Day 4: Waking up to grey skies was a wonderful surprise as the weather had previously forecasted no clouds all day. The drive through the Quinault Forest was one of the prettiest parts of our entire drive. Huge trees lining the road with low hanging fog...breathtaking. we stopped at Beach 3(yes that's literally what it's called) and walked around for a bit. I love the ocean. Then we made our way up the coast to the Hoh Rainforest. Don't get me wrong, the rainforest was amazing..it just didn't exactly match the pictures I had expected in my head. Sunny and very dry, not really what you would imagine a rainforest to look like. A stop at Tillamook was a must on our way to Aunt Carries house. And of course we had to get some ice cream. After the dessert break we finally made it to Portland where we met Amber with the key to Carrie and Ken's apartment(they were gone until the next night so we had the whole place to ourselves...good and bad). Picked up some Thai Food for dinner and passed out in a nice comfy bed.
Day 5: First thing in the morning we headed to Multnomah Falls and Oneonta Gorge. By far one of the coolest hikes I've ever been on. You hike up a slot canyon, wade through water(freezing cold water) and a climb over huge log jams until you reach an amazing waterfall carved into the back of the gorge. The rest of the day was filled with relaxing and a mexican dinner out with Carrie and Ken. We visited for a while afterwards with Rachel and her husband and then began our drive towards California. After driving for a couple hours I fell asleep and not long after that Travis pulled off onto a random road and we ended up just sleeping in our car.
Day 6: Life is a Highway
After a mediocre night of sleep in the car, we were awakened by my phone at 5am. We figured we might as well start making our way to California since we had such a long day of driving ahead of us. It was suuuper foggy the first couple hours. We pulled off at one of the beaches along the highway to find a lighthouse but could barely see five feet in front of us..and we nearly were blown away by the wind! Needless to say we didn't make it to the lighthouse. After a few hours of driving I took a turn at the wheel and let Travis get some more sleep. The first time in over 2000 miles that I've driven..He loves me.
After a quick lunch at Applebees we headed for the Redwoods. The trees were HUGE. Bigger than anything else we'd seen this trip and we'd seen a lot of trees. We drove a few scenic roads and hiked a cute little trail deep In the forest. On the trail we found three banana slugs! So cool. From there we made our way to San Francisco. Got to cross the golden gate bridge at night which was gorgeous(but expensive) and ended our night with a chicken nugget dinner and another sleepover in the car.
Day 7: Drove down the coast almost the entire way to Los Angeles. We stopped at channel islands National Park(the visitor center anyway since you can only access the islands by boat) bringing our national park count for the trip up to 5. Spent the day with Brandon, Travis' friend/roomate from Hawaii. For being an LA native, he didn't have very many non-touristy ideas of things for us to do. We walked the main boardwalk, hit up a ferris-wheel(at Travis' request), and ate dinner at panda express. Not bad, but nothing out of the ordinary. He did suggest a cool hike but it ended up being closed due to a wildfire nearby so that was a no go. After chatting with a couple of Brandon's friends for hours we decided to just spend the night at his place and leave in the morning. Next time we''ll definitely have to use the temple patron housing that's available. We didn't even think about using it.
Woke up to find some sweet elephant seals on the beach!
Day 8: The drive to San Diego was relatively short compared to the other legs of our journey. It was a nice change. We drove straight to the temple and decided to do a session there. The temple is gorgeous. And the terrarium...so cool. I'm grateful that we have so many temples and that we can attend them often.
Our stomachs were growling at us by the time we left the temple so we stopped at a little surf shop for sandwiches. Then we made our way to Cabrillo National Monument and lighthouse. Unfortunately we got there too late to explore the tide pools but the lighthouse and army bunkers were pretty cool to see. After some shopping and a dip in the hot tub at our hotel, we ate dinner at Travis' favorite childhood restaurant Filipis Pizza. I wasn't as impressed but it wasn't bad. We fed the rest of my pizza to some homeless guy's pets haha..at least it went somewhere.
Day 9: The drive back to AZ and home!!! Family dinner with the Stradlings and delicious food.
