Week 43: Portland, Oregon

August 6, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 43: Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon is a pretty magical place, and the City of Roses immediately became one of our favorite cities. We had high expectations to start with, and it exceeded them all – at least, until it started raining.

PNW Fever

Hang on, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. We stayed in Portland for a while, by our standards (10 days), in no little part due to the fact that the RV park we stayed at had amazingly fast internet. For your wilderness-living correspondents, this was as exciting as having a chocolate fountain right outside our door.

Well, maybe not that exciting. But still, pretty exciting.

On top of the fast internet, the weather when we arrived in Portland was unusually beautiful – sunny, dry, mid-70 degree temperatures. The city itself is also very pretty – lots of trees, everywhere – so the whole experience was outrageously pleasant. In fact, on our first day in Portland, we saw a double rainbow in the grocery store parking lot.

We took advantage of the beautiful weather to scope out the city, and our love kept growing. There were delicious Voodoo Doughnuts, a waterfront market, food trucks as far as the eye could see, and the International Rose Test Garden – a testbed for experimental roses, free to stroll. We were a little early for the roses, but the rhododendrons were in full bloom.

On top of the great weather, everyone in Portland is friendly and laid-back. It must be mentioned that they’re also a bit eccentric – along with Brooklyn, Portland is ground zero for modern hipsterism – but we got along well with everyone we met. As far as we’re concerned, the more handlebar mustaches in this world, the better.

We finally got our Honda Fit fixed, for real (previous issues chronicled here and here), and the friendly mechanic mentioned that the pervading worry in the town was about rising rent prices and the influx of professionals. “They’re trying to turn us into a real city,” he said, sadly.

Real city or not, there is an abundance of fun stuff to do in Portland. Our friends Autumn and Aaron happened to be visiting, along with their cute baby and Autumn’s parents, so we met up with them for lunch at the Deschutes brewery (yum).

Later, we headed to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (“OMSI”), an awesome museum featuring an exhibit on video games (!) with dozens and dozens of playable games (!!). Pretty sweet, but the permanent exhibit was equally cool, with “hands-on” science toys like a Van de Graaf machine, water-pressurized soda bottle rockets (Heather was good at those), a chemistry lab, a vertical wind tunnel for paper airplanes, a crazy kinetic sculpture, and much more.

Science is just the best, isn’t it? The friendly and knowledgeable volunteers were even kind enough not to mention the fact that we were adults playing with exhibits clearly intended for children.

Oregon is Gorges

While staying in Portland, we explored the nearby Columbia River Gorge. A crucial but treacherous path to settlers on the Oregon Trail, the gorge cuts through a lush and mountainous region just north of Mount Hood. Years later, an excellent-but-narrow scenic drive was created that follows the river past numerous waterfalls. (Seriously, there are an unreasonable number of waterfalls here.) Want to see some pictures? Of course you do.

At the end of our drive we hiked up the hill behind Multnomah Falls. It was a tough climb, but the half-dozen beautiful waterfalls and striking views of the gorge were well worth it. Jake was particularly enchanted with a section of trail that passed through a high forest, lit by late afternoon sunbeams filtering through the canopy overhead. It remains one of our favorite hikes.

The icing on the nature-cake was Multnomah Falls itself, a towering waterfall with a picturesque viewing bridge installed in front of it. After the quiet of the woods, it was tough to deal with the crowds at the base of the falls, but we can’t really blame them – this is one of the most scenic waterfalls in the country. Selfie away!

The Hood

Our final visit in the Portland area was to Hood River, a small town to the east situated on the Columbia River gorge. It’s a town known for two things: its extreme sports activities, and its beer. We killed two birds with one stone by eating lunch on the patio at Full Sail Brewing, which overlooks the river. While we feasted, we watched dozens of windsurfers swoop, glide, and even flip across the water, an intricate and endlessly fascinating dance.

Pretty amazing. We have to say, based on our visit, the Portland area truly seems like a great place. After three days of sunshine, we were ready to live there forever… and then there were about six straight days of cold, constant rain. It was a chilling reminder that Portland’s mild winters can still be, well, chilling.

