All Updates from Chrisandra's 2nd Road Trip in 2010

Sept 9, 2010 - "RV-less in Seattle"

Aloha all,

MaRVy, our trusted companion and mobile home is usually an integral part of our road trip experience. But even without MaRVy, our first week was an absolute blast, thanks to the hospitality of our friends and the surprisingly not so bad weather (we had a lot of light grey and even some blue skies!)

Here are some highlights of our week in Seattle:

• The first night in Seattle we went to a WNBA play off game. Since the Sonics left town, the women of the Seattle Storm have taken over the arena and it seems like some of the fans. It was louder than any of the NBA games I have seen live. Where else do 15,000 people watch a women's basketball game? I don't want to downplay the impressive talent and athletic abilities of these girls (it looks like the Storm is on the way to win the national championship), but you know what impressed me the most at the game? For the half-time entertainment, they had dogs racing across the court. Can you believe it, some of those dogs with legs just a few inches long raced across the full basketball court and back in 6.1 seconds! 
• Usually, the first thing we do in any city is to go up on a tower. In Seattle, heading up the Space Needle was actually the second thing we did. And then, for a totally different perspective, we also did an Underground Tour of Seattle's historic Pioneer Square district. What a hoot that was. Our tour guides are probably best described as informative comedians. We laughed half the tour and still learned why they raised the street level by one floor over 100 years ago. You could also say that the tour guides spent 90 minutes explaining why their "Underground Tour" is actually not under ground at all...
• During orientation when I started at the Royal Lahaina last year, they showed us a video about the Pikes Place Market in Seattle. The video told us about the guys selling seafood and having so much fun throwing fish around and what wonders it did for the business, too. I guess the lesson should have been that with the right attitude, you can do a good job and have fun at the same time. I actually think we should take this lesson a little more literal. We should actually try throwing fish at the hotel front desk. Not sure how it would help the business, but it looks like a lot of fun!   

• The next day of Seattle sightseeing is only possible if you are lucky enough to have friends who are lucky enough to live right on a lake and are lucky enough to have their own boat. Christine & Dan gave us an alternative, maritime city tour. Cruising to a restaurant by boat, hopping on the pier and having lunch is so much fun, they could serve dry toast and I would love it. The Mexican lunch we had was even better. We also visited friends who invited us onto their house boat on Lake Union (where Tom Hanks lived in 'Sleepless in Seattle'). And we cruised by Bill Gates' house... but he did not ask us in.

• The Seattle weather might not be as sunny as Maui and the water not as warm, but with the right attitude and the right wet suit, I would never let that get in the way of a chance to go water skiing. Dan, the water ski man, is such a good skier, he was even able to surf with me driving the boat (for the very first time ever). 

• "Bumbershoots" might be the most fun music festival I have ever been to. We spent a full day there and the variety of events could not be any greater. We saw nine different events from folk music and opera hooligans to heavy metal and wheelchair dancing   
• Boing's "Museum of Flight" would have been a very interesting place by itself. But getting a private tour from our friend Bob was a special treat. He has worked for Boing for over three decades as early as 1949 and knows more about airplane design and construction than both the Wright Brothers combined.
• We had not realized before how many people we know in the Seattle area. Christine & Dan were nice enough to put us up for the week, Joanna joined us for a fun day of sight seeing and Suz had us over for a fabulous dinner with Stan, Carole, Johnny, David, Bob & Brian. It makes sense that Seattle & Maui share a special connection. If you want to get away from too much rain and too many people in Seattle, you go to Maui and if you are tired of sunshine and miss the city, you go to Seattle.

Today, we took a scenic Amtrak train ride to Vancouver (in Washington!) to pick our beloved MaRVy. So now we are actually on a ROAD trip!

And that's the news from Lake Washington, where all the tours were classy, where all the lakes were glassy and even all the cloudy days were a lighter shade of grey than average.

Aloha, 

Chris, Sandra & MaRVy

Sept 15, 2010 - "MaRVy is on the road again"

Aloha all,

it's been only a week since we left Seattle, but what a fun potpourri of things we already got to experience.  

We did NOT win the Hot Rod Race in Long Beach, I did NOT get to climb to the top of one of those giant trees in the rainforest and Sandra did NOT meet any Vampires in Forks....

