random ramblings: "what I did on my summer vacation" part one

A summer full of school and work called for a bit of a holiday for me and Bri. We took ten days and went camping in California down as far as San Simeon and worked our way back up along the coast of Oregon. We did ridiculous amounts of driving – 4,300 km total as well as ridiculous amounts of stuff including but not limited to:

-The Jedidiah Smith Redwood forest (giant, giant trees).
-Mendocino, a beautiful quaint town on the edge of headlands dropping into the sea.
-San Francisco, Alcatraz, Coit tower, trolley ride (top 3 highlight of the trip in my opinion), shopping, staying at a fancy hotel, dinner and breakfast at fabulous Italian restaurants, Lomardi street, a lotttt of walking up hill, and much more.
-Touring the Hurst castle. Huge, amazing, lavish, rich. Very cool.
-Beached it up in Big Sur. The waves were huge; I literally kept running away from them.
-Stopped at Carmel. I think it is one of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen.
-Visited the Monterey Aquarium which blew my mind. It was unreal. I could have spent a week in there.
-Came across our favourite camp spot to date. It’s called Patrick’s Point in Cali. We climbed up top a cliff and were blown away. We brought our wine and our classy camping mugs and drank the sun away. It was the highlight (part of my top 3). Beautiful.
-Spent the last couple days coasting up Oregon. We saw a gray whale (another top 3) and watched it feed for about a half hour. Those who know me probably think they can imagine how excited I was at this moment, well I was 10x more excited than you think. I L.O.V.E whales.
-Made dinner on the beach while watching the sunset, which turned into fog. We drank too much wine and loved every second of it.
-Spent our last night at a place called Nahalem Bay where the beaches go on forever. We had a huge campfire and I won the ongoing battle of Scrabble (naturally).

We did all this while hopping from campground to campground indulging in far too much good food and trying a different bottle of wine every night. Mmm, perfection. Though after 9 days I was more than ready for a normal shower in my own home. I love sleeping in the tent, I don’t like showering in public restrooms. Aw, home sweet home again.

Of the 600 photos Brian took (his latest obsession which gives me my space to explore – it works) these are the few I have chosen to share. It was hard to pick there were so many amazing times. Enjoy.