100 Days Later

Hi everyone!

Well, after 100 days on the road we are back at home.  Here's how the end of our trip unfolded.

The rest of our time in Santa Barbara was great.  We hiked up to Inspiration Point (an old Gina hiking favorite), which had great views of Santa Barbara and all the way out to the Channel Islands.  We walked around downtown and had an amazing dinner at Zaytoon (an old Gina eating favorite).  When we got back to our campsite and noticed that our camp chairs were missing, which we found kind of strange.  We talked to our camping neighbors and the people working at the entrance and no one had seen anything.  We gave up on finding our chairs that night and went to the store to get some ice.  When we we're driving out of the campground Gina noticed some people in campsite near ours sitting in chairs that looked strangely like ours.  When we got back from the store we took an extra lap around the campground and noticed that they almost definitely were our chairs.  We walked over to their campsite and saw that they were definitely our chairs.  We tried to be as nice as possible and just tell them that we noticed our camp chairs were missing.  Once we said this they quickly gave them back telling us that they thought we had left and we're worried that the maintenance people at the campground were going to throw them away (an unlikely story).

View from Inspiration Point

We left Santa Barbara the next day and headed all the way back across California to Death Valley.  We really liked exploring Death Valley and there is a lot to explore.  With 3.4 million acres in the park it is larger than the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Crater Lake, The Badlands, Bryce Canyon, Zion and Joshua Tree all combined.  We found ourselves driving over an hour sometimes just to get from point to point.  Our favorite parts were hiking through Golden Canyon, walking on the Mesquite Sand Dunes, seeing Badwater Salt Flats (lowest point in the US) and the views from Zabriske Point and Dante's View.  There was also a very nice free campsite to stay at, which was a relief after the very expensive camping along the California coast.

Mesquite Sand Dunes

The burban in Death Valley

Badwater Basin

Golden Canyon

Dante's View

Our next planned stop after Death Valley was Yosemite.  Looking at the map options the quickest route took us back down south and then up around through Bakersfield and Fresno.  As excited as we were about seeing the endless beauty of Fresno, we decided on an alternate route that would take us along the eastern part of the Sierras through Lone Pine, Bishop and Mammoth.  We spent the first day in Lone Pine, and hiked up the Whitney Portal trail to Lone Pine Lake, which is just over 10,000 feet and about 4,000 feet below the top of Mount Whitney.  We couldn't go any farther without a permit, but we hope to return next summer to do the whole thing.

Eastern Sierras

Whitney here we come!

Lone Pine Lake

View of Mt Whitney from our campsite

The next day we continued north up the 395 through Bishop and up to Mammoth.  We did a nice hike up to Sherwin Lakes and then went to the Mammoth Brewery, which we had heard a lot of good things about.  Mammoth Brewery definitely lived up to the hype.  All 13 beers that we tasted were all excellent and our favorites were the Double Nut Brown Porter, 395 IPA, the Wet Harvest Black IPA and the Fire and Eisbock (10%!).  We also got talk a lot with the Bartenders about the beers, befriended another traveling couple, Ryan and Shayla, from Bend and finished the night with a four person Shotski.  Overall a great brewery experience.  We finished the night off with nachos and camped along the side of a dirt road.  We're not quite sure how cold it got that night, but when we went to sleep at 10 it was 19 degrees and when we woke up at 7 the next morning it was 17 degrees, so it was a pretty cold night, but we stayed nice and warm in the Suburban.

Sherwin Lake

Bryce pouring some of that tasty Mammoth Brew Co beer
 

Shotski! (with Fire and Eisbock)

We had been optimistically hoping that Tioga Pass would open up so that we could take the shorter way to Yosemite, but with no such luck we had to take the long way up over Sonora Pass.  The trip up over Sonora Pass and then back up into Yosemite was definitely the windiest of the trip and one of us (who shall be unnamed to protect her identity) was already not feeling that great from her previous night's beer consumption.  We arrived in Yosemite with just enough daylight to get our campsite and walk around the valley a little bit. Late fall in Yosemite is very different than other times in the year as the waterfall don't quite have as much water in them, but the colors of the changing leaves are beautiful and there were way less people than in the busier months.

Fall in Yosemite

We did a really awesome hike up to Eagle Peak, which is up the Yosemite Falls trail and then over to the west a few miles.  Eagle Peak is at about 7,800 feet and provides the best views of the valley on the northern side.  We spent another cold night in camp and went to bed early.  At this point in the trip, with the sunsetting around five and the cold mountain weather we're in the Suburban from about 7PM until 8AM.  We spent the next day hiking to Vernal and Nevada Fall, and even got a little bit of snow while we were hiking.