...other than that we had pretty much a perfect first week on the road:

• Our first stop was at Fort Clatsop, because we had some unfinished business from our 2008 road trip. We had seen and heard so much about Lewis & Clark back then, it was about time to see the place where they spent the winter before they returned back east. That time was the best and worst for Lewis and Clark. They were enthusiastic about being the first humans to fulfill Jefferson's dream of crossing the entire American Continent. Yet they were also miserable because during the entire winter it rained on all but 12 days! We were lucky to be here 205 years later.
• The second day we went to a Fort of a different kind. Did you know that besides Pearl Harbor, the US mainland was also attacked by the Japanese during the 2nd World War? We had no idea. Granted, not much harm was caused, only the backstop of Fort Steven's baseball field was damaged. It could have been much worse, the soccer fields are pretty close... I still don't quite understand what the Japanese wanted to accomplish attacking the US mainland with only one submarine. But with no knowledge of the things to come, of course the soldiers at Fort Stevens and the people living around it were worried that this was the beginning of an invasion. Now the fort is a State Park with a nice campground and a good view of the Columbia river mouth. And again, we were lucky to be 68 years late.
• On the other side of the Columbia is a little known beach with a well known name. Believe it or not, we took a stroll on Waikiki Beach! One of the over 2,000 ship wrecks around the Columbia river bar had some sailor from Hawaii. They were buried here and the beach was named for them. There is more driftwood on that Waikiki Beach than tourists on the real Waikiki Beach. Overall, I prefer Hawaiian beaches, but it was fun seeing this Waikiki for a change.
• The further we drove on Long Beach, the funkier the cars got. As we drove down the main strip, we saw people lined up on both sides of the road watching the traffic jam. It turns out that we unwillingly became part of the "Rod Run to the end of the World".  These automobiles were so amazing that we spent a long time watching them go by. Usually I am not much of a hot rod or antique car fan. For me, a car is just something to get me from Point A to Point B. Unless that car is MaRVy and also brings me to Points C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y and Z.

• The next three days we spent in the rainforest in different parts of the Olympic National Park. I will admit that the cars on Long Beach were amazing, but they are nothing compared to the trees around here. Holy Cow, do they have trees! 

• We actually camped one night right under the world's largest Sitka Spruce tree. The rainforest here is a magical place. Some of those trees use 800 gallons of water a day! They have trees growing on dead trees, trees growing out of live trees and even trees with so much moss on their branches that the tree starts to grow roots out of their branches into the moss. 

• Today we visited "Twilight Town" or "Forks" as it was formerly known. I have never seen any town so engulfed in a story. It might be because before Twilight, Forks had just about nothing to offer to tourists. Well, they made the best out of nothing. It seems like everybody and their dog is jumping on the Twilight train: Twilight tours, Twilight maps, Twilight menus, Twilight stores,...and it seems to work. We saw many Twilight fans around town. I can only imagine how some of those teenager would have kicked and screamed if their parents had taken them on a "summer vacation" to Forks before the books and the movies....but now this rainy, sleepy timber town is the hip place to be. And I have to admit, even I enjoy the fact that we spent the night at a campground right on the "Treaty Line" between vampire and werewolf territory. For me, I'd rather be with the werewolves and the Quileute Indians, who occupy the spectacular coast line around La Push, instead of a gray little town. 

And that's the news from Lake Olympic, where some of the rainforest was sunny, where some of the rainforest was rainy, but where all of the days were more beautiful than average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra

Sept24, 2010 - "Dams, Dreams & Deception"

Aloha all,

lush rain forest, thundering waterfalls, disappearing dams, spectacular views, yummy food, cute towns, deceiving tides and dangerous bars...that's the short version. 

But you all know that I can never leave it with that:

• We spent another three days in the Olympic National Park. We had a couple of days that were wet & cold enough to make a stop at the Sol Duc Hot Springs an appealing option and guaranteed an adequate water supply for the spectacular waterfalls. It'd be silly to complain about rain in the rain forest. Sometimes it actually adds to the mystique.