So Portland might not be perfect – but it’s still on our post-trip shortlist.

Roadtrip Time Travel

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Where are you now? The great and empty state of North Dakota, exploring some cool badlands at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Next location? Fargo, then Minneapolis, as we head east towards Chicago!

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August 2, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 42: The Wild Oregon Coast

We left California for good in mid-April, headed towards Oregon, after having spent just shy of three months in the Golden State. We had a lot of great adventures in California, and we were pretty sad to leave.

That said, the gas in Oregon is extraordinarily cheaper than in California, which made things a little more palatable. (Unsurprisingly, the RV uses a lot of gas.) Speaking of palatable, our next stop was a quick 2 nights along the Oregon coast. After our last, redwoods-sized redwoods post, a bite-sized blog sounds just right.

Dino-mite!

The drive up the Oregon coast on Highway 101 was spectacular, winding along the Pacific Ocean. The area is definitely hilly, and we feared a white-knuckle drive, but Oregon turned out to be a very RV-friendly state. The grades and curves were relatively gentle, and there were plenty of pull-offs, offering scenic views and a respite from angry tailgaters. We probably saw more RVs per mile on this stretch than anywhere else in the country (except Quartzsite!).

We stopped along the way to our destination to visit the Prehistoric Gardens, a quirky roadside attraction of local fame. The turn into the Gardens was pretty white-knuckle, due to… let’s call it, “user error regarding the amount of braking required,” but it was all worth since we got to take selfies with 23 life-size dinosaurs.

At the time they were built, the displays and the statues were all scientifically accurate, which we appreciate. Of course, since the oldest statues here were almost sixty years old, you won’t find anything about feathers or avian evolution here. Nonetheless, the whimsical coloring and beautiful foliage more than made up for it, and overall, it was an A+ roadside stop.

Quick Sand

After our visit to the Jurassic, we pulled into our campground at the awesome Jessie M. Honeyman State Park. This was about the sixth state park with RV spots we passed in 50 miles; as we said, it’s a very RV-friendly state. The next day, we started out by exploring a very surprising Oregon find: sand dunes!

We had no idea until we got there, but it turned out the whole southern Oregon coast features massive sand dunes, 80+ feet high! It seemed like every other place we passed offered dune buggy rentals or tours, but we kept things simple and just walked around the dunes behind our campsite. This pedestrian approach turned out to be rather exhausting, as the shifting sand made every climb three times harder than necessary, but we ended up with some awesome photos.

Guess all our practice in White Sands and Death Valley paid off. Or did it…

Making Waves

The real reason we came to the Oregon coast was to visit Cape Perpetua, a narrow bit of coast with some unusual properties. The waves here crash hard, and they have eaten away at the rocky shore with spectacular results. There’s the Spouting Horn, a narrow crevice which launches water into the air with each wave:

Here’s a video of the Spouting Horn in action. A few feet away is Thor’s Well, a literal hole in the ocean that fills and empties with the pounding surf.

Just a few hundred yards further is the Devil’s Churn, a long, narrow crack in the coastal rock. Water enters and drains from the crack with each wave, as at Thor’s Well, but the result is far more explosive.

Pictures can’t possibly do it justice, so we took a video. Unfortunately, the video doesn’t really do it justice either, so just imagine the world shaking with each wave!

If you’re curious, we visited Cape Perpetua just before high tide, as is recommended. It was during a lull in a pretty fierce thunderstorm, so the waves were powerful. However, as we were photographing Thor’s Well, the wind started gusting, first lightly, then with increasing power. The lull was over, and the wind quickly ramped up towards gale-force. In seconds, the entire place cleared out of people.

We wisely – and quickly – retreated to a nearby pub to watch the storm howl over the ocean. Cape Perpetua is definitely an exciting place to visit, but we wouldn’t recommend going swimming.

Previous Post: Week 41-42: The Redwoods

Next Post: Week 43: Portland, Oregon

Roadtrip Status

Still alive? Check.

Where are you now? A little coffee shop in Rapid City, South Dakota. The Black Hills are beautiful, but a little light on the Internet…

Next location? Heading up north to Devil’s Tower, then Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota!