Vernal Falls

Nevada Falls

View from Eagle Peak

We debated staying one more night in Yosemite, but decided to head to lower elevations so we could thaw out.  We decided to head towards Monterey where we spent one day hiking in Point Lobos.  Point Lobos is a state preserve just south of Monterey and is one of the prettiest coastal hiking spots around.  We got a good close up view of a sea otter and saw a bunch of seals as well.  We stopped at a Safeway in Carmel where, on a Thursday afternoon at 1PM, the average age of the other shoppers was probably north of 90.  We just needed a couple of things, but it took a while trying to navigate around all the motorized shopping carts that were blocking every single aisle.

Point Lobos

Sea otter chilling in the kelp

We left Safeway and headed up to Santa Cruz to visit our friends Hillary ( aka College) and Ryan (aka Hogan).  We went to a really good barbecue place and they took us to a brewery (I think they must read our blog and know what we like).  We stayed with College, who has earned that nickname as her status as an actual real life college kid at UCSC.  The next day we walked along West Cliff in Santa Cruz and went to Natural Birdges with College and then went hiking in the Pogonip area with Hogan and went to one last brewery (Discretion).  We finished up our United States tour by having dinner in San Jose with Scott and Mel and their son Ja'Daveon (who I got to name as part of a fantasy football trade).  

It was a strange feeling as we got back in our car and drove the last hour and a half, past all familiar places towards home.  It was just so crazy to us to think that after 100 days our road trip was coming to an end.  It was such an amazing trip and we're definitely sad that it is over, but we are very thankful for all the memories and pictures that we'll have forever.  We'll be back in the Bay Area for the next three weeks, both in Marin and Antioch, before heading to Mexico for a couple of weeks in December and then eventually starting the international portion of our trip in Japan on January 6th.

Thank you so much to all of you who have read the blog, left us comments, sent us messages and liked our pictures on Facebook and Instagram.  It's nice to know that people got to enjoy watching our trip as it unfolded.

We'll probably post a few more tidbits from our domestic travels over the next week or so and hope to continue the blog in some format while we're abroad.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Much love,

B and G

Back in California

Hello!

We had a great time at the Grand Canyon.  We spent our first day hiking along the rim, which provided many great view points down into the canyon.  We also spent a nerve racking night at the Grand Canyon Pizza Pub watching the Giants win game seven of the World Series.  Amazing performance from Baumgarner and cool to see the Giants win three in five years.  Dynasty!

Enjoying a victory beer!

The next day we started our backpacking trip down into the canyon.  We took the South Kaibab trail from the rim down to the river, which is a drop of about 4,700 feet in seven miles.  It also went from 50 degrees up at the rim to the mid 80s by the time we reached the bottom of the canyon.  We stopped for lunch by the river and then hiked up the North Kaibab trail, which was the prettiest part of the hike.  It’s in a narrow canyon right alongside Bright Angel Creek.  After a very long day we reached Cottonwood Campground where we stayed for the night.  

Making our way down the South Kaibab Trail

View on the hike down the South Kaibab Trail

Headed through the tunnel to the river

The next day being Halloween we woke up and evaluated our costume choices and decided to go as Sexy Hikers given the limited options.  We hiked back down the North Kaibab Trail to Bright Angel Campground, with a side hike to Ribbon Falls, which is really cool because you can hike around to the backside of the waterfall and see though it looking back out towards the Canyon.  We took a swim (for you, Dad!) in the very cold Colorado and washed several days of red dirt and sweat off.  We went to Phantom Ranch, where we were very disappointed to learn that while they did sell beer, you had to drink it in this small, crowded, stuffy room, rather than being able to take it outside and drink by the creek or the river.  It also put a damper on our ideas for a Halloween party since we couldn’t take any beer back to our camp.  We had to make do with our flask of Fireball and our bag of fun size Snickers.  That night we went to a ranger talk about spooky stories of the Grand Canyon and then went scorpion hunting with the ranger.  For those of you (both of you?) that read the blog you may remember that Gina had recently been stung by a scorpion so this was a particularly brave venture on her part.  After finding one lone scorpion, we headed back to camp and went to bed.

Ribbon Falls

View from behind Ribbon Falls

Colorado River

Right before our dip in the Colorado River (so cold!)

