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Posts Tagged ‘Road Trip’

West Coast Road Trip: The Bay Area (Day 6)

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

After visiting the Redwood National Park, we stayed in Eureka, CA and set out early to drive to San Francisco to get brunch with Sammie. We had brunch at the Butler and the Chef Bistro, and then tried to give Kelvin a proper tour of San Francisco, but the weather was very gloomy and wet.

We stopped off the side of the freeway to catch a few pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.

My little ugly doll vinyl toy.

Bi-Rite Creamery! Yum.

Sammie and me at Bi-Rite.

Stopped by UCSF to tour Sammie’s lab.

Love her!

Then, we headed down to Mountain View to hang out with Maddie! Kelvin and Paul playing Kinect.

Maddie and Paul!

We went out for sushi.

And then got some beers at Whole Foods. I was excited to see that they had Hitachino!

Tags: Bay area, California, Road Trip, San Francisco
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West Coast Road Trip: Redwood National Park (Day 5)

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

After we left Portland, we headed down to Redwood National Park. On our way down, we decided to stop at Toketee Falls in Oregon, a waterfall that I was set on visiting one day. Toketee Falls is pretty close to Crater Lake National Park, but we weren’t able to make it to Crater Lake because the roads were so icy. We only had a few hours to explore Redwood National Park before sundown. I would love to go back another time.

Toketee Falls, Oregon

Just your typical Spring Break trip. Kelvin braved the snowy/icy roads on our way to Redwood National Park.

Howland Hill Road, an old stagecoach road in Redwood National Park.

Redwoods are the world’s largest trees!

Going for a stroll at Stout Grove.

We stopped to get a picture of the coast.

Our faithful rental HHR.

Tags: California, Oregon, Redwood National Park, Road Trip, Toketee Falls
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West Coast Road Trip: Portland (day 4)

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

In the morning we drove from the coast of Washington to Portland, Oregon. Since we had been camping for the last few days, we hadn’t showered in a few days. We looked pretty grimy, but Portland didn’t seem to mind.

Kelvin and I had our first real meal in awhile at Mother’s Bistro and Bar. The atmosphere was homey and comforting.

Kelvin tore up his feet hiking in the rain with wet shoes and socks, so he borrowed my j.crew whale flip flops.

The coffee mugs had a nice reminder to call our moms.

We parked our car, and walked around the city. I had my mind set on visiting Powell’s books, my favorite bookstore!

I love Powell’s!

For St. Patrick’s Day, Jake’s Crawfish (another one of my favorites) put “Jake the Crab”, a giant crab, on its roof.

Loving the bike lanes! Such a biker/walker friendly city.

St. Patty’s Day dog.

Portland Theater.

Some of Portland’s weirdness.

I was excited to find that Portlandia exists!

Portland food carts.

I stopped to get some frozen yogurt at Cool Harry’s Yogurt and found out Harry is a fellow USC ’09 alum. The Trojan Family!

Yum! Cool Harry’s is definitely worth a visit if you’re in Portland.

Finally, a clean bed and warm shower! We stayed at Park Lane Suites and Inn in Portland. At $70 a night, I wasn’t expecting much, but the rooms are so cute and modern!

Typical Portland.

Chickens hanging out on the front porch of a house. Only in Portland.

Stopped by NE Alberta St. to visit cute artsy shops. Half of the shops we tried to visit had signs saying “out for coffee, be back in 5.” It made me laugh because it reminded me of the Portlandia skit. Kelvin’s been collecting Simpson vinyl toys for a few years. Here’s the newest addition to his collection.

I loved the cute boutique shops on Alberta Street.

I got an Ugly Doll vinyl toy.

Kombucha by the bulk!

Cute street art.

My hot date at Montage.

Montage menu

A visit to Portland is not complete without a meal at Montage.

Stopped by Widmer Brothers to try some beers.

Tags: Oregon, Portland, Road Trip
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WEST COAST ROAD TRIP: OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK (DAY 4)

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Well, this is probably the world’s slowest blog recap of a spring break road trip. (Here’s day 1, 2, and 3 of the west coast road trip Kelvin and I took.)

We spent two days and two nights in Olympic National Park. This was our second day in the park. We had spent the night camping in the car at the Mora campsite in Olympic because it was hailing and storming all night. Having visited Rialto and Second Beach the day before, we headed out to check out the rest of the beaches and a took a trip inland to hike around in the rain forests of Olympic.

In order to get to Third Beach, we had to hike out a few miles from the road. The sun came out for a little, and I loved the way the morning fog scattered the rays in the forest. When we finally got the Third Beach, the tide was rising and the logs on the coastline were really slippery, so I didn’t get any good pictures of the beach.

There is a native american reservation in the middle of Olympic National Park (just north of First Beach), and we drove through the small town to get a view of some sea stacks.

Kelvin and I drove inland to visit the Hoh Rain Forest. It was a drastic scene change from the coastline. Olympic National Park also has a mountainous area, which we weren’t able to visit because everything was snowed in.

The scenic drive towards the rain forest. Olympic National Park is divided into two parts, an inland rain forest and mountain area and a long stretch of Washington coastline. In between, the land isn’t protected. I was sad to see that there was a lot of land that had been logged and cleared.

In true rain forest fashion even the phone booths were covered with moss.

Our first hike was the Hall of Mosses loop.

I felt like we had gone back into the Jurassic period. The forests looked old and mysterious.

A photographer couple catching a photo of a moss covered tree in the rain.

I’m pretty sure I would be scared if I found myself in one of these forests alone at night.

Next, we went on the Spruce Nature Trail, another short loop. It was cool to see all these trees growing out of the fallen remains of another tree.