• Thank god for web cams! We should know this from Haleakala: The weather at the summit has nothing to do with the weather at the coast. We were in rainy, gray Port Angeles and the weather forecast for Hurricane Ridge did not sound much better. However, the live web cam from the summit showed another picture. And sure enough, minutes before reaching the summit, we came out of the clouds and enjoyed the spectacular view of the snow capped Olympic Mountains. I was almost as ecstatic as I was as a 9 year old when I was above the clouds for the very first time. Since I had never been in an airplane before, I did not know that clouds could ever be BELOW you. I was convinced I was witnessing a never seen before phenomenon. At 40 years old, I know this is actually quite common in the mountains, but we still felt very lucky. We did not really want to go back down in the gray mist, so we spent all day up at Hurricane Ridge, taking advantage of every ranger program. We love the National Park Service!

• In Elwha Valley, this is "The Last Dam Summer!" Next year, they will remove the two dams that regulate Elwha River. It will be the largest dam removal project in the country's history! They expect the salmon population to go from 3,000 to 300,000 in just a few years. I tend to believe it, since we already saw salmon lining up below the lower dam. They seem to be more eager to populate that river again than Terry is to buy the newest iphone.  They are in line a year in advance!  The shot below is my "before" photo, I am looking forward to coming back in a few years for the "after" photo.

• The next picture below is also "before". The "after"photo would have been of our happy & fully filled tummies. We've had some great seafood here, more excuses to eat out. At home (in MaRVy), we eat mostly pasta and lasagna. We enjoy that, too, but it's not an "event" like the dungeness crab lunch was. 

• Port Townsend is a cute little town with some very impressive buildings. Early settlers seemed to be so confident of their towns future success that the question was only whether Port Townsend would become the "New York of the West Coast" or the "San Francisco of the Pacific Northwest". They knew the town would take off as soon as a railroad would connect them to the rest of the country, so  they built a customs & courthouse that looks like a castle (see below) and many impressive victorian villas. Starting from 1890, the population exploded from about 900 to almost 8,000 in just one decade. In the following 110 years, Port Townsend experienced a net growth of about 334 inhabitants and is still not connected to any transcontinental railroad. But it is a very nice town with some really good restaurants. Maybe it could at least be called the "Lahaina of the Pacific Northwest".

• On the ferry and off to Whidbey Island. Deception Pass over there is very appropriately named. The opening between two islands is so narrow, that depending on the tide, the ocean looks like a river rushing in or out. The current got strong enough that we observed one sailboat unsuccessfully trying to cross the pass, giving up and turning around.

• The ferry from Anacortes to the San Juan Islands is surprisingly cheap for people and surprisingly expensive for RVs, so we left MaRVy behind and took a day trip to Friday Harbor. The first bar at the harbor tricked us. Their glasses of beer are expensive, but the pitchers are really cheap. Needless to say, we did not see much of the rest of the island. But the bar had a great view!

And that's the news from Lake Puget Sound, where all the seafood is fresh, where all the water and the watering holes are dangerous and where the average dam's life expectancy is definitely below average. 

Aloha from the North Cascades,

Chris & Sandra

Sept 9, 2010 - "Thank God for the Panorama Mode"

Aloha all,

for the past week we did an extended version of the very scenic 'Cascade Loop'. As you can see below, the landscape was so scenic, that I had to use the panorama mode on my camera more than ever before. The beauty was that wide spread.

Besides the most scenic scenery, we saw the largest dam of the country, visited the site of the biggest waterfall in history, spent a day on the third  deepest lake in America and went into the largest building in the world!

• We have never been disappointed by any National Park; and the North Cascades were no exception. We went on a hike or two pretty much every day, but we did not go backpacking into the wilderness and that's what it would take to get to the really cool stuff, like the many glaciers. But I think it's great that there are some areas that are still truly wild and not that easily explored. Even the stuff you see just driving through the park is really spectacular, as you can see...

• The most amazing hike was actually outside the National Park. It was steeper and prettier than we thought to get to the beautiful subalpine Lake Ann and got steeper and prettier from there. Unfortunately, Sandra could not join me for the second part, so I had to talk to myself a lot. It was so pretty that I could just not shut up about it. The weather was picture perfect despite the area being called "Rainy Pass". Everybody else on the trail seemed to be just as amazed as me. When I told them that I was wondering what was on TV, they knew exactly what I meant. There was no better place to be that day. If anybody wants to, I can send you another 50 pictures just from that hike, but it would still not show HOW awesome it was.  
• The Grand Coulee Dam is one of the most amazing man made structures I have ever seen. It might not seem that big when you look at it on the picture or even in real life, but if you keep in mind that it is about a mile wide or if you stand at the bottom of it, you get an idea of the scale of this largest dam in America. It turns the Columbia river into a lake for over 150 miles, all the way into Canada. The concrete they used to built the dam would be enough to build a 4 foot sidewalk twice around the entire equator. It also makes for a nice big projection screen for the nightly laser show.

