Back from vacation

Ahhhh. I love summer. This year we drove up the west coast from San Francisco to Seattle. The first day we made our way through the redwoods up to Humboldt County. We stopped in Eureka and stayed at the Carter House Inn. It was beautiful and lots of fun. It was foggy in the morning but it cleared up and was sunny and mild in the afternoon- typical Northern California costal weather for August.

We then headed up the coast into Oregon, stopping at every tourist trap along the way -- Confusion Hill, Trees of Mystery, and the Enchanted Forest (complete with concrete dinosaurs). We made our way up to a camground near Dune City, OR - 8 miles south of Florence - and camped there for two nights. We hiked to the beach in the morning -- pretty easy walk, actually -- and collected shells and played on the beach with the seal lions. It was just me, Alan and the lions -- no one else for miles. A man did come out of nowhere and strolled up to us. But he gave me some cool agate stones and a whole sand dollar he found on the beach. He was cool.

After our relaxing two days we headed up to Seattle via I-5 through Portland. We needed to meet a friend who was flying in that night for Alan's birthday. Of course the flight was delayed 2 hours (because she flew Alaska Airlines) and she missed the dinner party. I should have figured. Alaska is ALWAYS delayed no matter what time of year. You're better off flying SouthWest (if you don't mind being hearded like cattle).

The rest of the week we spent visiting friends in Seattle and going up to Victoria, Canada (yes we went to Butchart Gardens ;-)). It was cold and overcast in Seattle (naturally!) but Victoria was nice and sunny.

It's nice to be back home. Visiting other places really makes me appreciate where I live. Summer is still in full swing here in the East Bay and I'm looking forward to spending the rest of it at home. Well, maybe I'll go camping on Mount Diablo one weekend with my sister, but that's only a 20 minute drive ;-)