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July 1, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 40: Ye Olde Napa

After exploring the breathtaking Yosemite National Park, we drove back northwest to Napa, California, and its famous wine country. We’re not the biggest wine people, but we definitely enjoyed the beautiful countryside, and we had a few unexpected adventures along the way.

Bay Area Redux

Napa sits just north of San Francisco, and we realized once we got to Napa that we were as close to the Bay Area as we had been at our previous campground. So, we made another trip into the city, where Jake had lunch with some former co-workers, and Heather ate by herself (her choice) at the amusingly-named “Breaking Bread.” Afterwards, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, and tried to visit the Muir Woods redwood grove – but even on a random weekday afternoon, it was too full for us to park or enter.

Bummer! You’ll have to wait until our next blog post for redwoods, but we did film a hyperlapse video of driving across the Golden Gate Bridge. As nifty as it is black-barred!

Muir Woods was a bust, but we had better luck visiting Berkeley, California, where we wandered around the downtown area and grabbed some pizza from the locally-famous Cheese Board Collective. We really enjoyed Berkeley – we’re suckers for hippie college towns – and the University of California-Berkeley campus was even prettier than we’d hoped it would be.

The Gothic Castle

As we mentioned, we aren’t particularly savvy wine-drinkers – our analysis is usually something along the lines of “hmm, tastes like wine” – but considering we were in Napa, we had to check out a winery. Jake’s former co-worker Liz drove up from San Francisco to hang out, and we headed to Castello di Amorosa, an insanely authentic medieval castle that doubles as a winery.

We’re not kidding when we say “authentic.” This castle is the real deal. The details are pretty mind-blowing – here’s Wikipedia:

“Key details and building techniques are architecturally faithful to the 12th and 13th century time period. Among many other features it has: a moat; a drawbridge; defensive towers; an interior courtyard; a torture chamber; a chapel/church; a knights’ chamber; and a 72 by 30 feet (9.1 m) great hall with a 22-foot (6.7 m)-high coffered ceiling.

The torture chamber has an authentic 300-year-old iron maiden which Sattui states he bought for $13,000 in Pienza, Italy, a replica rack, prison chambers and other torture devices. The great hall features frescoes painted by two Italian artists who took about a year and a half to complete and showcases a 500-year-old fireplace.

The masonry, ironwork and woodwork was fashioned by hand using old world crafting techniques. Building materials included 8,000 tons of locally quarried stone, in addition to paving stones, terra cotta roofing tiles and some 850,000 bricks imported from Europe. Extending into the hillside adjacent to the castle lies a labyrinth of caves some 900 feet (270 m) in length. Beneath the castle are a 2-acre (8,100 m2) barrel cellar and tasting rooms where visitors can sample the wines-all sold only at the Castle.”

OK, it might be a tourist trap, but who cares? It’s awesome and preposterous, the wine tasted like wine, and our server hooked us up with a free tasting of their expensive reserves.

Which also tasted like wine.

Blows, Goats

Speaking of tourist traps, after visiting the castle we stopped at the “Old Faithful Geyser of California.” The name is a little aspirational – it does indeed have a geyser that blows regularly, but the volume can’t compare to the real Old Faithful. Can’t blame them for trying, though, and the high-class cabanas they scattered around the geyser were a nice attempt. That said, we don’t foresee “bottles, models, and blow” becoming a popular combination anytime soon.

Wait a second…

If we’re being honest, we only really stopped at the geyser because they also have a petting zoo with fainting goats, which freeze up and fall over when scared. But it was pretty anticlimactic in person – we’ve seen videos that make them look adorable and easy-to-seize, but these goats definitely weren’t like that. The adults mostly ignored our attempts to startle them; the babies would freeze, but mostly at random, and it was more disturbing than cute. At least there were also some crazy rams, and we did enjoy the “guard llama” keeping watch over its flock.

