Melanie's Answers

1. Favourite hotel Queen Anne Hotel, San Francisco. Who doesn't want to stay in a haunted Victorian?!

2. Favourite meal The turkey sandwich at Big Sur (really yummy, fresh whole wheat bread), or the Frikedeller sandwich in Solvang (just yummy!)

3. Favourite restaurant Mel's Diner - how can I not choose that?!

4. Favourite travel song The song of the wind in my ears. I didn't hear much else. Or Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" which we heard at Outback Steakhouse on our last night... Can't remember the last time I heard that song before that.

5. Funniest memory Cartwheels on the beach

6. Favourite memory Bumper cars and Guitar Hero at the arcade in Seaside. And meeting Ian's family.

7. Favourite scenic vista I'm not sure if this really counts as it's actually not a scenic vista, we were driving when I took this picture behind us. But it is my favourite picture of the scenery!

8. Favourite tourist trap I'm torn between Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, or Seaside, Oregon... I might have to go with Fisherman's Wharf on this one, although Seaside was so unexpected!

9. Best drink A glass of house Chardonnay at lunch with Sue.

10. Favourite purchase My sea otter socks, which I have yet to wear...

11. Worst room The place at Gold Beach. It was decorated sort of cute, with a lighthosue theme, but it needed some maintenance desparately.

12. Best shower The place where I told Ian to take a picture of the shower head because I want to find it... I think it was the Ramada in Sacramento? Sooooo excellent! A massaging shower head that actually worked!

13. Worst memory The drive between Santa Barbara and Sacramento. It was just unbearably hot.

14. Something you learned Okay, let me think on this one. I learned a lot of things but I'm trying to think of something that would interest any one else to know. Like the Astoria bridge is the longest in North America. Or Alcatraz was a lighthouse and military base before it was a prison. W. R. Hearst travelled around Europe with his mom when he was 10 and that's where he got many of his ideas for Heast Castle. The architect in charge of building Hearst Castle was a woman named Julia Morgan. That's awesome. She was also responsible for repairing the Fairmont Hotel after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

15. Place you'd most like to return to San Francisco, and to see Ian's family again!

16. Favourite picture Well since I already shared my favourite scenic picture I'll pick something else... I just like the warm golden colours in this one.

17. Most frightening moment Driving over the Astoria bridge. Toooo long for me!

18. Place you'd most like to live Here actually, thank you very much :D It's good to be home.

19. One thing you wish you'd done Bungee jump. No, just kidding, I wouldn't do that. I wish we'd had time to do some hiking. I really wanted to go to Mt. St. Helens too. And next time we go I think I should learn to surf!

20. Favourite quote "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" I think we heard this a few times... hehe

Day 12 - Springfield to Vancouver

Well, I'm sure you'll be glad to know we made it home safe and sound! I'm a bit late getting this last post up as we actually got home last night, but there's always a million things to do when you get home.

We left Springfield bright and early - there wasn't a lot to do there in the morning and we were both anxious to get home!

The first part of the drive was pretty much the same as the day before - same scenery, a bit cooler (it was early morning!) It took us about 2 hours to get from Springfield to Portland. Portland is a beautiful city! We've decided we'd like to head down there for a weekend sometime and look around a bit! The Gorge is down there, and Mt. St. Helens is nearby, too, so there's lots we'd like to see more of in that area, it's just a matter of finding the time to do it!

Traffic was pretty heavy coming into Portland and stayed fairly consistent right through past Seattle and even on to Marysville! We stopped once at a rest stop for a bathroom break, and once for gas and lunch at Marysville. We also had to hit up the Seattle Premium Outlets in Marysville because it's sooo hard to pass by and not stop when we can actually buy stuff and not worry about the value we're bringing back (we can't actually afford THAT much!) In the end we only ended up with a two pairs of shorts (Ian) and a sweater (Melanie). But we both enjoyed looking around I think. I found a dress for my sister that was marked down from $440 to $50 but I didn't buy it because I wasn't sure if she'd like it, but in retrospect I should have just got it! What a deal! And I thought it was really nice!

We were there a bit longer than we had intended and got back on the road a little later than hoped. Luckily, traffic was quite a bit better North of Marysville.

We stopped again at Duty-Free (how could we not!?) and got a fabulous deal on Tequila (are you all coming over now??) We got two 750mL bottles of tequila, and a huge bottle of Sauza (Margaritas) for $50US! NOW are you all coming to visit?? :D

Anyways, we got all our stuff unpacked and now, a day later, all the laundry is done. Had margaritas and enchiladas (thanks for the inspiration, Sue!) for dinner tonight and it was FANTASTIC!