• Did you know there was a waterfall in Washington that could put any other waterfall in the world to shame? A waterfall so huge it had ten (10!) times more water flow than all of today's rivers in the world combined! It sounds pretty unbelievable, but after having learnt about it, I find it even more unbelievable that we had never heard about the "Dry Falls" before. As the name suggests, the falls are dry right now, but during floods about 11,000 years ago, it must have been quite the sight. Even without water, we were very impressed to see the world's largest waterfall. If you are as oblivious about the 'Dry Falls' as we were, I suggest reading up on it. Or, if you are like us and prefer to see things yourself, check them out next time you are in Eastern Washington.
• With a depth of 1,486 feet  Lake Chelan is the third deepest lake in America. It is 55 miles long, but never more than 2 miles wide. The little town of Stehekin at the end of Lake Chelan is part of the North Cascades National Park and can only be accessed by boat, floatplane or a several day hike. We chose the very scenic boat option, even though that gave us only an hour and a half to explore Stehekin. Even with 10 weeks vacation, we don't seem to have as much time as we'd like at some places.
• As you might know, we have often been to theme parks, but in the past week, we also went to two 'theme towns'. We can probably all learn a thing or two from "Winthrop" and "Leavenworth". Both towns fell on hard times after times of boom. 50 years ago they were both just regular run down little places in the middle of nowhere. But rather than giving up, they re-invented themselves rather successfully. Now, when walking around Winthrop, you feel like in a Wild West movie and Leavenworth is definitely the most Bavarian looking town this side of the Atlantic. Heck, I have seen towns in Bavaria that don't look as Bavarian as Leavenworth. You can call it fake, because the Bavarian theme was just based on an idea from some business people, not on any real historical connection. But the whole town played along and their success is very real. We have not been to real Germany in a while, so we enjoyed the fake version. Where else around here can you get Landjaeger, Kristall Weizenbier or Spaetzle and sit in a beer garden? 

• Today we did the Boeing factory tour. We saw the very place where all the 747s you have ever flown in were built. Since they are pretty big planes, it's a pretty big place. It's the largest building in the world by volume, 472 million cubic feet to be exact. The doors alone are as wide as a football field. Boeing is currently working on the new 787 Dreamliner. They do not allow any cameras on the tour, I guess they were afraid we'd go home and build our own jumbo jet, it only takes about 6 million parts. So if we'd get a copy of the parts list, all we'd have to do is take a picture so we remember where they go...oh yeah and build another one of those largest buildings in the world....
• We also did a wine and a beer tour. The two tours could not have been more different. At the St. Michelle winery, a very dignified lady showed us all around the winery before letting as sample a few sips of their sophisticated wines. At the Red Hook brewery, we had a comedian as a tour guide and their theory seems to be that if they get us drunk enough and laughing hard enough, they don't really need to show us anything else. Needless to say, we enjoyed both tours equally well and are glad we did them in this order.

And that's the news from Lake Cascades, where all the scenery is beautiful, where all the photos need to be wider and where at least some towns are more pretty and more fake than average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra  

Oct 12, 2010 - "Mount Rainier and More"

Aloha all,

no cheating this time! If you skip reading my scribble and go straight to the photos, you will only see pictures from one hike we did this week. But look at that pretty girl in front of the glacier, at the cool ice crystals, at the frost covered flowers, the cute marmot, all that ice and that majestic mountain. And the last two pictures, which are two of my new favorites amongst the about 20,000 pictures I have taken in the last 10 years. It would have been well worth taking a week off just for that one single day hiking at Mount Rainier!