Medieval Napa

The town of Napa is charming, with lots of classy shops and good food, although it’s extremely upscale. We first visited the Oxbow Public Market for some beer, tacos, and fancy-people-watching. The number of polo shirts was out of control. Next, we headed to the nearby town of Yountville, which is even fancier. Our destination was Addendum, the “cheap” fried chicken stand attached to Ad Hoc, a restaurant operated by the famed Thomas Keller (French Laundry, Per Se). Boxed fried chicken lunches were a mere $16.50 apiece, and we want to be angry about that, but we can’t because they were SO FREAKING AMAZINGLY GOOD.

We also spent a lot of time in our campground, Skyline Wilderness Park, which used to be a mental health asylum but has now been converted into a lovely park. It’s huge and has an impressive collection of hiking trails, along with a beautiful native plant garden. Astonishingly, the entire park has been run by volunteers since the 1970s. It’s genuinely cool to see people so dedicated to nature and their community.

While we were staying at Skyline in their little RV park, we noticed a huge festival in the grassy field next door. Turned out that the “March Crown” festival was being held at Skyline. It’s basically a giant medieval style tournament, complete with swords, bows, armor, and a royal court – just like in the movie Role Models.

We walked over, expecting a Medieval Times-style festival, but this was a gathering of people deep into the life – there were no turkey legs to be had, unless you brought your own. We were too late for the fighting, so there wasn’t much to do, and we felt a little uncomfortable just walking around and gawking at everyone in their medieval getups. It might not be our thing, but it’s hard not to respect the level of effort people put in, and besides, who are we to judge someone else’s hobby when we live in a big metal box?

So we quietly left, and felt thankful we weren’t camping out in plate mail.

Previous Post: Week 39: Yosemite National Park

Next Post: Week 41-42: The Redwoods

Roadtrip Status

Still alive? Check.

Where are you now? Near Bozeman, Montana, waiting on some RV repair work (boo).

Next location? We’ll be spending a week at Glacier National Park with Jake’s family, in a rented house with real plumbing and no wheels! Crazy.

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June 19, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 39: Yosemite National Park

After eating our way through San Francisco, we headed back to nature to walk a few pounds off. Southeast of San Francisco is the famous Yosemite National Park, and we visited for two days in late March. Although much of the park was still closed due to snow, we loved it there – once we got away from the crowds.

Intro to Yosemite

For anyone that hasn’t been there, Yosemite was one of the first national parks, and its beauty is staggering. Because of road closures, we spent most of our time in Yosemite Valley, a huge, impossibly lush valley that sits between towering cliffs. It looks a little like something from the Land Before Time movies, and everything about it is spectacular.

El Capitan, near the entrance to the valley, is a sheer, 3000 foot high cliff. Half-Dome, seen in many of our photos, outdoes that with an incredible 4,800 foot rise from the valley floor.

But it’s not all cliffs – Yosemite has a higher concentration of large waterfalls than any other place on earth. Or rather, sometimes it’s both; Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America and it has a 2,400 foot drop (in three stages).

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Camera

Yosemite is also known for its groves of giant sequoias. Sequoias are not just the largest trees, they are the largest single organisms by volume, anywhere in the world. They are incredibly huge, and they live for thousands of years. In fact, giant sequoias are so badass, they release their (surprisingly tiny) pine cones only during forest fires – which they then survive easily.

Unfortunately, sequoias only grow in a thin strip of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Like their taller but more slender cousins the coastal redwoods, very few are left due to logging activity, and all known trees are protected by state and national parks.

Sadly, the 200+ sequoias at Mariposa Grove at Yosemite are off-limits for all of 2016 due to restoration efforts. We therefore hiked down to another grove, which has only 25 sequoias. A little disappointing, but we were awed by the few we saw anyway.

Trip to the Top

Yosemite’s most famous hike is the notoriously brutal Half-Dome, but that was closed for the season. We’re not sure whether we would have tried it, but in any event, we ended up on another legendarily difficult hike: The Upper Falls trail. This hike climbs to the top of Yosemite Falls (pictured below), rising up 2,700 feet in just 3.5 miles via an unending, unrelenting series of switchbacks over loose, rocky terrain.

Friends, the scenery was incredible, but this was the toughest hike we’ve ever done.

