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A compelling argument for taking action on climate change:

Phil and Jamie's West Coast Road Trip, Day Four

Day Four (223 miles)

The final day of our Odyssey.  Our triumphant return to Washington occurred at 10:40AM on Day Four. Washington greeted us in the customary gray skies way.

 

 

If you look really closely you can see the ocean... or at least Phil's gaping maw:

 

Our last detour was to visit the state capitol:

 

Truth be told, I lost interest in taking pictures after this.  Four days was plenty long to be sitting on my butt all day long.  We returned home, bid adieu to our trusty companion, the NaviHo, and returned to our regularly scheduled lives.

Phil and Jamie's West Coast Road Trip, Day Three

 

Day 3 ( 462 miles)

This is the second time I wrote this entry.  The first time Windows Live Writer cunningly led me to believe that I had saved my post, but when I went to upload it I discovered that everything I had written was gone.  Lovely.

 

Wednesday, September 12 saw us set out from Eugene after breakfast.  We decided early that there was no point in trying to make it to Seattle in one day.  Instead we'd enjoy a leisurely jaunt through Oregon and end the day wherever we found ourselves at 7PM or so.  We headed north on 101 through Redwood National and State Park and then through the Smith River NRA.  The morning weather wasn't so great, but things got better as the day progressed. 

 

 

 

We saw lots of trees (this picture is through the lens; no Photoshopping):

Some weird stuff, too:

 

The sun finally came out around noon:

 

And we made it to the border at 12:44PM.

 

 

 

 

 

Kathy had suggested that we make a side trip to Crater Lake.  Phil was skeptical after our last diversion had resulted in less than satisfactory results, but if there's any time to do something foolish, then do it again, it's on a Road Trip. 

Armed with a trip plan from the trusty NaviHo, we set off down I5.  I did feel a shade queasy as we followed I5 south to 234, but I had faith that this time things would be different.  And they were.

 

When we got to the entrance to Crater Lake, we had what turned out to be our Second Close Encounter of the Female Kind.  This time, we found ourselves chatting it up with two cute park rangers, one of whom (the one leaning out the window) was wondering if we happened to be headed south to Yosemite.  For a minute I wondered if Phil might kick me out of the car and say, "As a matter of fact, I am!"  Lucky for me (but too bad for him), he did not.

We soon found ourselves gazing out upon Crater Lake, and what a sight it was!

The photos can't possibly do justice to the magnificence of the view.  It wasn't just the sights but also the sounds, the purity of the air, the clearness of the sky.  Everything was just... sharp.

 

Two goons spoiling an otherwise marvelous view.

 

 

 

 

 

Another angle on the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were there, I practiced some HDR photography.  I haven't gotten the results yet (it takes a lot of tweaking in PhotoMatix), but once I have some pictures I'll post them in my gallery.  We probably only spent about an hour at Crater Lake, but it deserves a lot more.  I hope to come back some day when I have more time to relax and enjoy all this work of Nature has to offer.  I suspect the night sky in this place is just as amazing as the daytime vistas.

Back on the road, we were getting a bit worn.  I was hoping we might be able to call it a night in Corvallis, the setting for a novel by S.M. Sterling that I read recently.  But the logistics didn't work out.  We would meet the day's end in Salem, OR.

We saw a whole bunch of red farm houses on the way to Salem.

 

Sunset came at 7:31PM.

Phil and Jamie's West Coast Road Trip, Day Two

Day Two (383 miles)

I went to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor while Phil had lunch with a friend on the other side of the city.  The LoH is not very big, but it's got some of my most favorite works, including:

Rodin's The Thinker

Makovsky's The Russian Bride's Attire

 

Bougereau's The Broken Pitcher

Attire and Broken Pitcher both hang in the same room of the museum, directly opposite one another.  The former is a huge painting, probably 10' across.  I could just sit in that one room and state at those for hours.  But I'd done that before, back when Kathy and I lived in the Bay Area.  So this visit I wanted to catch some of the things I hadn't yet seen.  I toured the entirety of the museum in about two hours-- probably one tenth the time I could have spent there if I had had more.  I snapped some shots of some of the things that caught my eye:

   

Above is a statue of Columbus as a Boy, by Gulio Monteverdo

 

Paul Mounet, by Lous-Maurice Boutet de Monvel

 

don't know who this is

 

 

 

 

 

 Dorothy Spreckels Munn,  by Dali

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A ceiling in the Rodin sculpture room

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Rodin tableau

 

 

I love this bust of Voltaire, by Jean-Antione Houdon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another impressive bust by Jean-Jeacques Caffieri

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cool ceiling in the 15th century room.

 

All too soon it was time to get on our way.  It wasn't very far from LoH to the Golden Gate Bridge:

While I was driving Phil snapped one of my favorite shots from the whole trip:

This was taken through the sun roof, going about 40MPH.  I love the composition, contrast, and color.  He's a genius!

Much to Phil's later regret, we decided to follow Route 1 north of San Francisco to hug the coastline.  At about 2:30PM we reached Muir Beach, where we paused for some Scenic Vista photo opportunities. 

