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Erin and Kerri take the west coast

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Trip Summary!

Thanks so much to Bryce for driving us to LAX this morning at 6:15am. A super benevolent friend for waking up early and driving three hours for us. Days: 21 Stops: 9 Modes of transportation: Plane, ferry, bus, train, car Miles traveled: 1600 Hours spent in Huck: 31+ Cats played with: 3 Cats Erin liked: 1 Sharks stepped on: 1 😨 Photos taken by Kerri: 1,300 Personal records: "Longest trip either of us have ever taken!" and "Best longest trip either of us have ever taken!"

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OUR LAST DAY! So not many photos today. Apparently we enjoyed ourselves too much to document the fun! We started our day by sleeping in. Bryce had been traveling before we got to him, so he was pretty lacking in his beloved 8-hour nights, and fortunately, Erin and I can't turn down an extra hour or two of sleep. But after breakfast, we got moving right away. First, we rented a surrey down by the shore. The surrey fit three people, but only two seats have pedals, so we let the middle person reach across another biker to steer and brake. For a good chunk of the ride, Erin steered and told a story of an imagined world we were driving through while Bryce and I kept our eyes closed. What a classic Creative Writing major ;) Don't worry--I know this sounds dangerous, but we were on a bike path going about 5mph so we were very safe. We returned the surrey and then Bryce led us on a tour of his elementary/middle school and childhood home. Bryce and his family used to grow olives and several fruit trees in their yard. Seemingly, all of Santa Barbara is super beautiful! After a speedy lunch, Bryce took us to a Vocal Masterclass at the Music Academy of the West (where Bryce used to take voice lessons). In a Masterclass, the audience watches four soloists from different voice parts perform a short opera song, and then their vocal instructor coaches them on how to perfect their sound and technique. The vocal coach, Fred Carama, was excellent and very funny. It was really cool! Even Erin enjoyed it :) We went straight to the beach from there where Erin and Bryce played beach volleyball against Bryce's friends, Dan and Jessie. While they did this, I went for my first beach run, which was definitely hard! But fun :) Though I accidentally stepped on a dead thresher shark that was white and blended very well with the rocks I was attempting to traverse. My foot may never unfeel that... But then Bryce and Erin joined me to play in the ocean and all was fine! We ate dinner at an incredible vegetarian restaurant called Mesa Verde. Somehow, Erin and I ended up having pizza and beer again (just like San Fran). But the fig, hummus, honey, and caramelized onion pizza was well worth it. We stopped for ice cream after at Bryce's favorited creamery. Erin classily bought mint chip, and I went with dark chocolate. To end our final night, we watched The Last Five Years, which is a musical about a couple in their 20s trying to make their relationship work. We wouldn't recommend it but some of the music was great. Still an awesome final day!

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Some more photos from the 9th! Saying goodbye to Huck, chalk art, animals (including an adorable Channel Islands Fox that chased its tail in circles), and the beautiful pool at the Coral.

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The inside of a courtroom and two of the chalk drawings outside the Mission

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The 9th was our first full day in SB. Bryce took us to the courthouse which has beautiful murals in many of the courtrooms and to the Spanish Mission. The Mission had the remnants of beautiful chalk art out front from a festival (pictures to come). We then tossed a disc around for a little bit before getting lunch with Bryce's dad at Backyard Bowls. It's an amazing yogurt/berries/granola place that they love. It was soooo good; I wish I had one back home, but I'm sure it would make me go broke. After lunch we went to the Santa Barbara zoo! Some of our favorites were the elephants, giraffes, and the gorillas, one of which had a pretty serious bonding moment with Bryce through the glass. It was pretty cool. Bryce had to do some PT that afternoon so we went to the Coral which is a beach club. It was super fancy and had a pool, gym, spa, and restaurant, but Kerri and I most enjoyed the ping pong, foosball, and shuffle board tables. Then we came back to the house for a delicious dinner (gluten free pasta with butter, garlic, and Rosemary is to die for) and a viewing of Rocky which none of us had seen in its entirety. Needless to say, it's a solid film.

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More photos from the Getty and dinner at the harbour

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Family reunion! (Taken on the 7th)

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July 8th! After warm goodbye hugs, we left Sue and Bob's house and started our journey to Santa Barbara. Fortunately, SB is super close, so we filled our morning with a trip the Getty Villa. The Villa was modeled after Roman villas with the wealth of J. Paul Getty. We took a tour of the architecture in the villa, museum, and gardens with an adorable guide who told the whole tour as if we were Romans. The museum is an eclectic collection of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian artifacts and is placed on a hill overlooking the ocean. We left LA County and headed (through traffic as always) to Santa Barbara. We spent some time at Chaucer's used bookstore, and then headed to the beach per Bryce's advice. Erin played some pick-up ultimate frisbee. Good training for beach ultimate in Wildwood in two weeks! And I took a long walk exploring the beach. We finally met with Bryce! Yay friends! We met him and his mom at the wharf to eat delicious seafood as the sun set, and even explored the breakwater. A great start to our last stop!