Even though the rest of the week was not as photogenic, here is what else we did:

• After the factory tours at Boeing, St. Michelle winery and the Red Hook Brewery were such a success, we did two more. John gave us a tour at the Fritch Lumber Mill. This was by no means an official factory tour like the other ones. They did not seem to mind us walking around the mill and getting as close to the working blades as we wanted. I even got to cut a tree in half myself! I have the picture to prove it - but believe me, it's not as pretty as any of the Mt. Rainier photos below, so it did not make the cut. The other 'factory tour' we did was at Microsoft and very disappointing. But who would have thought that the visitor center at one of the most successful and influential companies of the world offers less of an experience as visiting any regular Apple Store?
• We had seen Mount Rainier the very first day we arrived in Seattle from Christine's house, but it took us a month to actually get there. We first went to the less visited Sunrise point at the northeast side of the National Park. We did a long hike right from our campground with great views of the snow covered summit and the huge Emmons Glacier. We then drove further up and the views got even better. We ran into a very nice couple that had just moved to Seattle from the Midwest and was still in awe about the beauty of their new home state. We hiked, talked and were amazed together.
• It's a good thing we enjoyed and appreciated the great views and the good weather, because it was not to last very long. When we got to "Paradise", the most popular area to visit at Mt. Rainier, we could not even see across the parking lot. Calling that place "Paradise" seemed rather ironic the first two days we went there. The inside of a cloud is just not that impressive. But the weather forecast suggested sun and clear views for two days later. What a luxury to have enough time to wait for better weather. Luckily, the lower areas around the mountain were clear and offered plenty of good hiking, nice waterfalls & old lodges. And then look at the pictures below and judge for yourself whether the forecasters were right and whether that hike was worth the wait.
• The next two days, we went to the Yakima Valley Museum and to the Yakama Nation Museum. And believe me, it's not just the spelling that's different. The first one had excellent exhibitions about the pioneers and immigrants, who came here to develop the land so they can make a living and found a new home. The second museum is from the Yakama Nation. It tells the story of how they lost most of their home and now try to make a living on a pretty small reservation.
• Toppenish is a fun little town. To make it even funner, local artists seem to have decided two decades ago to make it into the mural capital of the world. Since then they have converted 73 large walls of buildings  around town into the most beautiful murals, all depicting local themes. Judging by our experience, it does not attract large amounts of tourists, we were the first ones in the guest book at the visitor center that day, but despite the painted walls and the western music they play all over town via loudspeakers, this town seemed more real then Leavenworth and more truly western than Whintrop. We liked all three, but are not about to move to any of them.
• We are now at the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge. The weather is not so "Gorge"ous, so for now we mostly enjoyed the indoor attractions such as the impressive Maryhill Art Museum, the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles and a very cute historical museum in Goldendale. I am sure we will find more covered things to do tomorrow. But the weather forecast for next week looks much better and since Mount Rainier, I trust them weather people again;-)

And that's the news from Lake Columbia Gorge, where we are still thankful for the sunny days at Mount Rainier, where we are also thankful for all the different kind of museums and where the dry side of the Cascades is definitely wetter than average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra

Oct 19, 2010 - "Still Aamazed"

Aloha all,

another amazing week on the road. In case anybody is amazed at how often we are amazed and wonders what we mean by that: According to the dictionary "amazing" is defined as "inspiring awe, admiration or wonder".

So here is what we have been in awe about, what made us admire this beautiful country and what we've been wondering about since the last update:

• We have seen larger dams and we have seen dams that will disappear next year, but we were still amazed by the Bonneville Dam. It was the first dam on the mighty Columbia and has a great visitor center, a fish ladder with underwater viewing windows and a fish hatchery. Did you know they have somebody on duty every day and all day long just to count how many fish swim up or down the fish ladder? And if you are not amazed by this, how about those salmon that swim upriver all the way from the ocean? Seeing how hard the salmon work to get back to where they were born seems pathetic and inspiring at the same time. Like the salmon at the hatchery on the photo below, which tried so hard to get into that next pool, just to lay her eggs there and die. Amazing.

• We have seen about a million and a half waterfalls on this trip. But the most amazing one was on our hike along spectacular Eagle Creek in the Columbia Gorge. It was tall, wild, powerful and loud. And as if that's not amazing enough, humans have blasted a trail and tunnel into the cliffs so that we could even walk behind this thing of beauty. And as always, the fact that you have to hike 6 miles to get there made it twice as amazing.

• As gorgeous as the Columbia River Gorge is, often it is the small things that amaze us the most. Mostly that would be a mushroom for me and a tree full of moss for Sandra. And if you haven done any hiking in the Pacific Northwest, you know that pretty much guarantees constant amazement around here. The amount and variety of mosses and mushrooms here is nothing short of amazing.