Now for a summary of our trip: stay tuned for our responses and feel free to ask your own questions!!!

1. Favourite hotel
2. Favourite meal
3. Favourite restaurant
4. Favourite travel song
5. Funniest memory
6. Favourite memory
7. Favourite scenic vista
8. Favourite tourist trap
9. Best drink
10. Favourite purchase
11. Worst room
12. Best shower
13. Worst memory
14. Something you learned
15. Place you'd most like to return to
16. Favourite picture
17. Most frightening moment
18. Place you'd most like to live
19. One thing you wish you'd done
20. Favourite quote

Day 11 - Sacramento to Springfield, OR (Eugene)

Well, unfortunately we didn't get to spend much time in Sacramento. We had a nice breakfast at the Ramada, and headed out pretty early. We knew it was going to be another long day on the road, but we were on time for once! Today's journey was approximately 7 hours of straight driving, broken up only by a quick stop for gas and lunch in Weed, California. Stangely enough, to me it didn't feel like that long, it was a bit more relaxed and much cooler than yesterday. Also, I think there was less cars on the road, and the drive itself was a bit more interesting. Yesterday was just a lot of straight roads and too many big trucks. So, we know that I, being the driver, was busy and entertained, but what about Melanie? Well, she decided to hang on to the camera and snap a million pictures out of the windows as we were driving. I think her original motive was to capture a picture of some trucks with big trailers full of fruit, we couldn't figure out if it was apples or tomoatoes... once she pulled out the camera, we didn't see any more of the trucks. I guess we'll never know. However, much to her delight, a few of the other photos turned out and are usable, as you can see below. She also photographed some vehicles that looked interesting.. one of these was a pickup truck with a dirty back window. written in the dirt on the window was "if i fall asleep the clowns will eat me". just wanted to share that.

We arrived into Springfield, Oregon at around 3:45, and checked into our budget motel. Super 8 tonight, and it's not bad. As we were driving today, we had been discussing how much goods we are allowed to bring back accross the border. We knew there is the Outlet mall in Marysville, Washington, we have been there before, but then I remembered there is no sales taxes in Oregon!! So we went to a shopping mall down the street and then over to the local Walmart. Tax Free!

Tomorrow is the last driving day and we arrive at home! We are still planning on stopping at Marysville for some last minute shopping, and then to the duty free!!!

Day 10 - Santa Barbara to Sacramento

Well. This is a funny day. We woke up early in Santa Barbara. We were both pretty impressed with the atmosphere of the city and were hoping to see a bit more before we left, so we got up early, ate our continental breakfast (waffles at the Avania Inn! Mmmmm! Beats the rock of a scone I tried there...), checked out, and went for a bit of a walk. We walked over to State Street, and up to some of the local shops. I'm still on the hunt for wedding shoes, and keeping my eyes open for a dress for my sister to wear. So we popped into a few local shops and saw a few nice things, but not what we were looking for. We came upon Macy's and Ian decided to stay in the mens wear department and look for himself while I scoped out shoes and dresses. He took a look at some of the sale racks and said he could be there a while. I, silly me, figured he was exaggerating. So I went upstairs, tried on a few dresses, and found one that I thought might work... I hung onto it thinking that Ian would come up and find me (as per our usual routine) and wandered near the escalator (where he'd be sure to see me). He had told me he wanted to be on the road by 11, and it was well after 10 already. Finally, at 10:45 I was getting worried. Maybe he had come looking for me and couldn't find me? Maybe he was annoyed and waiting downstairs? So I set out on a half hour hunt for the missing fiance (that's what I had to keep telling the sales people when they asked if I was finding everything all right... I'm on my tip toes gazing around racks... "Yes, fine, just looking for my fiance!") It was me and a couple of older fellows all looking under racks and behind corners for missing loved ones. I put the dress back on the rack and wondered up and down the escalators and around the floors several times. Finally, I came across Ian casually trying on sunglasses near the bottom of the escalator. "I have been looking for you for over half an hour!". Maybe not hysterical, but I was annoyed. It was well after 11 and he didn't even seem to realize it. I could have been taking my time, too, but I had thought he wanted to go. Not so, he found some clothes he liked on sale! Now, I am happy that he found some clothes and he's always been very patient with me while I'm shopping, but he was the one who said we should leave Santa Barbara, be on the road, by 11! Anyways, it really doesn't matter very much. I was annoyed at the time but I'm over it. I'm glad he found some clothes he liked and we've agreed that next time I should just keep looking at my stuff and he can run around looking for me. He's much calmer than I am.

