Driving is Tiring

We are now beginning the long haul out east. We are in Portland Oregon and have decided to skip Vancouver, Jasper and the rest of Western Canada on account of exhaustion. I never thought I'd want to sleep so much while in such cool and faraway places. But alas while in the Majesty of the redwood forest I yearned for the comfort of my own bed and an ice cream cone from Four Seas. So we have decided to head back, stopping at Glacier and Yellowstone on the way. Western Canada will have to be another trip another time. Despite my current wave of exhaustion and the trip shortening I am quite happy to say I've found a new favorite place for driving, Howling Hill Road in the northern part of the redwood forest. It is simply an amazing place to be. My favorite thing about the redwoods was how good it smelt walking through the groves of the giants and how I felt so dwarfed by the massive trees. Photos will follow but there is nothing so good as seeing it for oneself and I recommend to anyone reading this who may get such a chance to do so.

Pacific Coast Highway

These photos aren't the best (note the visible smudges on the windshield, fingers and glare) but show our day long encounter with the Pacific Coast Highway from San Simon area to Monterey Bay. Not pictured is the lovely beach in Carmel-by-the-sea that we stopped at which warned "never turn your back to the ocean" and "you are in a danger zone" (high waves have swept people out to sea there and left on diver dead). Also Not pictured are the tons of elephant seals that go to the coastal beaches to Molt and Mate. Currently the males are on the beaches molting a yearly process that takes about one month. This website of a non-profit seal protection group has more information on this. http://www.elephantseal.org/

Santa Barbara

We had so much fun relaxing in Santa Barbara. Thanks so much to the Zandonas we went avocado and orange picking. We Hiked, Climbed and ate so much good and new food like tri-tip and Freebirds...

Us at the beach in Santa Barbara


Above the cloud cover of Santa Barbara
The wharf/pier had great views of the city and the ocean



Climbing on the Sandstone at Lizards Mouth was soooo much fun!

We will surely be returning to SB sooner rather than later!

Driving thru cali

Smog cloud suffocating LA
Wind farm around Palm Springs!

Joshua Tree National Park (California USA)

Our Campsite

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Fransisco

If Noah's post made any sense great, if not I'll recap. We got to Joshua Tree National Park from Flagstaff during a very hot week. The town near the park had forcasted highs of 109 for the entire week. Camping in the heat is not fun, climbing in the heat is not fun. We left Joshua Tree after two days and went to beautiful Santa Barbara, spent 4 days there and headed up to SF where we have been two days now.(And it is frigid here compared to Joshua Tree)

Joshua Tree was beautiful and we will return another time (in the winter). I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Joshua tree and the golden coast

just a short update here, as we were heading out of flagstaff we saw on the news that needles, a town near joshua tree had forecasted highs of 110, 43.3 in celsius, we thought that joshua tree would be a cool oasis in the middle of the desert.

when we got into joshua tree it was around 1 pm but we had to set up the tent and go meet my cousin barry for lunch and by the time we got back to our campsite it was much cooler and around high 80s, we sampled the granite climbing in the area and found it to be a lot of slab climbing and also greasy.

the next day however we decided to cut our trip to j-tree short when around noon the temperature in our tent was around 120.

that night however we went for a final hike and managed to not only see a herd of bighorn sheep hanging out on the rocks but also saw four males battling and butting heads over a female.

the next day we drove out around 9 am and we are now in santa barbara, which is very beautiful and a little bit colder then joshua tree.

photos of j-tree and santa barbara to come at some point. 

photos of bandaleir santa fe flagstaff grand canyon sedona sunset crater petrified forest painted desert

This is Bandaleir National Monument Some Native american ruins and Pueblos



Us in Santa Fe, NM

Noah at the oldest house in Santa Fe



The divide btw Arizona/NM if you don't know the continental divide determines water flow in the continent. West of the divide water flows to the pacific ocean, east of it flows to the atlantic
The painted Desert and Petrified Forest

Noah and I at the Tipees of the Painted Desert

Some petrified wood at Petrified Forest National Park

The drive to Sedona, Az

Hiking around sedona (the sphinx formation is in the background)

At the top of the Sugarloaf Hill trail

Noah with chimney rock in background

Us at Sunset Crater National Monument!

This is sunset crater a new-ish volcano that erupted about 500 years ago. Because of the way that it erupted. many cinder cones were formed in the area that are basically mounds of volcanic basalt.

lava flow visible at the bottom of the photo

Climbing at "the Pit" with Graham in Flagstaff Az

The Grand Canyon

We hiked the South Kaibab Trail

the black widow spider in her nestThe view from ooh-aah point

Noah with a century Yucca. It blooms once every 10-15 years but early people named it this because it felt like forever to them (a century)
At Cedar Ridge


View on the way back up
The snow/hail on the side of the road