West Coast Tour

Back in April, Megan and I took a trip down the West Coast, starting in Seattle and finishing in San Francisco. We rented a car and drove down the coast. It was out last big vacation before the big "event" :) We enjoyed it immensely - it was just adventurous enough to see some amazing sights, but relaxing enough for those of us who needed to carry an extra person around every where we went (boy were my arms tired). Without further ado - the trip: We started out with a day in Seattle. While we didn't get any great pictures of them, the city is surrounded by mountains, with Mount Ranier towering over everything. It is an impressive sight. Here's a quick picture.

We stayed downtown, and spent the majority of our day around Pike's Place market. It may be a big tourist destination, but it was for good reason. There were tons of interesting things for sale - Megan
took lots of good pictures

They were throwing fish all over the place. Should have got a video.

We took some of the smoked salmon in that picture on the road with us. It was delicious. We also bought some salmon jerky. Not quite as tasty, but a good road food that would last a couple days without refrigeration. They had tons of fresh flowers for sale. Megan got some really good pictures of
the flowers

Probably the most impressive people we ran into were Thor and Jim Parsons.  Who knew they hung out together?  Thor was a little intense - Jim was a little more laid back.

Other Seattle highlights included the infamous gum wall.  Don't ask me why they have a famous gum wall - it was gross enough just witnessing it.

The next day we were on the road, and the real sights started to pop up.  The next few days were spent along the Oregon coast, which was amazing.

Below is a picture of Cape Disappointment, where Lewis and Clark ended their push West (since they couldn't go any farther West).  It is where the Columbia river enters the Pacific ocean.  When Lewis and Clark first arrived, they were rained on for nearly four months straight.  We had beautiful weather.  You can see a ship navigating its way into the mouth of the river.  While it looks wide open, there are many shallow areas where boats can get stuck - it actually takes quite a bit of skill to navigate the opening.

Here's a cove we found a little farther down the road.  Megan and I both agreed it was the most beautiful place we saw on the trip.  To get there, we had to hike about a mile and a half through thick Oregon rainforest, which then opened up into this beautiful beach, surrounded by the rocky shore. 

While it seems like Oregon wouldn't be the place for a rainforest, the coast gets so much rain that it is considered rain forest.  And when you walk through the woods, all you see is dense foliage and green everywhere.  Pictures below were of a hike to a waterfall.  The waterfall doesn't look as impressive as it did in person, as it actually was over 200 feet tall.  But the pictures do give you a good idea of how thick the forest was.

Once we hit Northern California, we ran into the giant redwoods.  They are beasts.  We also ran into some banana slugs, which Megan thought were pretty cute.

Lastly was San Francisco.  We were lucky enough to be able to stay with our good friend Alejandro and his girlfriend Ryane.  They were great hosts, and showed us all around San Francisco.  We had all the local specialties, which included some delicious coffee and ice cream.  We wrapped up the trip with a hike to the Golden Gate bridge.

It was a great vacation!