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