August 6 and 7

We headed north so we could get to Forks.  We drove along the Pacific coast, and through Portland.  Beautiful city.  We stayed the night at Long Beach, Washington.  The hotel was along the dunes, a very short walk to the beach.  The water was cold but we could walk around in it anyway :) (used to that southern Indiana heat/humid so all is good any place else)  We have had beautiful temperatures, mid-60's, maybe low 70's.  Nights are cool also.
We took off for Forks and La Push, of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight book series.  Yes, it is a fictional book but she picked a real town in Forks and La Push and we had to go!  It was really WAY out of the way but it was very nice.  It was sort of what we expected, Forks, perhaps a little bigger than we thought, and La Push was what we expected as well.  It was funny to see the "tourist" aspect.  The visitor center was most interesting as visitors from the day included us from Indiana, plus people from Germany, and other parts of the world!  Amazing!  We also got to see more Pacific Ocean, more BIG trees, lots of great scenery after we headed on our way. Once we are home, we technically then drove the entire coast!  We stopped in Port Angeles and are now heading south to catch our plane on Wednesday.  Long drive days, but good. 

August 5

Sorry for no updates.  August 5 we stayed at a wonderful house, with no Internet.  Thanks to Rosie's classmate from college:  the house was situated in a redwood forest!  OMG!  It was amazing and the house was fantastic.  We got to spread out, enjoy the quiet of the neighborhood, and do our laundry!  We drove through a giant redwood; that was most interesting.  The drive through the redwoods is indescribable.  LARGE, TALL, AMAZING!

August 4

San Francisco... It was very nice temperature-wise!  66 degrees and windy.  We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, met up with Alessio (and his brother Andrea and friend Franco), and toured around the city and Fisherman's Wharf.  The bridge was shrouded in fog and watching the wind surfers in the bay was so fascinating.  Wonderful day!  We are heading north to see the Sequoia trees and then go to Forks :).

August 3

We had a very very enjoyable trip to Keys View at Joshua Tree Forest.  We probably got all those labels wrong but our info brochure is in the van.  But, WOW..we could see Mexico and Palm Springs and the San Andres fault from one spot!  Joshua trees are very cool-looking also.  They only "grow" a branch when they bloom or an animal eats the bloom shoot off.  So some are tall with no side branches--no blooming or animals, and some have many, many branches.  Their definition of "forest" is very unique.  Not really "crowded" considering our forests are much tighter.  Thanks Hannah for the side trip!
We left for the Pacific Ocean.  Cheryl actually drove from Yucca  Valley to Malibu.  Yes, she drove through Los Angeles and we all lived to tell.  We actually went the "left" side and our GPS told us what lane to be in for the exits, so it wasn't that bad.  It was weird when Andrew would say, "the 4 left lanes will go left and the right 2 will exit right..." :).  Yikes.
At Malibu we got our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. WOW.  Blue, brilliant.  Lots of people on the beach, mostly surfers in the waves.  As we drove, some beach wasn't sand but lots of rocks!  We drove up to Santa Barbara to spend the night. Our hotel is about 2 blocks from the ocean.  Great.  We walked the beach and some went in. It was a little on the cold side but really not bad. 

Pictures thus far

Canyon Lake; the cacti are TALL; Apache Trail; Grand Canyon 1, 2, and 3; Verkamp Visitor Center on the South Rim!!; Grand Canyon 1 and 2; Black tail deer--2 of 4 males just hanging out; female elk; Verkamp Visitor Center; Grand Canyon.

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Hopefully, you'll be able to see a few of the zillions of pictures we are taking.  Enjoy. 

August 2

We left Vegas and picked up Aurora's suitcase at the airport.  It didn't follow her to Phoenix like it was supposed to and Vegas was the next logical place to pick it up as we are in a different place each night.  We left Vegas and drove to 29 Palms to visit Jordan (aka nephew Tiger) and Hannah.  Our drive was literally entirely through the desert!  There is no direct route to 29 Palms so we trusted our GPS and turned here and there (part of OLD Hwy 66 was some of it).  At some points the temp outside was 113 degrees! Yikes!  We did turn around when we saw a sign that said "Amboy Crater, 1 mile."  We thought it was a giant hole in the grand and were wondering about meteors, etc.  But it was a volcano!! Very very cool (even at 113 degrees).  It last erupted 500 years ago and left 24 square miles of lava flow.  We did not climb up..it was just too hot and we wanted to get to 29 Palms.  Jordan and Hannah are great.  They took us on a tour of the base (HUGE) and we had a great visit.  Tomorrow Hannah is going to take us to a spot that you can see even Mexico and to the Joshua Tree forest before we head up the California Coast.  It is going well.  Lots of things to see.  The desert is start but beautiful in its own way.  Each desert is different....some sand, some rock, some "tumbleweed-type" stuff, some very scrubby trees, some white (chloride plant...or salt)... Great time so far by all!

August 1

Hoover Dam and Las Vegas Day.... We left the Grand Canyon and drove to Hoover Dam.  WOW!  It is so amazing.  We had to park and walk...over the dam (after we got to drive over the new bridge that opened last summer) and it is totally amazing.  It was hot...well over 100 degrees again, and crowded with people..but such an impressive feat, both the dam and the bridge.
We went to Las Vegas and drove up and down the "strip"....Andrew and Aurora have been in Vegas before but nothing could prepare the rest of us for the magnitude of it.  The buildings are bigger and there are TONS of people (why do people insist on taking children to Vegas?????).  New York, New York, the Great Pyramid, ExCalibar, the Bellagio (water shows were great), Caesar's Palace, MGM, Hooters (we landed up staying here... very very good price and only 1 block off of the main "strip"... We walked in and out of casinos and stores and more.  Didn't come out ahead :) but that is okay. we didn't come to gamble, we came to see it.  We didn't get to go to Fremont street like we wanted.   It was hot and it was farther than Andrew remembered.  It was a good night (no WiFi in that room so no posting either).

July 31

Grand Canyon Day! We did not get to blog on Sunday as we were TIRED at the end of the day!  The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is ....... beautiful, inspiring, wonderful, amazing, awesome :), etc.  We walked along the rim and spent the day enjoying the day.  It was cloudy and rainy:  it was very neat when part of the canyon just disappeared within rain clouds and the people scattered (except us, of course) and then came back.  The temperatures were 20-30 degrees cooler! than Phoenix! (Ironically, after we left Phoenix, a major storm went through and large parts of it did not have power--Daniel commented that there are rarely clouds in Phoenix and even rarer storms..so we brought something in I guess).  The Grand Canyon is "picture postcard perfect"....it wasn't very crowded, or at least not as crowded as we expected.  We were amazed at the sheer number of international visitors.  A foreign accent and language was the norm for the day.