There were lots of interesting types of mosses.

More moss.

Kelvin!

Ruby Beach

Tide pools at Ruby Beach.

We spent a lot of time at Ruby Beach looking for sea life in the tide pools. I was excited when Kelvin pointed out this purple starfish.

Ruby Beach

Our view from the Kaloloch Campsite. Advantages of visiting Olympic in the off season are no crowds and a great pick of campsites.

Clean socks! We had been hiking around in wet shoes and socks all day, so it was a great relief to finally put on clean dry socks.

This is how we car camped. The HHR’s back seats folded down nicely to create room for us to put our sleeping pads and sleeping bags down.

Tags: Olympic National Park, Road Trip, Washington
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West Coast Road Trip: Olympic National Park (day 3)

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

On our third day, we said good-bye to Seattle and headed over to Olympic National Park. Olympic National Park covers a wide range of terrains from the rocky Washington coast to rain forests to mountains. The weather was probably the worst on this day… it started hailing at one point when we were hiking. You can’t actually drive through the park, so most of the park (probably around 95%) can only be accessed by foot. I would love to come back for a backpacking trip… or even just to see the beaches again when the weather is better. Rain isn’t uncommon at Olympic National Park, but it was exceptionally cold and there were gale warnings when we were there. We had planned on camping at Olympic for two nights, but since the weather was so bad, we car camped in our rental Chevy HHR, which actually worked out pretty well.

Us and our rental car rode the Bremerton Ferry west towards the other side of Washington.

Driving through the mountains around Olympic, we stopped to take some pictures at Lake Crescent, an alpine lake.

Our first stop at Olympic was a hike to Marymere Falls.

Most of the older growth forest floor looked like this. Lots of fallen trees with moss and ferns.

Olympic National Park

Rocky beaches at Rialto Beach.

Rialto Beach.

I love how the forest comes right up to the beach. You have to hike out to most of the beaches in Olympic. It’s like discovering a secret place when you finally get there. Maybe because we were there during their off-season, but we mostly had the beaches to ourselves.

Second Beach.

Second Beach was my favorite beach of the day.

Tags: Coast, Olympic National Park, Road Trip, Washington
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West Coast Road Trip: Seattle (day 2)

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

On our second day in Seattle, we explored Gasworks Park and the Fremont and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. I love how all of Seattle’s neighborhoods are so walkable.

Will took us to The Five Spot for brunch.

Our first stop in Fremont was Theo Chocolate. We could smell chocolate from outside.

Since I’m not much of a chocolate fan (I know, I know), I mostly loved their adorable packaging (and logo for that matter). Heart garland made out of the wrappers decorated the fireplace.

There was an abundance of samples. You could try every type of chocolate they offered. A chocolate lovers dream.

An adorable house I spotted in Fremont. I especially love the colors. Seattle is filled with cute houses.

Cherry blossoms.

A vintage store front.

There really was some pretty cool “junk” at Peace.

I love globes and maps. Spotted at Peace.

The iconic Elephant Car Wash sign. I wish it had been a better day out.

Paid a visit to the Fremont Troll.

Seattle rains a lot, so there was lots of moss everywhere. This was on the railings of a freeway bridge.

Signs of Spring!

The view from Gasworks Park. Seattle is very picturesque. I love the colorful homes.

View from Gasworks Park.

There was a hill at Gasworks Park where everyone was flying a kite. They made it look so easy. This particular guy was doing the craziest tricks with his kite.

We ended the night with a fancy dinner at Rays. We had a beautiful view of the lake, but it is too bad there was no sunset.

Tags: Road Trip, Seattle, Washington
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West Coast Road Trip: Seattle (day 1)

Monday, March 28th, 2011

For Spring Break this year, Kelvin and I decided it would be fun to do a West Coast road trip from Seattle back down to Los Angeles. We flew up to Seattle, rented a car, and road tripped our way down stopping at Olympic National Park, Portland, Redwood National Park, and San Francisco/the Bay area.

The weather was pretty terrible (I swear we dragged a storm down the coast with us), but I had an amazing time. It was a great way to close out my final Spring Break. The best kind of vacations are the ones that leave you wanting to go back and explore more… the West Coast is so gorgeous, it would leave me in awe of nature. And I fell in love with the city of Seattle… SO cute! I can’t wait for our next adventure.

Our trip began with a hectic morning because our Super Shuttle picked us up 15 minutes early with a 1 minute notice. I had literally just crawled out of bed before I rushed out the door. Thankfully, we didn’t forget anything.

Kelvin playing Words with Friends, our recent obsession, while waiting for our plane.

I was excited to show Portland my bird backpack… I thought they would appreciate it.

We flew Virigin America up to Seattle.

Will and Angela hosted us for two days in Seattle. THANK YOU!

We got lunch at a Cajun restaurant with Will and Angela.

I hadn’t really explored Seattle before, so I had to make all the usual tourist stops. Loved Pike Place!

There were tons of cute stores all around the area. I love the packaging for these beans in a cute grocery store we visited.

Some decorations from an Indian spice store.

The first Starbucks! YAY!

Bought myself some Pike Place Special Reserve. Yum.

This deliciously smelling Russian bakery caught our sense of smell, so we stopped in to try some of their pasteries.

We got an apple cinnamon pastry. SO good.

Saw Rachel, the famous Pike Place pig, getting carried away for repair.

The market was partially under construction when we visited, but there was still a lot to see.

I’ve watched this motivational video on Pike Place Fish Market multiple times at school talking about how playing and being positive leads to success, so it was fun to see them really throwing fish around.