We noticed a pair of young (as in our age) women also snapping some pictures.  We swapped cameras and wound up with one of the few shots of Phil and me together from the entire trip.  As they were leaving, one of them said to Phil, "We're headed to Bolinas.  Maybe we'll see you there..."  That sort of thing never happens to me, and definitely never happens to Phil.  Of course, I'm happily married so after a couple of "road trip"-themed scripts ran through my brain the thrill was gone.  The stories all ended with Kathy standing over my mutilated carcass.

Phil, however, is unhappily single.  This called for a great deal of discussion about the relative merits of an unscheduled detour to Bonlinas as we proceeded north a few cars behind the girls.  At last the moment of truth arrived when they turned onto Olama Bolinas Rd.  In what I'm sure is one of those defining moments of a lifetime, we continued on and left behind any chance of encountering them again.

Phil spoiling an otherwise good photo.

One of the mystery girls from the lookout.

 

Instead of partying with a couple of hot British babes, we went to the Point Reyes Lighthouse.  I had fond memories of the Point Reyes National Seashore which turned out to have some wild inaccuracies.  For example, while my recollection of the drive from Route 1 to the lighthouse was that it was a quick half-hour detour, in reality it took us more than an hour each way.  Most of that was spent expecting the lighthouse to be just over the next hill.  Another falsehood in my memory was that the lighthouse was so cool it was worth the trip.  It was cool, but definitely not worth what wound up being a three hour detour.

 

 

I'm sure the lighthouse would have been more interesting if it had been open to the public the day we were there.  This was the closest we could get.

 

Phil's expression here reads something to the effect of, "We came all this way for THIS?"

Maybe not the most successful life saving station...

 

Finally back on the road, we made it to Gualla by 7PM for dinner at the Oceansong restaurant.  Phil ordered the steak.  They were out of steak.  He ordered a Pepsi.  They were out of Pepsi.  At least the bread was warm.

In what was a foolish plan in retrospect, we made for Eureka after dinner.  It was dark.  We were tired.  There were lots and lots and lots of switchbacks.  I was driving and didn't mind so much, but Phil was definitely an unhappy camper for the next few hours.  We finally arrived at the hotel at about 1AM and collapsed.

Phil and Jamie's West Coast Road Trip, Day One

About a year ago, Kathy's brother, Phil, and I decided it would be fun to take a road trip from Southern California to Seattle. I had never done such a long trip, and I'd heard that the trip up the coast was particularly sweet. We tried to schedule it a few times but always something else came up. A couple weeks ago, we finally made it happen.

Our friends, Tan and Kin, were getting married in Dana Point on Sunday, September 9. I decided I would fly down to SoCal for the wedding, then Phil and I would drive back up to Seattle over the next four days.

This is our story.

Day One (462 miles)

We rented a car from Hertz and set out from Phil's apartment at a bright and early 9:15AM on Monday. We had the two of us, a bunch of snack food and water, some clothes, and about a dozen bottles of really good wine, which Phil had been holding on to for us after Kathy and I moved from Dana Point to Seattle. Wine was strictly for transport. Phil doesn't drink.

Our plan was to make it to Sunnyvale (San Francisco Bay area) by dinnertime.

Our rental car.

We headed up the I-5 and hoped we'd make it through LA before dark.

We resisted the urge to visit Disneyland.

This ain't no disco. This is LA!

A Billboard

Bye bye, Hollywood!

The dial trended higher as the days went by

There be fire in them thar hill! Don't worry, though. It's just a refinery.

12:12PM on Day 1. Boredom begins to set in and I start in taking silly pictures of myself.

Meet our trusty traveling companion and guide, the talking navigation system we affectionately dubbed the NaviHo.

Price gouging is alive and well in King City, CA, where we had to stop for gas:

Funny name for this place, considering it's really just a remote outpost of Hell. I base this claim purely on the evidence at hand.

Exhibit One: The gas prices.

Exhibit Two: Cilantro. Never in my life have I been to a place so inundated with cilantro that the smell fills the air no matter where you go (including the men's room). In fact, King City must be to cilantro what Gilroy is to garlic.

I don't think any other arguments need be made.

When we finally got back on our way I wondered if perhaps I could have made better use of the gas station to make the world a better place-- by lighting it on fire-- but alas it was not to be.

Our next stop was in Solvang to acquire pastries. We got them, and ate some. We paid for them. We remarked how expensive they were. Back on the road.

By about 5:00PM we made it to San Jose. We had time for a short, pleasant visit with Uncle Big Nick and family. I ended up leaving with Nick's spare iPhone, which I planned to give to Kathy as a surprise gift.

Zipped inched our way up to San Mateo in the grueling US101 traffic to catch dinner with Kathy and Phil's brother Robert, and his wife Kristen. They took us to a lovely little Italian eatery where we didn't eat because they were closed for a private party. Instead we went to the Kingfisher restaurant where we ate wonderful food and drank expensive wine.

We stayed the night with Robert and Kristen then set out the following morning to go San Francisco.