• You know what else I find amazing? The fact that nobody ever questions why we eat lomi lomi salmon at  luaus in Hawaii. Isn't it surprising that one of the most popular traditional Hawaiian dishes is a fish that does not even live in Hawaiian waters? We thought we were visiting 'just another fort' in Vancouver, Washington. The first thing we learnt there was that they had a lot of contact with Hawaii since the water route to the 'Sandwich Islands' was a lot easier than the land route to the United States. They brought a lot of Hawaiian laborers to the area; and I guess a lot of salmon to Hawaii. Fort Vancouver might not look like much, but you could argue that without it, the Pacific Northwest would not have been settled by white people the way it was and there would be no lomi lomi salmon at the luaus in Hawaii. Amazing.
• We also spent a few days in the Portland area. We had a Voodoo Doughnut, went to the OMSI Museum and took a trip on the new aerial tramway. But the three highlights were three different gardens. We were amazed that we could spend over four hours in the tiny Chinese Garden. It only takes up one city block, but the interesting tour and the dim sum at the tea house made it most enjoyable. They say it's the most authentic Chinese Garden outside of China. They say the same thing about the Portland Japanese Garden. Well, of course not EXACTLY the same thing, they say it's the most authentic Japanese Garden outside of Japan. To be honest, at first we were not amazed at all by the Japanese Garden. We walked through it in no time and were somewhat uninspired. But we came back after lunch to join a guided tour and were truly...you guessed it...amazed! It seems like every rock and every plant has a meaning and a purpose. The third garden was a rose garden. We knew it was supposedly the best rose garden in America, but we also knew that October is not the best month to visit a rose garden. But wouldn't you know it, we were amazed how many roses were still in full bloom, looking and smelling amazingly.

• The humans are really a funny and creative bunch. Obviously, they are not as well adapted as other critters to live in or navigate the treetops of a forrest. Yet, some of these humans came up with the idea of an aerial obstacle course through a forrest. That place is called the "Tree to Tree Adventure Park" . There are four courses that get increasingly more difficult. The fourth course is about 40 feet up in the air with jumps, swings and high wires that would have scared me to death if I did not fully trust that safety harness. Since I love to climb trees but would hate to fall from one, I found this place simply amazing;-)

• Now we are at the Oregon Coast and judging from the first impressions the amazement is not about to end. We saw great play at the Coaster Theatre in Cannon Beach, took a beautiful (yet cold) walk on one of the huge beaches and hiked up to the summit of Neahkahnie Mountain. What a view! And we only found out about this hike because we chatted with a nice fellow in the hot tub at the RV park in Portland. Amazing, isn't it?

And that's the news from Lake Oregon Coast, where all mushrooms amaze Chris, where all the mosses amaze Sandra and where the amazement overall is always above average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra 

Oct 27, 2010 - "Going Coastal"

Aloha all,

compared to Maui, the Oregon Coast has bigger beaches, taller trees, more dramatic waves, better caves, more wildlife and most important for me: more mushrooms and for Sandra: more moss. 

If it were not for the fact that we got caught in a hail storm at one time and I was attacked by a tiger another time, why would we ever come back to Maui?

But we were caught  in a hail storm  and I was attacked by a tiger. Plus, I can think of a thousand other reasons, so we did actually book our flight back home. Our road trip now has an ending point. It will be on Nov 8th in San Jose, CA. But before that, there is still a lot of fun to be had and an RV to be sold.

But first, here are some highlights from our last ten days on the coast:

• Watching the surf along the Oregon Coast has been fascinating. The blow hole in Depoe Bay blows the Maui blow hole out of the water. The waves at Indian Sands seemed twice as powerful as I have ever seen at Honolua Bay. And at Cape Kiwanda, we actually saw some brave soles going surfing in the ice cold water.  