So we finally got on the road around noon, just to hit traffic immediately upon entering the highway. Construction I think. Boo. Drove down the coast for the last time this trip and had some nice views of the fantastic waves they're getting down here this weekend. LOTS of surfing! Didn't get any pictures as we were on the highway and didn't really have time to stop and snap. Pictures from the highway, as we're moving, never quite capture the magnitude of what we're seeing.

So this was the longest-feeling, hottest day yet (It was really only a six hour drive, seven hours with a stop for lunch and two for gas). We cut over to the I5 north of LA which we will follow pretty much the whole way home, except for stopping at our hotel tonight and tomorrow night. I am quite sure it was well over 30 degrees Celsius for much of our trip. I had the window open and it was like being blasted in the face by a blow dryer repeatedly. I was finding it hard to breath. We don't have air conditioning so it was uncomfortable. Ian is pleased with the sun burn on half his face (I offered sun block and he finally took me up on the offer, maybe a bit late). I kept wishing for cucumbers as Sue told me that slices of cold cucumbers on the forehead will help to cool your body temperature down. If we had passed a cucumber farm I think I would have insisted Ian pull over and find me one. We did pass several fruit stands. We should have gone there! I just kept telling myself "it's not that bad..." gasp, pant, bllaaaah... Drove through the mountains, dry and hot! Looks like Ashcroft. Drove through lots of fields of a variety of fruits, including mandarins (the only field kind enough to identify its produce with a sign). Saw more cows than I have ever seen in my life and smelled them more than I ever hope to again. Lots of "empty" fields marked off with "Congress Created Dust Bowl" signs. Not so good. Drove over aquaducts. Really, this day was not very high on our list of things to do again! haha I was really hoping to get to Sacramento in time to go down to Old Sacramento and check it out but we were both just too tired after our day so it was dinner at the hotel and early to bed (I hope... but there's a movie on that I was sort of watching...)

Here's a funny left-over story: last night Ian and I were walking down the street in Santa Barbara and we saw a couple that we have now seen three times on our journey!! They were on our San Francisco tour with us, sat behind us on the bus, then we saw them randomly on the side of the highway somewhere between San Jose and San Simeon on a walking path down to the ocean (and there are several paths and we were only there a few minutes). And then to see them again in Santa Barbara at like 9:30 in the evening... We all laughed and said hello and carried on our ways. It's so bizarre though! What a small world.


State Street Santa Barbara

View from the car for much of the afternoon

More of the view

Day 9 - San Simeon to Santa Barbara

Today we woke up early in order to catch our tour just outside of San Simeon, at a place called "Hearst Castle". Melanie had been here before years ago, and had fond memories of it, so we decided to go back and she would gladly see it again.

For those of you who have no idea what this place is that I am speaking of, I'll give the quick run down. In 1919, media mogul William Randolf Hearst, decides to follow his dream and finally do something with the 250,000 acres of land, which included 14 miles of coastline. The plan included hiring architect Julia Morgan from San Francisco, leveling out a plot of select land and collecting a diverse selection of antiques, artifacts and animals. Five years of construction go by, and they have a couple guesthouses with 8 rooms each, a main Building "Casa Grande" pools, gardens and a zoo for exotic animals. Hearst apparently loved to entertain high profile guests, actors and actresses and politicians. Building continued as the years go by. Eventually Hearst fell ill and passed away in 1951. Six years later the Building and some of the property was donated to the State of California. It has since been turned into a State Park. The tour was great, lots of very old artifacts, some apparently dating over 3000 years old. The view from the 490m height was amazing, as was the rest of the grounds. There as something old and rich and amazing around every corner. And we weren't allowed to touch anything except the railings.

After leaving Hearst Castle and San Simeon, we continued on south to a place called Solvang. This is a neat little town about 15 miles off the Main Highway that was themed like a Danish town. It was actually quite neat. There was lots of different shops that gave the place a Scandinavian feel, and almost every one of them had "Denmark" or "Danish" in the name. Melanie bought some shoes at the "Solvang Shoe Store", which had a giant wooden Clogg shoe out front. We had a nice lunch and a Carlsberg at the "Viking Garden", then we hit the road again.

Our final stop for the day was Santa Barbara. We both immediately thought it was a really nice place. Our hotel is pretty trendy and modern looking, a nice contrast from the Queen Anne in San Fran. We took a nice walk down to the beach which was only about 3 blocks away. There was tall palm trees lining the road and a nice bike/rollerblade path beside the beach. We took a stroll out to the end of the pier and back, there were a few restaurants on there and small shops. We continued down the beach and stumbled upon an outdoor concert which looked like it was meant for kids, however we saw wayyy more adults dancing to the mexican sounding music.