We’re still not sure how we made it up, but we did. Once we reached the top, we walked down to the viewing platform near the falls, which requires a slightly terrifying walk along a narrow, extremely windy ledge holding only onto a pipe railing. To be honest, the small and unsatisfying viewing platform, combined with the wind, may not have been worth it.

Gluttons for punishment (and maybe delusional from endorphins), we then somehow decided to do a “slight” extension to our hike by heading up to Yosemite Point (it’s the cliff in the upper left of the photo below).

Only a half-mile each way, we didn’t realize this would entail walking further up a mountain through giant melting snowfields, the trail utterly lost beneath the snow.

While hiking in the snow was challenging, it was pretty fun, especially since it was warm out. We tossed a few snowballs around, and it didn’t even occur to us that we were hiking next to, then above, the rapidly flowing river that becomes Yosemite Falls.

Even though we lost the trail a few times, our hike to Yosemite Point was well worth it. The views were spectacular, and almost no one else was around.

The way back down, however, was a different story. We did it gracefully, and definitely not by sliding on our butts down the hill and getting snow in every crack and crevice.

Definitely not.

From there, it was still another 5+ miles back to our car. Although it was downhill, hiking at this point was truly exhausting, and our feet and knees were screaming by the end. Plus, Jake drank a full three liters of water on our climb, and there were no bathrooms or private spaces on the trail, so… he was very motivated to reach the bottom. Heather stopped to take a few photos of the valley and check out our fitbit stats, while Jake made a beeline to the facilities.

Crowding Around

Yosemite is amazing, but the unfortunate truth is that it is also very crowded. Even during March, with half the park closed, we encountered very long line at the entrance station. Inside the Valley itself, there were thousands of people at any given time. National parks are usually quiet, but Yosemite has its own federal courthouse inside the park.

We don’t mean to give the wrong impression – it’s great that so many people are out visiting such an awesome park. But we saw so much bad behavior as a result of the crowds, stuff like slamming on the brakes in the middle of a 45 mph roadway – with no warning – because something looks pretty. Or double- or even triple-parking in the closest parking lots, rather than walk 100 yards. At one point, we saw an obese person driving around in a motorized Rascal with a basket full of snacks (seriously).

Again – this was in March! If you visit, and you should, we definitely recommend you go during the off-season.

Prospecting For Jerks

While visiting Yosemite, we stayed in the small town of Mariposa, which is about 45 minutes away (and a gorgeous drive). Mariposa is cute, with a “prospector” shtick, based upon its days as a mining town. We stayed in the Mariposa Fairgrounds, which is basically a giant, empty grass field with power plugs.

We didn’t have much Internet, but everything was fine, until the biggest RV we have ever seen pulled in. So large, it was pulled by a tractor trailer cab! And… it parked right next to us. Despite the fact that we were the only other people in a 100+ yard empty grass field.

We thought that was annoying, but they topped it by pulling forward to unload their ATVs from the back of their RV. Instead of then reversing back into a spot, they ran extension cords out to their rig, which was now parked in the center of the field. So despite nobody else being around, they managed to find the only possible way to be uncomfortably close to us.

Amazing stuff.

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Still alive? Check.

Where are you now? Ogden, Utah, just north of Salt Lake City.

Next location? The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks!

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June 9, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 38: San Franciscan Days

After a sodden weekend in Monterey and Big Sur, we headed further up the California coast to San Francisco and the Bay Area. Neither of us had been to San Francisco before, but we both loved it.

Foreshadowing!

Power Trip

Before we got to visit the city, we had some RVing issues to deal with. The first issue was finding a place to stay: as you might expect, San Francisco is not the easiest city to find close, comfortable, and inexpensive RV parking. We did end up finding a campground that was cheap, comfortable, and close to San Francisco “as the crow flies,” but it turned out that getting there “as the RV drives” required a half-hour detour around a mountain range. D’oh! At least the drive was pretty, as was the campground.

The second issue was an electrical problem in our RV. Every time we plugged our power cord into the brand-new power pedestal* at our campground, the pedestal’s circuit breaker tripped, so we couldn’t get any electricity in our motorhome. A friendly mobile RV service technician came out and, unbuttoned pants barely hanging on his body, diagnosed our problem: an incredibly tiny fault in our electrical ground wire. It was so small that only this brand-new power pedestal could detect it; we have stayed at dozens of other campgrounds without a problem.