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On the 7th, we had our only full day in Agoura Hills. We had a leisurely morning before heading to the La Brea Tar Pits in LA. It's this really awesome museum/active excavation area where they've found the remains of hundreds of animals dating back to the ice age in the Tar Pits. They discovered the pits when they started digging to build a parking garage for the LACMA, the neighboring art museum. They needed a place to house the fossils, so they built the tar pits museum. It was really cool to walk around and see full skeletons of saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, mammoths, giant ground sloths, and a number of more modern creatures. Did you know saber-toothed cats can open their jaws to past 90 degrees?! So cool! After the pits, we went for a quick dip in the Eddy's pool which was a lovely 85 degrees. Their backyard is gorgeous with a patio, garden, and pool. Unfortunately we had to leave it quickly to go to dinner with the Eddy's and their son James at the Malibu Inn (we're so Cali) just over the hills from Agoura Hills. We stopped for a quick photo op at the top of the hills and had a great view of Agoura on one side and Malibu and the beach on the other. The restaurant was right on the beach and we sat on a beautiful back deck with wicker chairs, blankets, heaters, and even a fire pit. It was wonderful to eat while watching and listening to the waves crash around us. Such a fantastic dinner! Then we headed home and caught an hour or two of Shark Week before we hit the hay. Thank you Eddys for a wonderful stay!

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The tunnel view!

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On June 6, we spent a couple final hours driving through Yosemite before we left. We made two stops to hike Bridalveil Falls and the Lower Yosemite Falls, respectively. Both fortunately only 20-minute hikes.

Before our first stop to Bridalveil Falls, we had read in the Yosemite newspaper about how the drought has affected the falls. It is typical for the falls to reach peak water in May and dry up in August, but this year, their peak water was February, meaning that the falls might have dried up by now. Bridalveil Falls, my first photo, is indeed just a trickle of water it seems. You can see the darker rock on either side of the water where the falls used to be. Poor falls :(

Upper and Lower Falls weren’t quite so bad. Still clearly thinner than normal, but a magnificent sight nevertheless.

Finally, just before we drove completely away from the grounds of the park, we passed a turn-off for the Tunnel View. This is the famous Yosemite perspective of the valley with the rock formations of El Capitan on the left and Sentinel Rock on the right of the valley. This is shown in my next to last photo. We were so thrilled, because both of us were wishing we could’ve seen a bird’s eye view of the valley. Driving through it, you don’t get a sense of the big picture. Tunnel View is definitely a must.

Then, we officially embarked on the five-hour or so drive to Agoura Hills in Los Angeles County to visit my cousins, Sue and Bob. I included a photo at the end that Erin took of how desert-like and mountainous it was while I was driving.

We got to my cousins’ place just in time to eat dinner with them on their back patio. They were thrilled to have us, because in all these years, no one from my family has flown out to visit. We ate a delicious home-cooked meal, complete with ice cream and fresh berries while chatting with my cousins as the sun set. And then slept like rocks.

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More Yosemite! Highlights: Marmots being super cute, coyotes, and our campground.