In the morning we hiked out of the canyon up the Bright Angel Trail, which is less steep than the Kaibab Trail, but still goes up 4,400 feet in 9.5 miles.  When we got to the top the weather had changed significantly and it was very cold and windy.  We decided to head to the small town of Tusayan to do some exploring there.  It was a bit of a disappointment, as the coffee shop we went to didn’t have internet and the Mexican restaurant that we ate at barely had edible food.  Gina’s burrito was one of the worst things that either of us has ever tasted.  If you are ever in the area, avoid Plaza Bonita at all costs.

View from Bright Angel Trail

The next morning we awoke to snow, as a big cold front was moving through.  We decided to head south to Sagauro National Park, just outside of Tucson, where it was a little warmer.  We spent a couple of days hiking around the Sagauro, which has some beautiful mountains and lots of cactus.  Gina has become very knowledgeable about cactus and can talk about the differences between Ocotillo, Cholla, Barrel, Saguaro and Prickly Pear.  Our favorite hike in Saguaro was a hike through King Canyon up to Wasson Peak.

View from Wasson Peak

Desert sunset

A little too close for comfort

After Saguaro we headed west along Interstate 8 and back into California.  We purchased our cheapest gas of the trip in Yuma, AZ at $2.59 per gallon. Crossing back into California was a weird feeling knowing that after almost 12 weeks and 32 states we will be spending the rest of our road trip in our home state.  We headed to San Diego, where our first stop was San Diego State University.  I gave Gina a tour of the campus and all my old campus favorites.  It was pretty similar to what I remember except for the fact that the on campus bar (Monty’s/Louie’s) is now gone, which is nothing short of a tragedy.  After our walk around campus we headed to Ocean Beach to meet up with our friend Joy and had some amazing burritos at a place called Bravo, totally filling the void of quality Mexican food that we had been lacking.  We then headed up the coast to San Elijo State Beach, which is just north of San Diego where we camped for the next two nights.  We did a lot of walking along the beach and went hiking on the bluffs above Torrey Pines State Beach.  In a quest to try to use all of the stuff we brought with us we played paddle ball and finally broke out our gloves for a game of catch on the beach. 

After our time in San Diego we continued north along the coast where we spent a day hanging out in Huntington Beach and then meeting up with our friends Thi and Eric, who live in Garden Grove.  They took us out to an amazing Korean BBQ place where we both ate somewhere between 3 and 11 pounds of meat.  We had a great time catching up with Thi and Eric and playing with their two shar peis Charlie and Milo. 

We also realized that we were very conveniently located to Disneyland, just a couple of miles away and Eric dropped us off there in the morning.  It was a great day a Disneyland as the park wasn’t too crowded and they had just put up their holiday decorations.  We never had to wait more than 20 minutes for a ride and were able to do almost all of the big rides two or three times.  I also greatly enjoyed wearing my Buster Posey jersey and laughing at the all Dodgers fans who had “2014 NL West Champion” shirts on, and saying “Go Giants” as we crossed paths. 

Our Shar Pei friends

Splash Mountain is the best! 

We spent a solid 13 hours at Disneyland before walking back to our car and heading out to our friend Julia’s in Upland, which is east of LA, just into San Bernardino County. One thing we weren’t really expecting there was to do a lot of hiking, but it turned out that there is some really outstanding hiking in the mountains just north of Upland.  They are actually some pretty impressive mountains as Mount San Antonio (also known as Mount Baldy) is just over 10,000 feet.  We hiked through Icehouse Canyon on Saturday and did a loop that went to the top of Mount San Antonio on Sunday.  We had another great Mexican food meal on Saturday night and got to see our friend Melissa who lives in Rancho Cucamonga as well.  

Ice House Canyon hike with Julia

Top of Mt. San Antonio (Baldy)

Snow angels at the top

Hiking down on Devil's Backbone

After our Sunday hike we headed over to Pasadena to see cousin Ella, Kirk, Jarrah (4) and Hugo (almost 2).  It was great to be able to see more family on the trip and we were thoroughly entertained by Hugo and Jarrah.

In the morning we continued with our northern coast route and headed up to Gina old college stomping grounds in Santa Barbara.  We walked around the UCSB campus and Isla Vista, which according to Gina has changed quite a bit with a lot of new restaurants.  We got a campsite in Carpenteria ($45!), walked along the beach and went for a walk through the town.

Leadbetter Beach, SB

We’ve got one more day in Santa Barbara and then we’re heading east out to Death Valley, which will be our last big stop before we head back to Northern California.  Hard to believe that it is almost over, but excited for our last two weeks of fun on the road.   

Looking forward to hopefully seeing all of you over the holidays!

B and G