gone on a walk in a while try it, especially in the woods because it is really something! All the different wood smells and sounds and the thumping of your feet to the rhythm of your heart beat are really calming and exhilarating at the same time! I am sure if they have not already proved it they will some day show that walking diminishes the effect of aging...or some mumbo jumbo like that!
Anyway there is my random side note.
After words we wanted to make a straight shot for Oregon so after we packed up our tent we skipped through Oregon relatively quickly meeting some really nice people along the way including a crazy Canadian crabber whose camping site we stayed at and who lent us his pedal kayaks for an hour in exchange for the two of us "advertising" them for him by riding them around the bay. It was actually our best camping experience...well till the next one which was free (kind of) and even though we were there for less than 10 hours we saw the sun setting and the moon rising over the ocean, with Venus by their side.
Of course a lot happened on the way but this entry is already way to long and we are planning on waking up at a ridiculously early time tomorrow to get to Yosemite on time (a practice which we have done increasingly more of as the reality of how much we are trying to do has sunk in...)
So skip forward past a lot of really nice stops in cute little towns along the coast and some stressful curvy driving and picture the two of us driving into San Francisco at 8pm on Friday night, with Elena driving and me back-seat driving and the two of us singing "when you are going to Saaan Fraaanciscooo be sure to..." (but of course we did not know the whole song so it was really a pretty painful sound and we were also dealing with the Californian drivers who did not seem to appreciate CC's 'maturity' or our desire to drive somewhat cautiously (a.k.a slowly) in one of the 2 left most lanes on the highway...all I can say is thank goodness for Tom Tom during that drive into the city because his robotic voice managed to calm me down a little and get us to where we needed to be!
San Francisco by Foot & Mouth
San Francisco has been amazing, and even more so Phil and Joyce and Sarah and Lizzy have been amazing. We all went out to a diner style breakfast the first morning with the most plates on the wall you have ever seen!!!! Then Elena and I went with Sarah and Joyce to her orthodontist on Union street ( a very upscale area...where I seriously resisted walking into a Ralph Lauren Store which was oh soooo cute!). Then Elena and I walked down to the water all up and down these incredibly steep hills that are impressive in pictures but more frustrating in reality! Elena really wanted to take a cable car but there was an hour long wait for them and everyone was packed in like sardines so we decided to walk...in the end this turned out to be 1. great exercise 2. a great way to see the city 3. smart- because as we were walking to the trains after our whole day of adventure we saw an empty cable car with just the driver and talked our way into sitting on it and having an entire photo shoot on it! So we got the best of all sides!
We pretty much ate our way through San Francisco! Well, after walking up and down all those hills we were hungry!!! So we went to an Italian Bakery in the little Italy of North Beach as an appetizer and then to this really amazing, but from the outside rather unappealing, pizza place called Golden Boy's Pizza that we read about in the Lonely Planet book Elena brought, we had delicious pesto vegetarian pizza and sausage combination pizza and I got to try Hemp Beer- which I had never heard of but it was really really REALLY good...we actually ended up ordering another round of both pizza and beer. One would think you would be filled up after all of that...well we were but we still wanted to try so many things! So we searched deep down in our souls and made room for cappuccinos and hot spice milk at Cafe Trieste which is an eclectic little cafe in North Beach where we met very eclectic people... let's just leave it at that. We ended the night in the oldest bar in town which we think may have had both the oldest bar tenders and the oldest beer as well...but some pretty chill music and some great opportunities for people watching!
Today was a bit more relaxing we started the morning with a farmers market and stocked up for our trip with lots of yummies for the cool box and a full tummy of Indian food and Belgian waffles for breakfast- a surprisingly delicious combination. Later that day we walked around The Haight (sp?) where Lizzy goes to Urban High School- and it was a wacky area lots to see of both the people and the store's. We tried on some really cool old fashioned dresses and what a surprise?!-ate some more deliciousness which included hot chocolate, chocolate mint tea, and chocolate pudding! YUM! We finished the night off with maybe the best Chinese food I have ever had and a trip up to this hill where you can look down on the Golden Gate Bridge- drinking wine that Phil had made himself and I had actually seen being made while I visited him last October.
It has really been a great trip and I am really tired which is why this post will be un-edited but I would just like to thank all the people who have been so wonderful on our trip- it is all of you who have made it that much more magical ( and often have made it much more practical- considering we may not always think things through enough...)
I am going to bed for like six and half hours before we wake up so we can have lots more adventures!!!
Love to all
E&A
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