The technician wasn’t able to fix the problem on-site, so he just disconnected the ground wire completely – and warned us not to use our toaster in the shower this week. That did the trick, and we had sweet, sweet electricity again. Maybe a little unsafe, but we re-wired everything when we left (and then fixed it for real later on).

Back in action! Time to explore San Francisco.

* A power pedestal is basically a shielded box full of outlets that the campground provides for your parking space.

Day Trip

After months dealing with the endless traffic in California, we were excited to visit a city with public transit. We left our car behind and took the BART train in, spending the entire day walking and bus-hopping in a big loop through San Francisco. It was glorious.

Here’s the details, for the interested. We started out by grabbing some Blue Bottle iced coffee and walking to Union Square, then on through the dragon gate to Chinatown. Quality ethnic restaurants are often in short supply on our trip, so we binged on some dim sum (yum) before working it off with a walk up to the famous Lombard Street.

We admired Lombard’s craziness, then headed down towards the water and Ghirardelli Square. We strolled along San Francisco’s national historical maritime park and the Embarcadero, then stopped for a snack: an adorable, turtle-shaped piece of sourdough from the Boudin bakery. (Check the pictures below.) Despite its cuteness, we savaged its doughy body, and then hopped on a bus for the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then, we hopped off, spent 30 minutes figuring out the bus system, and hopped on the correct bus to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a beautiful landmark, but it doesn’t take long to see if you’re not crossing over it. We took another bus back into the city, south to Golden Gate Park, where we strolled the meandering paths and admired the grounds. It’s a really nice park, although I (Jake) hated the look of the De Young Museum, a deeply ugly monstrosity that does the exact opposite of blending in with its surroundings. Heather was excited to see the museum, since she learned about it in architecture school, and she thought it was beautiful. Just kidding! She really wanted to like it (emphasis hers), but ultimately had to acknowledge it puts the “ug” in fugly.”

At this point, tired of walking, we realized our bus ticket had only been vaguely stamped with the date – not the time – so we reckoned it should be good all day to do whatever we wanted. (Also, nobody ever checked it.) We took another bus down to the Painted Ladies, of Full House fame:

From there, another bus took us to the famous Castro district. We really enjoyed the rainbow crosswalks, as well as the, um, “subtly” dirty shop names.

Finally, we walked to the Mission district and got burritos from La Tacqueria, winner of fivethirtyeight.com’s burrito bracket. We have to say, the restaurant lived up to the hype – these were some amazing burritos! Finally, after 10 miles of walking and eating our way through the city later, we took the train back, and enjoyed not having to drive (for once) while we listened to some Silicon Valley business nerds enthusiastically discuss “six sigma.”

Mystery Trip

We fulfilled a promise to our pre-roadtrip selves by taking the hour-long trip down to San Jose (quietly America’s 10th largest city) to visit the Winchester Mystery House. The Mystery House is a huge mansion built by Sarah Winchester, widow to an heir to the Winchester gun family fortune, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She apparently believed she was being haunted by the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles, and so she built the house to appease and confuse the spirits.

Yes: “confuse the spirits.” The Winchester Mystery House has doors that open onto brick walls, windows in the middle of rooms, and a staircase that leads directly into a ceiling. We should note that it’s not clear to what extent these were intentional choices, as opposed to mistakes during design and construction. Ms. Winchester designed the house herself, with no training, and built it ever-larger over the course of nearly forty years. The home was under construction 24/7, and no blueprints exist.

The Mystery House may not be the most efficient of structures, but it is beautiful and unique. (We weren’t allowed to take photographs inside the mansion, so the last few pics are from here.)

Earth Trip

We planned to visit some bars and restaurants in San Jose after visiting the Mystery House, but as we drove through the city and saw a sea of green t-shirts, we suddenly realized that it was St. Patrick’s Day. Whoops! (We were barely aware it was March.)