• The diving here is supposedly very good, too. But since we are warm water wimps, we just waited for the water to recede and went tide pooling instead. Cold enough. But cool stuff to see: Anemones, sea stars, urchins, crabs. Can it get that much better that it would be worth being that much colder?  
• We always like to do factory tours and we had been eating the cheese for a while, so of course we also stopped at the Tillamook Cheese creamery. 
• Lighthouses have a certain fascination. But since there are so many of them around here, we did only one actual tour. I think the Umpqua Lighthouse we picked was the best one since we even got to go inside the actual lens.  
• Hiking opportunities along the Oregon Coast are very diverse: Up a mountain for a panoramic view, along a beach with a spectacular sunset, to the top of the Oregon Dunes, through the forest, swamp and tide flats at the South Slough Estuary and over the river and through the woods to Drift Creek Falls we went...
• After all that hiking we are also getting in incredible shape. One morning, we hiked up and down the entire length of a river, from its source at Devil's Lake all the way to the ocean. It used to be called Devil's River, but the missionaries did not like that name and shortened it to "D River". For once, I agree with the missionaries. At a length of about 400 feet, "D" is a long enough name for that river. It used to be in the Guinness Book of Records as the shortest river in the world. When another river claimed the title, they measured it again at an extreme high tide and came to only 120 feet. At that point, even the Guinness people about had it with the shenanigans and dropped the category.
• Another dubious claim is that the Sea Lion Cave is the "largest sea cave" in the world. A quick search on google finds at least a handful of places with the same claim. But the poor folks who own the Sea Lion Cave had to do something to promote their cave after they built an elevator all the way down to the cave. The sea lions were not helping on the day we went there. There were over a thousand sea lions on the public beach right next to the cave and not a single one in the "Sea Lion Cave".

• Our last stop in Oregon were the Oregon Caves. Luckily, they are managed by the National Park Service. So no dubious claims about any records, just a great ranger guided 90 minute tour into the cave. He did tell a dubious story about a wedding inside the caves in the 1930's with the whole wedding party dressed up as cavemen. But he had the picture to prove it;-)

• Our first stop in California were the Redwoods. After all the amazing trees we saw in Washington, I did not think I could still be so fascinated by trees. But these trees here are just awesome.  And guess what...they are the tallest trees in the world.  It was also our slowest hike due to all the ooohing and aaaahing and it had the highest 'PPS ratio' (pictures per step). I deleted over half of them, but I still challenge anyone to watch all 1,048 of the remaining ones.  

And if you are still waiting for that tiger attack and hail storm story: The tiger that attacked me from behind was a cute baby tiger at the West Coast Safari Park. As you can see on the photo below, Sandra was able to calm him down. 

And we also survived the hail storm and a snow storm. The hail storm was actually fascinating to watch. We were just going for a short evening stroll along the beach. The storm came and went within a blink of the eye. I took the darkest storm cloud and a pretty sunset photo just 10 minutes apart. 

And that's the news from the Coastal Lake, where all the trees reach all the way to the sky, where all the caves reach deep into the ground and where everything is not just above average, but the tallest (or shortest) in the world. 

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra

Nov 10, 2010 - "There is Life after MaRVy"

Aloha all,

I can report on one more week of adventures on the road before we settle back into our mundane life on our tropical island in the middle of the Pacific.

For the first part of the week, we made our way down the California Coast to the San Jose area, where we heavy-heartedly left MaRVy behind to be sold in consignment. During the second part, we took advantage of the more fuel efficient rental car and dashed further south to see the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Hearst Castle. Here's the play-by-play:

• First, more trees! Even after a couple of days in the Redwoods National Park, we did not get used to the sight of these enormous super-sized plants. So we spent another two days on the "Avenue of the Giants". Still, I have not mastered to take one single photo of these towering giants that would do them justice. They just don't fit in one picture. The closest I got to capturing their size is the first photo below. It only shows the bottom few inches of a formerly 360 feet tall tree. And without Sandra for scale it would still just look like any other fallen tree. My inability to take a good picture of a standing Redwood tree started to bother me until, in one of the visitor centers, we watched a film about a National Geographic photographer. He was faced with the same problem, but was a little more determined than me. It took him three weeks to find the right tree and prepare the shoot. Then it took him two weeks and a crew of about six to take 85 pictures from the right angle at the right sunlight and another few days stitching them together before he had a picture of a tree he was happy with. I enjoy taking pictures, but I am not that determined.

