Days 5 & 6 - June 28th & 29th, 2012

First off, I want to give a very special thank you to Jon and Kellye Mayhew for helping us out in San Francisco. They used some of their built up points to get a hotel for us for tonight and tomorrow night! Awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Everyone has been too kind, really. We sincerely appreciate everything everyone has done for us, whether it was chipping in on gas money or whatever else. We are truly humbled and blessed by the love everyone has shown us!

Let's see, we started off yesterday morning in Portland, OR and drove through Oregon to the coast and down to the Redwoods... well, we stopped right before the Redwoods at least. We were exhausted the night before we stayed in Oregon, so we decided to catch up on sleep a bit and got a late start the next day. We stopped briefly when we hit the Oregon coast (this was our first ever view of the Pacific Ocean) and took pictures, Skyped, etc. There were tons of cool stones and rocks, so we picked up a few. We're hoping someone will be able to use them for some jewelry or something. They're pretty neat. The rest of the drive through Oregon was gorgeous. There's no way the pictures can do it justice, just know that it is definitely something worth seeing. We stopped just before the Redwoods (we definitely didn't want to pass through them at night) and caught some sleep in a little hotel in Crescent City, CA.

We got a fairly early start the next day and were in the Redwood forest within a matter of minutes. We stopped at a little souvenir shop along the way (very cool wooden sculptures and such), actually drove through a Redwood, and went through the "Avenue of the Giants." The trees really are remarkable. Check out the pics. Momma was talking about how she'd always wanted to see them, so we Skyped with her and Dad. Glad we got to do that. Oh, and a little thing I loved about the Redwood forest was the smells! Fresh redwood aroma everywhere... ahhh... it was absolutely lovely. I could be surrounded with those scents all the time and not get tired of them.

After the Redwoods, we started heading down Highway 101 seeking out Highway 1 which would take us right down the coast all the way to San Francisco. I knew going into it that it would be a winding road, but I had no idea that it would be like it was. It took at least an hour of winding roads through mountains just to get to the coast, then winding roads all down the coast. It was a very long, tedious drive. Jess and Keith got a bit sick after a while, but I absolutely loved it! I didn't like that it was taking so long, but the fact that I had to be completely focused on the road kept me awake and alert. I was in the zone maneuvering that thing all through the mountains and down the coast! I seriously had a blast driving through it all. We got off the Highway a little earlier than I'd hoped in order to save a couple of hours on the drive. We would have been in San Francisco much later (and much queasier) had we stayed on Highway 1... though the long drive to the interstate wasn't any better. We found another Boonville, this time California, obviously (by the way, for those who don't understand the significance of the Boonville stops, "Boons" is my nickname from way back... long story... Macy Jo calls me Uncle Boons, so I've grown kinda fond of the name).

We tried booking it down to our already reserved hotel in San Fran (again, thanks Jon and Kellye!!!) and got settled in around 8:00 our time. We walked about a mile to In-N-Out Burger since we've always heard how awesome it is. It was very good, I'll say that. Not the best burger ever, but still very good.

I'm going to get some sleep now. I'm uploading a couple of videos to YouTube and will post them here tomorrow along with some other pics and hopefully some captions with the ones below so you know what you're looking at. We'll be in San Francisco today (Saturday) and part of the day tomorrow before heading back home. We all look forward to seeing you all again soon! Goodnight from California!

Here are the pics from the past 2 days...

Our first view of the Pacific coast in Oregon

We had to do a little shopping. Trying on sunglassses here. I haven't figured out how to do the mirror pic thing yet.

Oregon

On the other side of the country and still truckin right along

We stopped at one point and climbed a hill to get a better view. I know it's cliche, but the picture really doesn't do it justice.

We found a little road at the top of this mountain and went to check it out. We found this.

Saw a field of sheep. Very cool. Thought you might like this Dad.

Oregon coast again. If you look closely in the back, you can see part of a rainbow.

We think this was a female elk. Not totally sure, but still pretty cool. They stared right at us.

Hit the halfway point of our trip right around the Redwood forest.

Babe, Paul Bunyan's ox

The real Paul Bunyan himself!

These next few are clearly Redwoods. Man, they were incredible!

A view of the sky from Highway 1

Oh, you know, just chillin out on Highway 1

Boonville, CA, Population:715, Elevation: 400 ft.

When we first saw San Francisco from a distance, there was a super heavy fog all around it. We went from sunny and 75 to foggy and probably mid-60s.

We've heard so much about In-N-Out Burger, we had to give it a try when we got to San Fran. Awesome stop for sure.