Uncle Rans and Aunt Pati's

Here is the next installment of the farewell tour edition!

We arrived at Rans and Pati's house around 3p on Friday May 25th. Pati was still at work so we went to surprise her and then we took a scenic ride back to their house.

We could not have planned the trip better if we had tried because we were able to spend the entire Memorial Day weekend with them. We went on some scenic walks/hikes around the island, played board games, went to point-no-point, the seashell museum, and relaxed on the deck. Here are some pictures from our adventures.

A deer that spent much time munching greens in their forest:

The light house at Point-no-Point

A fish in blue jeans who was kind enough to pose with Ben and I:

Starfish on the pier:

Uncle Rans, Aunt Pati, Me, Ben

After much discussion, we decided that it would be best to leave on the 5:20 ferry to Seattle to avoid commuter traffic. This ended up working really well as we were able to see the sunrise on the ferry.

We made it back into Denver on Wednesday May 30th after spending a night camping near the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Up the Coast- California to Washington

We started on our journey up the western coast on Tuesday May 22nd. This was an amazing leg of the journey for both Ben and I. We started this portion of the trip from Moorpark, CA and headed up the coast on the famous Highway 1.

Some highlights from the first day of the journey were:

Morro Bay (where we ate a picnic lunch and found sand dollars),

San Simeon (beautiful water, beach and pier; as well as home to the Hurst Castle),

Elephant Seals,

Monterey Bay (where we spent the night at Sunset Beach State Park).

Day two found us starting in Monterey Bay. We went across the Golden Gate Bridge and enjoyed lunch at Point Reyes National Seashore. One highlight of this day was making it up to Redwood National Forest to camp.

Day three (Thursday May 24th) was spent driving from Redwood National Forest to Cape Lookout State Park in Oregon. This drive was absolutely beautiful with the forest on one side and spectacular ocean views on the other.

We woke up on Friday and headed out of our campsite to Fort Clatsop National Memorial. We then headed across the (terrifying!) Astoria bridge and headed toward my Aunt and Uncle's house in Bainbridge Island, WA.

This was a drive of a lifetime!

Fun on the road-California

I know many people have been holding their breath to hear about our adventures in California so here goes!

We arrived in Redondo Beach, CA on Friday May 18th after staying a night near Cedar Breaks, UT. For those who do not know, we went to Redondo Beach to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law (Robert and Kristen Olson).



First Ben and I walked down to the beach and enjoyed the palm trees.





After Robert got home we went to a restaurant overlooking the beach to eat dinner with Kristen. We then had a tour of the beach and watched the sun set.

On Saturday Robert drove Ben and I down to San Diego to spend time with Aunt Linda and Uncle Tony. They took us on a tour of the city and we ate lunch together.

On Sunday Robert gave me some boogie-boarding tips and I had a blast making a fool of myself! Here's a video Ben taped:



On Monday Ben and I drove to Simi Valley, CA to spend the day with my Grandmother. We went out to lunch, shopping and she showed us around her new place. We were able to sit and visit with her until dinner.





On Monday night we went out with my Aunt Gail and Uncle Bob and my cousins Alicia and Liz. We stayed Monday night at their house in Moorpark and then began our journey up the west coast.

Grand Junction

We are at a computer in Grand Junction's visitor center charging our batteries so I thought I would say "hey" from Grand Junction. We are very excited to continue our wonderful trip! Pictures will be here soon.
Love,
Jennie

Update: Pictures from the awesome visitor center

How to Get the Most Out of Your Fill-up

Wouldn't you like to know how we make our trip affordable with gas prices on the rise? This video offers an ancient family secret passed down from generation to generation on maximizing gas pumped.

Back in Denver

We're back in Denver tonight preparing the second, longer leg of our epic farewell tour hitting Utah, California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

We may work over the next week or two to backtrack on our posts and go a little more in depth.
In the mean time, we've updated the map with pictures, captions, and some route information. There are also picture albums without captions. The various albums include:

Wizards Minor League Baseball Game

Fort Wayne Zoo

Milford Lake

If you find this road trip stuff boring and want something more Peace Corps related, check out Doug's blog. He's a good friend of ours doing the Peace Corps in Romania.

Jennie and Ben's Farewell Tour

We're currently in Fort Wayne, Indiana visiting my aunt Stevie. It's the first leg of our epic Farewell Tour, during which time we are going to par-tay like it's 1999. We're visiting relatives across the country during the month of May before we leave for the Peace Corps in July.

I'm on a phone line connection right now, so no pictures or podcasts at present. But you can take a look at our tour map and see what cool things we'll be doing.

More posts soon (we're too busy par-taying like it's 1999 right now).