We made our way back, but stopped for some margaritas and shared a quesadilla at a mexican restaurant. The drinks and the fresh salsa really brought me back to our Mexico trip last year and really got me excited about the wedding coming up. The sun had set and it was now dark, the temperature had dropped alot and we wished we had brought our sweaters out with us. So we hurried back to the hotel room, where we had left the air conditioning on! Woops.

Day 8 – San Jose to San Simeon

Well, our internet connection was absolutely terrible in the hotel last night and even worse this morning. In 12 minutes this morning I hadn't even been able to load a single webpage. It said I had an internet connection but was refusing to do anything. We finished the post last night by some miracle, but decided to put off posting for yesterday as well.

So day 8 began after the best sleep we've had on our trip, at George and Sue's. It also started with the best breakfast we've had on our trip – a feta cheese omelette, biscuits, and sausages. We had a very difficult time leaving them, they were wonderful hosts and I really enjoyed meeting them both.

We stopped for gas and a car wash on our way out of San Jose. Tom Tom guided us around the block once on our way to the highway. Well, it was either Tom Tom or Ian... Maybe the two of them conspired together to drive us around the block before finding our way onto the highway. Side note: having this GPS has been an absolute lifesaver. For all the times it has taken us around the block or the scenic route, or the long non-scenic route, or the direct route into heavy traffic, it always gets us there if we're patient and try (oh gosh do you have to try hard sometimes) to understand what it wants you to do. So thanks Dad, this was definitely a great gift!

Our first stop of the day was going to be Santa Cruz but we were running a bit behind schedule (as per our usual) and we knew we would be stopping a lot on the way. Only Ian and I can make a 3 hour drive take 6 hours (Gilligan and Skipper came close though). So we skipped Santa Cruz this trip (oh don't worry, we'll be back!) and went straight for the Monterey peninsula. We stopped at the Info Center there and grabbed some maps and brochures for things we wanted to visit (sometime) and then we took a walk on the pier. We saw sea lions swimming in the water alongside the pier, one was following me I'm sure, thinking that I would be willing to share my apple, which I had no intention of doing. I know better than to feed wild animals. I know it all seems innocent and fun, but by feeding them you encourage aggressive behaviour, and familiarize the animals to humans – they learn that we are a source of food and won't be appropriately cautious of human contact. Anyways, I wasn't sharing my apple and the young sea lion stopped following us when I threw the core away. We drove up the road a ways and walked out to a rocky outcropping where there must have been hundreds of them sunning themselves on the rocks. Some were enormous!

After this we drove past Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I'd really like to visit the aquarium here someday – I've checked out their web cams before. The scenery around Monterey is absolutely stunning, I've never quite seen anything like it. However, we picked up a brochure about movies and books that have been set here or filmed here and it's funny that I felt I'd never seen anything like this when it's featured in so many films! I must have seen some of them, I guess I just never really noticed. I'll have to pay closer attention from now on. We also did part of the 17 Mile Drive around the peninsula and Pebble Beach. I wish I appreciated golf more as it really was an amazing view and would be fantastic to play there I'm sure. We took so many pictures it will be hard to pick just a few to post!

We drove through Carmel-by-the-Sea and considered stopping for lunch but there was pretty much no available parking and looked a bit out of our meagre budget – they even have their own Tiffany & Co.! It was pretty there though. We carried on to Big Sur and stopped at the Lodge there for a sandwich and a coffee. Probably one of the best sandwiches I've ever had and it was just turkey on whole wheat bread, but the bread was so soft and fresh! My mouth is watering just thinking about it again!

The next 60-some miles of the trip are by far the most scenic and spectacular. We must have stopped at nearly every "vista point" and probably some "pull out"s along the way! How we're going to decide which of those pictures to use on the blog is beyond me. Really, words cannot describe the view along the coast, and the pictures hardly do justice to the scope of the whole view. You really just must see it for yourself. Let's leave it at that.

We arrived at our hotel around 6:30 – we left San Jose around 10AM... so that's like an 8.5 hour day to drive a 3.5 hour distance... But we enjoyed it!

Another culinary note – we had dinner in Cambria, just south of San Simeon, at the Main Street Grill. It's a cash-only, cafeteria-style, self-serve, fast foodish barbeque. Ian had ribs and I had a burger and they were absolutely delicious! Word of warning, one serving of fries is more than enough for 4 people I'm sure! We ordered a basket, thinking we could share, and we were right – we could have shared with a small village!! We had WAY too many fries for two people! We should have just shared a "small" order of fries, and even that would have been more than enough!