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On the 5th, we hit the road for Yosemite at 7am because we had just that one day to hike. We started really seeing the effects of the drought on this drive as the scrub got drier and as we passed charred sections of forest. It was definitely unsettling and sad, but don't worry parents we are fine and paying attention to fire warnings. You can really see the difference between the harsh dry land outside the park (my first photo) and the later, more lush photos from higher elevations that received more snow melt and rain this winter/spring. But Yosemite is struggling too, as you'll see in our waterfall pics when we post about the 6th. Anyway, we got into Yosemite about 11 and then drove past Crane Flat, our campground, up Tioga Road away from the Valley to Toulumne Meadows. After a quick lunch, we hiked up the Lembert Dome and Dog Lake trails, about 4 miles round trip. The beginning was strenuous going through the forest but it flattened out after about the first mile. We shortly reached the Dome itself, a sheer piece of rock that juts up above the tree line. It was strange to finish our hike on this exposed, smooth, huge rock, but the view of the Meadows was amazing. Then we backtracked a bit to reach the Dog Lake trail which was a short additional 0.3 miles. It spilled out on the edge of a beautiful lake between the mountains. Kerri dipped her toes into the chilly water and we are some trail mix before returning to Huck. Since that trail didn't take as much time or energy as we expected, we headed farther east to the Tioga Road entrance where we hiked the Gaylor Lakes trail. The trail was very steep up some well-placed rock steps and switchbacks to the peak which offered a fantastic view. Our bodies were definitely glad that that was the last hike of the day. The trail then wanders down into a valley to Gaylor Lake which is stunning. We saw several marmots on the way down, which are super cute and so fuzzy! Afterward we were very prepared to buy marmot stuffed animals we had seen earlier that day but, alas, we did not stumble on them again. We sat down by the lake for a while just appreciating the warm sun and soft sound of the water lapping on the rocks. It was so peaceful. If you're prepared to climb up, it's absolutely worth it. We also saw a coyote minding its own business, using the paths to walk around the lake. The whole setting was very picturesque. Unfortunately we had to leave to make sure we could set up our camp before dark, so we headed down. Everything went smoothly at the campground which is conveniently located at the fork in the road between Toulumne and the Valley. It being July 4th weekend, we were very happy and lucky to find a spot so close on short notice (we booked this campground back in Portland after deciding spur of the moment that we would fit Yosemite into the trip). We had a gourmet dinner of PB&Js and another great fire with roasted marshmallows between fudge striped cookies. A gooey and delicious way to spend our last evening of camping.

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A few more from the 4th. Includes my (Erin's) sushirrito picture before realizing it was closed (I'm still so sad), a picture of the Pier 39 carousel for my mom, and more fireworks obscured by fog in classic San Francisco fashion

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Happy (belated) Independence Day! On the 4th, we let ourselves sleep in and took advantage of Geoff's offer to let us do our laundry. (Thanks Geoff!) We then took the bus successfully (yay!) to catch another tour downtown. Unfortunately, we went to the wrong place to meet the tour. We struggled a bit in San Fran...but no fear! We power-walked like no other and made it to our tour about the silent film era in San Fran. Our guide was phenomenal. Really dramatic and clearly infatuated with silent film. Our walk took us through Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in America, and ended at Union Square. The poor quality photo of a door was the highlight of the tour. Behind that door used to be a speak easy where the dialogue scene of The Jazz Singer was filmed. Essentially, this scene marked the end of the silent film era. So cool! After the tour, Erin was on a mission to eat a Sushirrito (a burrito of sushi!), but all the locations closed by 4pm and it was already 5 :( Nooo! It's ok, they'll be opening a location in NY soon. Instead, we wandered through the Ferry Building and snapped some photos outside of the Bay bridge before eating at Pizza Orgasmica. Apparently, we're attracted to happy hours with pizza deals, because we hit up this pizzeria and brewery for their happy hour. We ate their Hot Mama with pineapple, sausage, red pepper and onion. A great find! And cheap. Of course, it wouldn't be 4th of July without fireworks, so we braved the crowd at pier 39 and watched a magnificent, albeit foggy, show. They shot the fireworks off over the water in front of Alcatraz and had two shows in complete synchronization so that people could view the fireworks from many spots. It was so crowded when we got to the train station that we walked an hour back to Geoff's house and quickly crashed.

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Yummy ice cream!

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On the 3rd, our first full day in San Fran, we went to Dubuce Park Cafe for a delicious breakfast. Then we caught a bus that we thought would take us to Golden Gate Park to catch a free walking tour, but apparently there is more than one #37 (thanks for the heads up Google Maps...). When we realized we had diverged from our intended path, we hopped off and walked to the park which took us at least half an hour. 

 Needless to say, we missed the start of our tour, but we managed to find them! So we hopped on about 20 minutes late and walked around the east end of the park. We learned some weird tidbits about the park (the Daughters and Sons of Liberty had donated a sequoia and an elm respectively to celebrate independence!) and then wandered farther into the park on our own. We saw the Shakespeare Garden, the Buffalo Paddock (what?! Awesome.), and the windmill at the west end. 

 We hung out at the beach at the end of the park for a while before taking the train downtown to catch Palio d'Asti's happy hour. Buy two adult beverages get a normally $18 pizza for $3!! It was amazing. Then we took the train to Bi-rite Creamery up by Geoff's house. The line went around the corner so we knew it would be good! 

 After at least a half hour wait, we both got the strawberry balsamic ice cream. Kerri paired it with Blue Bottle Coffee which is coffee ice cream with almonds and chocolate chips while I added mint chocolate chip (not a surprise to those who know me). Kerri says the Summer House staff should do some research on the exotic flavors of Portland and San Fran. 'Twas a delicious day :)