Saturday, June 15, 2013

Road Trip Down the West Coast

Oh God Oh God Oh God. My mother, as great as she is, has never needed to drive on the right hand side of the road. In a left side driver's seat. On a highway. In a city. Or in an automatic for that matter. So we had a pretty white-knuckled start to our journey. It was also the morning of the Grand Floral Parade in Portland so we'd had to hike 30 blocks with our bags because half the roads we closed.

I apologise now to all of the drivers leaving Portland on the 8th! At least we knew our limitations and stayed in the slow lane for the first 3 hours, and my phone has GPS.

That said, we were off! It was nice to finally have our own car so we were a little more independent. It was also a return to how I had been travelling before in that we didn't know where we would stay that night.

The first day we went southwest from Portland until we hit the 101 and then drove until we were tired, stopping at times for food, photos or to explore the area.

This is basically how to next two days progress as well (except that we arrived in San Francisco on the third). So, instead of prattling on I'm just going to bombard you with pictures - have fun!



Don't judge - they're my travel pants!



Mum likes bridges


One of the coolest things we did.

Feeding to otters

California Sea Lions


Puffins!




Sharks!



Playful otters



Colourful anemones

Vibrant jellies


Back on the road



Mum still likes bridges


One of the many lighthouses on the Oregon Coast



We spent our first night in Winchester Bay - a teeny town.


A deer visited! And I thought I'd left Disney.

Back on the road and our first sight of an actual beach.






Ok, so I may have taken this one looking backwards.

 Prepare for gratuitous photos of trees
We went to see the redwoods.

Compare the size of the car to the size of the tree...


Now compare the size of me to the size of the tree... (remember that you can't see the top of the tree!)







"Woman of Steel"

The base of one of the redwoods, just to give you some scale (if you didn't already have ti from the 50 other photos!)


 We spent our second night in Eureka (the biggest town of 11 bearing that name in the States)
The Carson Mansion is now a private club but was owned by Mr. Carson one of the state's first lumber barons. It is built in the Queen Anne style and is considered the grandest Victorian home in America. Right across the street is the house he (allegedly) built for his wife.



 ...and back on the road. With more trees.

Californian vineyards.


So, we survived (surprisingly!)

1 comment:

  1. No mention of 3 days of good old country and western radio. Yeah!

    ReplyDelete