In any event, we certainly weren’t going to brave the crowds of drunk-by-3-p.m. revelers just for the sake of it, so we headed back to our campground. We ended up hiking around the park we were staying in, and were treated to some lovely views and what appeared to be a whole flock of endangered condors, right by a lake. (Take that, supposed Pinnacles condor viewing!)

We don’t have pictures, but it was fun to watch them swooping and circling around us overhead. Although to be honest, there were some moments when we thought they looked very curious as to whether we might be food. In any event, we’re grateful for and really enjoy these kinds of random nature experiences. It’s one of those things we always felt was missing in New York City.

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Next Post: Week 39: Yosemite National Park

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Where are you now? Heading out of Moab, Utah, for Cortez, Colorado, and Mesa Verde National Park.

Next location? Montrose, Colorado, to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

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June 5, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 37.1: Cruising on Highway 1

After some exhilarating hiking at Pinnacles National Park, we headed north for a quick stopover in Monterey, California. The distance wasn’t far, but getting there required about fifteen miles driving on Route 1, a scenic highway notorious for its cliff-side curves. Luckily, the section we drove in the RV was pretty straightforward, an especially fortunate fact given that wind was gusting the entire time.

If you’ve ever seen the extremely boxy profile of our RV, you might not be surprised to learn that driving it in the wind is a little like piloting a sailboat with an engine. We battened down our hatches, however, and arrived at Monterey for a weekend that… turned out to be drenched with rain.

We used the one break in the storm for a trip down to Big Sur, described below. Otherwise, we didn’t have a chance to do much sightseeing – the most exciting thing we did in Monterey was get some new hiking gear at REI. (Worth it!)

Scenic Drive

With our in-town options washed away, we spent our few precious sunlight hours driving down to Big Sur, a heavily forested coastal area accessible only by Route 1. The term “Big Sur” encompasses several state parks and a national forest, but it is mostly known for spectacular driving, hiking, and coastal views.

We’re happy to report that Big Sur did not disappoint. The stretch of Route 1 we drove on with our RV was pretty milquetoast, wind aside, but the drive from Monterey to Big Sur is anything but. The road winds its way around gorgeous coastal cliffs, and while it can be quite curvy, it never felt unsafe. The scenery was more than worth it, with jaw-dropping views of mountains meeting the ocean that are second only to those found in Acadia National Park.

A particular highlight was Bixby Bridge. As stunning is it was full of selfie takers.

That said, while the bridge is cool, few places on Earth can match the surreal beauty of our next stop. At McWay Falls, a waterfall drops down 80 feet onto a pristine ocean beach. Unfortunately, you can’t actually get down to the beach, but the view is amazing nonetheless.

Even cooler? Prior to the land being gifted to the state, people lived in a house where that photo was taken. Imagine that as your backyard!

We Made A Huge Mistake

Our final destination on Route 1 was Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, where we hiked the Ewoldsen Trail. Recommended by several websites, it was definitely a nice hike, but it turned out to be a lot more, well, grueling than we expected. We expected a quick four-mile loop, and instead got something like six, with a total elevation gain of more than 2,000 feet – more than the highest hikes at some national parks!

But we made it, and we have the pictures to prove it. This was our first-ever visit to a redwood forest, and we were amazed at the size of some of the trees. As we later learned, however, the trees in Big Sur are almost all “new-growth,” i.e., cut down by settlers sometime in the 1800s and since regrown. The really big trees are much, much older; for California redwoods, a 200 year old, 150+ foot tall tree is basically just a baby.

Don’t worry. The adults are coming up soon.

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Next Post: Week 38: San Franciscan Days

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Still alive? Check.

Where are you now? Moab, Utah. So hot right now!

Next location? Mo’ Moab, at least for a bit.

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June 4, 2016 In Road Trip, Travelogues

Week 37: Pinnacles of Hiking

After a wet week in Morro Bay, we headed up the California coast on Highway 101. Our destination was the 59^th and newest national park, a place that most people probably haven’t even heard of: Pinnacles National Park.

Spoiler alert: It’s awesome.

Exactly Like The Stone Age

Pinnacles is more or less in the center of California, fairly close to a lot of population centers, but it felt very remote. Highway 101 is about a half-hour away, connected by beautiful, curvy roads that might have been our favorite RV driving of the entire trip. Our campground at the park had electric hookups, which is somewhat rare and very welcome for a National Park, and it was spacious and empty.

The one drawback – if it is a drawback – is that Pinnacles has no cell service whatsoever. We’ve stayed in some fairly remote places, but the Internet blackout at Pinnacles was the most complete yet. Even Death Valley and Big Bend had service sometimes. The lack of Internet terrified us at first, but to be honest, it was actually kind of nice. It’s so rare to be able to silence the outside world completely, and we found that not having the Internet as a time-waster made us incredibly productive.

In three days, we wrote six blog posts, deep-cleaned our living space, made a video tour of our RV, and went on two mind-blowing hikes. Incidentally, we got about 95% of the way through editing that video tour, but then we got our Internet back, and never finished. There is probably a lesson to be learn-

ooh, Facebook notification! Better check that out.

via GIPHY

To The Batcave!

The primary thing to do at Pinnacles is hike. The park area is fairly small, so unlike most of the national parks we have visited, we actually got to see most of it. On our first day, we hiked down to some talus caves, which are essentially canyons that have been roofed over, incompletely, by boulders. While some sunlight enters the caves through cracks, other places are completely dark. Bats apparently love them.

The talus caves at Pinnacles blew us away. They were too dark for good pictures, so here’s what it was like: we were completely alone inside the caves (it was a weekday afternoon), hiking over and through a swollen stream that ran down the center of the trail. The dim, inconsistent sunlight, along with our dim, inconsistent flashlights, created dramatic shadows that jumped and flickered as we went deeper into the cave. We heard – and felt – a roaring waterfall, hidden in the darkness, glimpsed only through the occasional beam of illumination. It was wet, disorienting, and utterly amazing.

We climbed a narrow metal staircase alongside the waterfall and emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. The wet and wild caves receded, and we continued on. Soon, we found ourselves walking an ancient stone stairway, underneath a boulder…

… alongside another waterfall – and yes, it was as awesome as that sounds.

There was a lot more, including beautiful views of a reservoir and some adventurous cliff-side photo-taking, but no need to type it out. Take a look at the pics below.

The Pinnacle of Pinnacles

After exploring the talus caves, we figured things couldn’t get any better, but we were wrong. The next day, we embarked on a long hike through the center of Pinnacles National Park, walking the top of a ridgeline for miles. It was definitely a tough hike, but the views were staggering.

The beginning of the hike switchbacked up a lush mountain trail, where we caught views of the rocky peak that we would soon be hiking along. The sky was ridiculously blue, the grass was super green, and there were pretty wildflowers everywhere.

Eventually we reached the top, and enjoyed views in every direction from the ridgeline. Continuing on, we came to our favorite part, the High Peaks section. The trail here featured iron bar ladders, narrow pathways, and tiny, hand-carved stone steps. These are fun hiking features in general, but on the top of Pinnacles, you navigate them just a few feet from thousands-foot high cliffs. With the wind blowing like crazy, it definitely got our blood pumping! But we’re all about adventure, and friends, it doesn’t get much more adventurous than this.

Definitely one of our favorite hikes of all time.

Flora and Fauna

Two final things before we sign off. First, Pinnacles is known as an endangered condor nesting ground / sanctuary, and birdwatchers were extremely common throughout the park, excitedly binocularing the birds soaring around overhead. That’s all fine, but you know what? We saw about a million condors while on the West Coast, and we saw them absolutely everywhere, except at Pinnacles! Weird.

Second, there are some really big pinecones at Pinnacles.

Previous Post: Week 36.1: Morro Bay Rocks

Next Post: Week 37.1: Cruising on Highway 1

Roadtrip Status

Still alive? Check.

Where are you now? Moab, Utah, getting “caught up” on our blog posts.

Next location? We had to give up on our plans to see Monument Valley, where the Westerns were won, due to extreme heat, so we’re just going to chill here for a few more days.

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Week 54: Glacier National Park: Part 1

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