Successfully made it to Hood River. It was a great drive on this historic highway. Got to see a bunch of waterfalls and they were really beautiful. The view of the gorge was great as well. We also went to Powell’s in Portland. I was awesome. Ive never seen a bookstore so big. It took up more than a city block and they had everything. I could LIVE in this place. So I spent too much money on books that I don’t need. It’s alright.
Got to meet KJ’s brother, Matt who is kindly letting us crash on his futon. Just hung out last night which was really fun and a nice break from camping.
I really like it here. The west coast is just so chill.
-Rachel
RG + KJ BFFL
Ok so I’ve been slacking on the blog because 1) didn’t do much in LA for like four days and 2) we had literally no service on CA-1, the only road we drove on from LA to San Francisco and the the redwoods state park we camped in last night. But now I’ll speedily catch you lovely readers up and add pictures when I have real Internet (maybe tonight?).
Day #16: I believe that was my second night at Caltech with Cassi and her awesome friends. We went to a chalk drawing/music festival in Pasadena and then hung out and watched transformers. It was a pretty chill weekend. Had Mongolian food.
Day #17: Left Cassi’s. Even though it was great there I didn’t want to out stay my welcome and so I took the opportunity to spend some time alone. Yes I like to be a hermit when I have the chance so I spent two nights in an awesome hotel in North Hollywood relaxing while KJ stayed with Mike. We hung out a bit went to IKEA an had dinner. It was nice getting to finally meet him.
Day #18: Pretty much same stuff except KJ and I went to the WB studios and took the VIP tour while Mike was at his internship. So. Much. Fun. I love seeing sets and props. It was great.
Day #19: Back on the road. We drove along CA-1 and it was amazingly scary. I’m afraid of heights as it is so KJ did most of that driving. It was really beautiful though. Camped in Julia Pfeiffer/Big Sur state park. Oh and we stopped at this Elephant Seal viewing point and it was awesome. Just a random beach where all these huge seals were molting. Pictures to come.
Day #20: Went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium hung out with penguins and sea otters. Drove to San Francisco and took a bay boat tour (sadly the Alcatraz tour was fully booked… Need another excuse to come back here). Drove over the Golden Gate bridge. We stopped at this great viewing point on “the most dramatic” part of CA-1 and this random kid from MA stopped and talked to us. He was in the Coast Guard and so happy to see someone from home. Made a friend. :) but then we couldn’t find our campsite so we stopped at stayed in a B&B in Jenner, CA which was surprisingly fun.
Day #21: Drove to Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and camped. Made great burritos and pancakes. Though it was fucking FREEZING there. I wore multiple shirts and sweatshirts and two layers of pants to bed. I was still cold.
Which brings us to today! Where we are currently driving to Portland, OR and we are FINALLY out of Cali. Excited to see the city and KJ’s brother in Hood River!
-Rachel
Mileage: 137,300 (?)
Woke up this morning to find that Jerry was not only fixed on time but also cost less. So two very strange things for a mechanic. But it was off to good start after a sort of awful day and an anticlimactic night of watching Veronica Mars and passing out. So this morning we pretty much just drove through the Mohave Desert and passed into California. It took us like 6 and a half hours to get here from Williams, AZ. KJ did the bulk of it this morning but I had the pleasure of driving into LA. Thankfully we didn’t hit traffic. The most amazing thing is the drastic change in gas prices from New England ($3.98) to the south ($3.65) to Texas ($3.48) to the Mohave ($4.65???!!!??!!!). It’s one of the many things I will miss about Texas.
Anyways when we got here we met Mike (KJ’s boyfriend) at his apartment. It was an adorable complex in Burbank that is exactly how I pictured any apartment in California thanks to basically the aforementioned Veronica Mars and the Karate Kid. It had the pool in the middle of the courtyard and everything. After a couple hours she dropped me off at Caltech where I am staying with Cassi. It’s so cool to see all of her friends here. I feel like college is such a different experience for everyone that it’s really cool to see when the different worlds of college and high school collide. Everyone seems really cool here, so I’m excited to spend the weekend.
And I might do the WB studio tour on Monday. Gilmore Girls/Pretty Little Liars set. So excited.
-Rachel
Mileage:
Again, I’m sorry for a few delayed updates and my mileage counting has been lacking, but I’ll catch up soon, its the total that counts anyway…
Drove from Roswell, NM to Flagstaff, AZ. It was quite a long ride, but worth the wait. The Grand Canyon is amazing. I had a weird reaction to it. It was so big, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so… grand. And since we got there around sunset we got to see all of the shadows. It was breathtaking. And then we camped within the park at the Mathers Campground. I wish we could have stayed another night but it was completely booked.
This morning we explored a little more. KJ went on a hike and I explored some of the other viewpoints. I drove out the the Grand View and other east parts of the park. I sat at one of them for an hour and just wrote. Inspiration in it’s purest form.
But the bad news is that on the way to Lake Havasu, Jerry broke down. We only made it like 40 miles outside of Flagstaff when this horrible noise happened on the highway. When we pulled off (on to Devil Dog Road…. no joke) and AAA came we got towed to Williams, AZ and found out the muffler was dragging on the ground the catalytic converter was shot. So here we are, in a Holiday Inn Express waiting for it to be fixed in the morning so we can head to LA. Can’t wait to be on a coast again. And to see my old friend Cassi at Caltech!
-Rachel
Canyon close to sunset.
On the way to Flagstaff, AZ.
Arizona and the Grand Canyon.
Mileage:
Sorry, I was so exhausted last night that I didn’t really feel like writing, so I’ll catch you up now.
Yesterday we spent the morning in Austin with my wonderful future roommate Kimya. We went to the Barton Springs Pool, which is this really natural spring that has built up banks like a regular swimming pool. It’s a little hard to explain but it was really awesome and a great break from the blistering heat. Then Kimya took us to this great Tex-Mex place, Chuy’s, where KJ and I burnt our mouths on jalapeno dip and enchiladas. So good. Then we did a little shopping on the drag next to UT and headed back to Heidi’s in New Braunfels for more planning.
Today we drove 7ish hours across west Texas to Carlsbad, New Mexico where we wanted to go to the Carlsbad Caverns, but we found out as we tried to get there that one of the many wildfires throughout New Mexico was in the Carlsbad Caverns park. Because the fire was 0% contained while we were there we decided to bite the bullet and drive two more hours to Roswell, NM. Of course we got here too late to see the Alien Museum, but the shops are cool with aliens all over them.
Anyway it was still too hot to camp (107 degrees here!) so we did a movie night thing in the hotel. Watched Valentine’s Day and ate pizza and went swimming. Relaxing. But I’m excited to camp at the Grand Canyon tomorrow and be in LA by Friday night.
Hope we can avoid the rest of these fires. Pray for the people affected.
-Rachel