• Just for the contrast, we also went to the "Pygmy Forest" just south of the cute town of Mendocino. I will admit that the sight was pretty unimpressive, but still somehow intriguing: In one small area, the soil and growing conditions are so bad that the growth of some trees gets stunned. Trees that usually grow to about 100 feet measure only about 4 feet at a mature age. 
• One of the fun things of a road trip is that occasionally you run across something you never even knew existed. Such was he case for us with Fort Ross. We were blissfully unaware that the Russians had a thriving settlement and fur trade in California. In the early 1800's, there was this Russian Fort on the California Coast with impressive amenities even by today's standards - while the United States were just beginning to explore the Western part of the continent. 
• Point Reyes National Seashore was the last site managed by our beloved National Park Service on this trip. And we were impressed yet again. A great 'Science on a Sphere' presentation and a ranger guided 'Earthquake Walk' made even the very short visit worthwhile. 
• While in Napa Valley, we played the one and only round of disc golf on this trip, had a delicious dinner at a Spanish tapas bar in town and got a great tour of the Robert Mondavi winery. 

• Factory tours are always interesting, but rarely do they smell as good as the one where Jelly Belly jelly beans are made. Seeing (and smelling) ten million colorful jelly beans is pretty impressive. And I found out that I actually have a little more in common with Ronald Reagan than I thought...
• Selling our beloved MaRVy was a little adventure by itself. Surprisingly, it included a game of pool with a snake, a trip to the DMV where MaRVy became a California boy and a great sushi dinner with the RV dealer's family. Of course used car dealers of any kind should not be trusted, but you got to appreciate the serendipity that he just spent his vacation on Maui (only 500 yards from our home!) when I first contacted him.  Overall, the process was faster than we had anticipated and we were able to rent a car and spend the last 4 days exploring interesting sites, rather than RV dealers.
• Our last night in MaRV was at the New Brighton State Park in Santa Cruz with a delightful walk along the beach. In the distance we saw a pier leading out to a  weird something. As we walked up to it, we wondered: "What is this?", "Is it really made out of concrete?" and "How did it get here?". Luckily, there is a little visitor center where we watched a short documentary about the 'Palo Alto' and it started something like this: "Most  visitors, when they first see the Palo Alto wonder "What is this? Is it really made out of concrete? And how did it get here...?" . It went on to explain that he Palo Alto is a concrete ship that was built for the first world war, but was not finished in time. It was later towed to this beach, where for only two years it was an amusement ship complete with dance floor, bar and swimming pool. 
• We went to Monterey mostly to visit the Aquarium, which was well worth the trip already. But we also happened to walk into a really interesting film festival at the beautiful Golden State Theater and saw four intriguing documentaries.
• There was something weird when we strolled through Carmel in search of a place to have dinner. It took us a long time before we realized why everything seemed different. And a quick google search on the iphone confirmed what we were not seeing: The town of Carmel does not have any streetlights. They also don't have any street numbers. That's why the US postal service does not deliver mail here, everybody has a PO box. This town seems to be very proud of their quirkiness. They still have a law that requires women to get a permit if they want to wear high heels around town. By getting the permit, you waive your right to sue the town if you twist an ankle on the uneven sidewalks ...in the dark. If Clint Eastwood had not been mayor here for a while, they still might not allow ice cream being eaten in public. I am all for being unique and avoiding law suits, but banning ice cream really was a silly idea. 

• Growing up in Germany, we have seen a few castles before. But even or maybe because it is not that old, the Hearst Castle is still in a league of its own. It is built at he unlikeliest spot and had it's heydays at the unlikeliest time. But the fact that it is so far away from anywhere and thrived during the great depression makes it even more interesting. The size, beauty and attention to detail is mind boggling. The characters in period costumes made it even more fascinating.

• Another curious building was the last highlight of our tour. While staying in Cupertino with Ron & MaryAnne on our last day of the trip, we visited the Winchester Mystery House. Mrs. Winchester started building the house in 1884. Apparently, a psychic had told her to move west to built a house for her and the spirits of all the people killed by Winchester guns. The psychic also said that she would die if she ever stopped construction of the house. Thanks to the inherited money from her dad's gun company, she was able to continue to build on the house continuously for the next 38 years. On our tour we saw 110 out of 160 rooms of this weirdest of houses. It is not known whether her heart failure in the middle of the night  had natural causes or whether her workers took a little break.

And that's the news from Lake California, where all days with MaRVy were fun, where all the days without MaRVy were fun and where everything seems just a bit weirder than average.

As much as we would love to continue our road trip, we are grateful to come home to magical Maui and appreciate the opportunity to discover so much of the rest of this beautiful country.

Thanks for reading.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra