6.24.09

Well we made it out of Vegas and through the traffic in Hoover Dam to arrive in the Grand Canyon. I quickly learned that the dam doesn’t actually have a waterfall like I thought but nonetheless, it was still huge and incredible how they could build such a thing. We had these coupons from the hotel in Vegas for Sabarro’s so before we left we grabbed a slice of pizza to take and eat at the dam for lunch. We didn’t stay long as we were excited to get to the Grand Canyon and besides there were so many people it was almost overwhelming. Anyways, we made our drive over to the canyon coming through the little towns of Williams and Tusayna. We were really surprised to see all the trees out here; we were both expecting nothing but desert so it was quite a nice surprise. After checking in and setting up camp, we drove over to the rim to check out the sunset before it was too late and it was beautiful! Then we headed over to the little village store and spent quite some time browsing around; they just had so many cool things and lots of food! We even ended up getting some premade salads at the deli because we really just wanted something fresh and healthy. We also bought some firewood because it surprisingly gets pretty cool at nights and it just makes for a better camping experience, especially since we have the stuff to make smores! We woke up in the morning to head off to Hermit’s Rest to begin the Rim Trail. After a long bus ride, we made it to our destination to begin the 8-9 mile hike back to the Bright Angel Lodge; and no we are not staying there but we wanted to check it out. It was a long, hot, beautiful hike right along the rim the entire way and it was pretty much flat, something we weren’t used to but definitely appreciated it. The canyons are so deep and so wide it’s hard to get a picture that even grasps a smidgen of what it looks like in person. It’s really amazing, something that takes your breath away but I have to admit we are still bigger fans of Yosemite as there is just more to do. But don’t get me wrong, the Grand Canyon is still incredible and better in Yosemite in the fact of how marvelous, huge and incredible the canyon is itself; it has more of an initial wow factor! After the hike, we made our way out of the park to the little town of Tusayna so we could find some wifi so Steveo could finish and submit his homework for the night. He had quite a bit to do so I just walked around to the different shops, stopped for coffee and read, picked up a souvenir gift for my mom, dad and Shelby and finished off with a frosty at Wendy’s since we had a long hike. Since I missed Shelby’s birthday party, I just had to get her this book after I spotted it; it’s called, ‘Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots?’ As for now, well I’m just updating the blog and touching up pictures as Steveo carves his walking stick he’s been working on for awhile. We’ll probably start a fire here in a little while to relax for the night and make our smores, then it’s off to do some more sightseeing in the morning. Can’t wait to see you all, I’m getting anxious since I know it’s just around the corner :)

6.22.09 Pictures

6.22.09 Pictures

6.22.09

Happy Father’s Day; we hated not being there with you Dads but I’m sure you had a great day regardless. Plus, I’m sure Dad enjoyed me not being there to harass him for eating Burger King. But I can’t blame him after the way me and Steveo have been eating this trip… it’s been horrible! Great food but let’s just say good thing we are young with fast metabolism. Anyways, Sunday was another day of hiking to finish up our last day in Yosemite. We stayed in the Valley but ended up hiking about 10 miles so it was a long day especially since Steveo’s knee was bothering him so bad. It was funny because as we were hiking (which was close to the road) we came across a car jam and I laughed about how it would be a bear since we were hiking and everyone else was in their car. Well just as I said, there was a bear but luckily it was on the other side of the road so we had the cars blocking us. And it was only a cub but where there is a cub, there is a mommy. Fortunately, we didn’t see mommy and the bear never came over to us. After the hike, I decided to surprise Steveo and treat him to this little Mexican restaurant they had at the village since he was in so much pain. We ended the night relaxing in front of a fire, eating our pasta and rubbing our knees with Icy Hot. We woke up early to get a head start on the Grand Canyon as it is about 10 hours away. We didn’t have reservations for the campground until 6/23 so we decided to drive about 6-7 hours, stay the night and finish the rest in the morning. Everyone said we have to go see the Hoover Dam, being said, Las Vegas was on the way and a great split for our drive so we ended up checking in to a hotel here in Sin City. After checking in, Steveo worked on his homework than we headed off on the strip looking for a place to eat. We ended up eating at the Harley Davidson Café; the sign captured our attention after reading ‘best bbq in vegas’. It was one of the coolest restaurants we have ever been to; very Americanized so I was excited to, at least, see some patriotism after seeing all the filthy trash everywhere on the streets. The trash is so bad, especially in the construction along the fence that rats were literally running around at night. After dinner we walked down the strip a little bit to see what all this hype is about but we really weren’t impressed, except for the Billagio’s and Treasure Island’s water show outside the hotel. And being a Monday night we didn’t think it would be so crowded but boy were we wrong; it was hard to even walk around because you had to weave in and out of so many people. After walking around for a while, we made our way back to our hotel at the Monte Carlo. It is a super nice hotel and it was only $45 per night but I now know why after seeing everyone in the casino. We ended up getting $30 in free play and Steveo added $20 to the collection so we went to town for a bit. Instead of inserting coins, you have a ticket or card with credits so at most we had about 50-60 credits but the people we walked by at the slots had anywhere from 700 to 2000 credits and that were just the ones we saw! I just don’t get it but I guess that’s why it took me and Steveo about 30 minutes before we even figured out how to use the stupid card thing with the slot machine. Seriously, it was more frustrating than it was worth; we just couldn’t believe all these old people could figure out how the machine works after it took us 30 minutes to even pull our first slot. After it was all said and done, we had fun once we got it started but maybe that was because we only spent 20 bucks but got to play with 50! Anyways, the resorts are amazing and huge beyond what I ever imagined. If I ever come back to Vegas, I’d definitely enjoy the thrill of relaxing at the huge pools at the huge resorts; that’s about the only thing here for me and Steveo but it’s just one of those places you have to see in a lifetime. So tomorrow morning were off to the Grand Canyon with a pit stop at the Hoover Dam; I think this will be more our style!

6.20.09 Pictures

6.20.09

After running around for the day taking showers, doing the laundry and getting reorganized; we made it over to the Backpacker’s Campground. The campground is only open to backpackers 1 night before and 1 night after a trip so we took advantage of it after we finished ours. It was a sweet place right on the creek, away from all the busyness of the valley. Between the bear that made an appearance and the drunk girls next to us, we managed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep. We were contemplating whether or not to go for another backpacking trip or try to get a spot at the walk in campground, Camp 4. We ultimately decided to forget the backpacking so we could actually set up camp for a few days without having to constantly be on the move; plus Steveo’s knee is really bothering him after the hard downhill pounding the days before. We woke up that morning at 5:30 to pack up our things and head off to Camp 4 to wait in line in attempt to grab a spot. Fortunately we got a site so it is now our home for a few days. After setting up camp, we did the whole touristy thing of visiting all the villages, gift shops and restaurants. It’s a busy place around the valley but it sure is awesome! I know everyone of you would love Yosemite, it’s beautiful. We ended the night by walking down to the little grocery and buying a jar of pickles to eat with our mashed potatoes for dinner then called it an early night. Today was even more amazing as we hiked up to the top of Yosemite Falls, the 5th tallest waterfall in the world. It was probably the coolest hike, and very strenuous, but well worth the effort. After all the switchbacks we made it to the lookout and felt the mist of the waterfall as we looked over the valley 2700 ft below. We found a huge rock with little cut outs so we plopped are bags down, laid back and ate our granola bars. It was so relaxing that we sprawled out there for about an hour before heading back down. The whole hike was breathtaking as we had so many amazing views of the falls but we were sure glad to be back on flat ground after it was all said and done. It’s crazy how much climbing up and down can take out of us both. I was just surprised to see so many different people all the trail, what an accomplishment for them. By the way, I think the entire state of California is here this weekend; it’s insanely crowded but good thing we have working feet because I would hate to be traveling back and forth in this traffic. Anyways, the pizza is about here so I’m off to eat!

6.18.09 Pictures

Half Dome... the cables we climbed are in the middle, left area where it is faded. 400 ft vert
View from the top

And another

And last one... it was beautiful but scary

The creek we ended up having to cross just ahead

6.18.09

Sorry for the delay... we haven't had any wifi until now so I'll have more pictures up shortly! I'm dating the pictures to go with the blog so just scroll through the blog list and look for the ones with pictures.

And thanks for all the happy comments!

We finished up San Francisco by grabbing breakfast at Mel’s Drive In. I have to admit, San Francisco has the best food ever. Everywhere we went the food was amazing! After taking our time and enjoying our breakfast, we began our 5 hour drive over to Yosemite in attempt to make it there in enough time to hike out for our first night in the woods. We made it there in time, found ourselves a parking spot and headed off towards Mirror Lake. After about 3 miles into our hike, we came across a sign that read the trail was closed due to a recent rock slide. Thanks for the heads up when we checked in. Since we were on a time crunch to get to our first stop before dark, we took off our shoes and headed through a freezing cold creek about knee deep. It was so cold you could literally not feel your feet half way through the walk in the creek. We made it to the ‘Wilderness’ area of Yosemite and set up tent just in the nick of time. Tuesday morning we packed up and began Day 2 in the woods, heading up to the area of Tenaya Lake about 11 miles away. We crossed a few creeks but this time we had bridges and fallen trees. And we soon learned that mountains out here just go up; they don’t ever seem to go down or at least that’s what it felt like. After stopping for lunch, we began on our way but it was soon brought to a halt as Steveo spotted a bear just in front of us. I managed to sneak by a tree as Steveo tried to scare it off by hollering and banging sticks together. But I’m pretty sure if bears could laugh, it was probably doing so. It just looked at us like ‘ha’ and went about doing its thing. I guess my wish of seeing a bear came true but I had preferred doing so when there were actually people around. We survived and made it through night 2 of the hike. Wednesday, Day 3, was a long and strenuous hike. We ended up going about 14 miles, with an elevation gain from 7,000 ft to 10,000 and back down. We also had to trek through tons of snow and up melted creeks but it was all worth the while. After taking a little break we headed off towards Half Dome in attempt to climb the top to finish out the day. We made our way up the steep rocky climb before coming face to face with the cables that shoot almost straight up 400 ft. I don’t think we were expecting it to be that steep, so we just sat below and watched for quite awhile. After finally deciding to head up, an ever so nice lady next to us went on to tell us about how a guy died just a few days ago on the cables. Thanks for the reassurance. But with a sweet little Australian couple convincing us, we put on the gloves and began the ascend just behind another group. It was scary, super scary but I didn’t look down and kept my momentum. My forearms were on fire but I refused to stop as I thought I might get too scared to keep going. We finally made it to the top and it was breathless. We were shaky and Steveo was anxious for us to get back down but I had to snap a few pictures. Just when you start to relax, you realize half the battle isn’t even over yet as we have to climb back down. It was scary but we made it and we are still here! It was beautiful and I’m so glad for myself that I did it. Being a not so adventurous kind of person, it was definitely an accomplishment for me; something I can mark off my bucket list. Anyways, we made it back to the valley after 4 days in the woods. We were dirty, smelly and hungry; so we were excited to be back to civilization. First things first, we had cheeseburgers and French fries, took showers (that cost $5) and managed to do some laundry. What a nice way to end a trip in the woods!

6.15.09 Pictures cont...

6.15.09 Pictures

6.15.09

It has been a very eventful past day but I’ll get to that in a minute. We left our campground early Saturday morning to head down south to make our way closer to San Francisco. The first campground we came to was slammed full; I guess this area is huge on Abalone diving and being the weekend, everyone was out. So we drove a little more and came across a private campground, Ocean Cove. It was absolutely stunning; the most beautiful view from a campsite every. The campground sat right on top of an ocean bluff spewing out into the Pacific and our campsite was right on the edge of it all. We actually went to bed early to watch the sunset from right inside our tent. We then woke up early, packed our things and drove off for an hour and a half to make our way down San Francisco! We came to the Golden Gate Bridge and did you know it cost $6 to drive across? Oh well, it’s vacation; I would just hate to make that commute across every day. We then went down to Union Square to do some shopping to replace all our clothes. It was actually convenient because now we had an excuse to buy some new clothes. I made my way around Old Navy and American Eagle to buy jeans, a hoodie, and a few shirts. We then headed back to the hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf to shower and clean up since it has been 4 days since the last one; we were starting to fit in with the San Francisco bum crowd. We then walked down to Pier 39 to find a place to eat and found ourselves at the Sea Lion Café. We sat right next to the window that overlooked a few hundred sea lions soaking up the sun. We also had a view of the marina, Golden Gate Bridge and the Alcatraz; needless to say it was breathtaking. And did I mention the best food ever? I had this pasta with grilled chicken, sautéed onions and chopped asparagus tips all in a cream garlic sauce. We then walked all around Fisherman’s Wharf, taking in the experience of the shops and watching the street performers similar to Mallory Square in Key West. A few hours later, we walked around looking where to eat for dinner and ended up at Lou’s 47. San Francisco just has the best food ever, literally! To stuff ourselves even more, we walked up to Ghirardelli Square to get ice cream and watch the sun set on the beach. After lying down on our blanket for a few minutes, Steveo decided to get a picture of us in the bay before the sun went down. We usually set the self timer to get a picture of us but this time he tricked me and set it on the video, at this point I kind of figured out what was going on. So after we posed for a few seconds and nothing happened, he got down on one knee and asked the question of a lifetime, ‘Will you marry me?’. Of course I said yes and we stood there hugging for quite some time. And yes we have it all on video! We then lied down to finish watching the sunset and snapped a few pictures of the new us. It was a beautiful, amazing, never forgettable kind of day. We are off to Yosemite today!

6.12.09

Update: We ended up going to that place across the street last night for dinner and they had the best cheeseburgers and brownies known to exist so that cheered us up after a few rough days. I admit today was a bit hard after it really sank in that we lost all of our pictures, and Steveo now has absolutely no fishing pictures left. But I told him I guess he has a good excuse to go fishing now, so he can refill his lost photos.; lucky for you Pastor John. And I don’t think we have many pictures of us left, as they were all on both of our laptops but I guess there is always time for new memories. Right now it’s just hard to process that we both lost our laptops with our pictures, favorite jeans and favorite bathing suits but I know in the big spectrum it is ridiculous to even get upset about it. But we are moving on, quickly. It’s funny because yesterday I was reading my book, that I finished by the way, and it talked about how the these men got robbed by Indians on their way to California during the Gold Rush but afterwards the men were relieved that their loads were lighter so it made for a more pleasant journey. I laughed because how ironic is it that I read that the day after we get invaded. But it’s so true, I can stress out so easily when things aren’t perfectly organized but honestly, it has made me not care so much when things get out of order. I went from having our nicely organized bins to using plastic target bags. It’s been an adventurous and difficult few days but we lighten the mood with jokes about our broken window. Steveo has done an amazing job at helping me relax and remain happy throughout these hard times in the trip. But I have decided I am not letting those crooks make the worst of our trip. Anyways, we made our way south through a tiny curvy road throughout the redwoods; It was a “you have to look up every second or you’re going to get carsick kind of road”. But it was on the ‘Most Scenic Routes in America’, the only road for us to get to these campgrounds and once we actually came to the ocean bluffs it was well worth the twisting and turning beforehand. Oh and I almost forgot, along the way we stopped at the drive thru tree and yes our car made it through, barely but we did it! We are now in the area of Fort Braggs at a campground called Casper Beach RV Park. We have had to change up our plans quite a bit but nonetheless it has been just as beautiful. The campground is a cute little place right across the street from the ocean filled with sea lions. We could hear them but couldn’t see them so we took a little drive and found a street that had a little foot path to the edge of the cliff overlooking the rocks with the sea lions. It was such a beautiful place but with our luck not very high, my camera died just as I turned on the camera to take pictures. Now my camera is dead, so dead that the lens won’t even pop back in. Thanks to the crooks, we are in desperate search of a USB cord to charge it. We drove around town to try and find one but we failed to do that but were able to buy graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows to make smores tonight! We made our way across the street to collect the washed up dry wood on the beach so we are making our fire right now. Mmm the smores are calling my name. What a dinner; good thing I’m on vacation.

6.11.09 Pictures

6.11.09

Today was definitely better, especially after considering our bad luck spree over the last few days. We planned on having our windows fixed yesterday but the auto shop called in the morning and said one of the windows broke during shipment. Since we were still windowless and clothes less, we decided to settle for a hotel room to lock up all that we did have left so we could do a little shopping. It ended up being an excellent decision because we got to go to Ross and Target to buy some new clothes, then we got to heat up food in the microwave, watch tv, have hot showers and eat a free waffle breakfast in the morning. We have agreed that North California is beautiful but there are some weird people here. All the girls have dreads, there are endless amounts of hitchhikers (but we now know why) and there was this dude playing the harmonica in his car in the Target parking lot. But anyways, we got our windows fixed and made our way down through the amazing Redwoods to the Standish-Hickey State Park around the city of Leggett. It is probably one of the coolest campgrounds we have ever been to. It’s right on the river, well just about a ¼ mile hike down the little mountain, with a swimming hole, a perfect fishing spot and a few huge Redwoods. We actually made our way down there this afternoon to take a peek so Steveo could do some fly fishing. It was so relaxing to sit down there on the rocks, listening to the small little rapid/waterfall and reading my book while Steveo fished. I even almost finished the book and for me that is a record! Oh and all my other books were in a bag that got stolen so we made our way to a Thrift Store the other day to check out their selection. I found a book ‘Living Beyond the Limits’ by Franklin Graham and also Lance Armstrong’s autobiography, each for $.50 and Steveo even managed to find a long sleeve fishing shirt for 2 bucks! But no worries because we now have nice new clothes from Ross and Target. As for now, we just finished Steveos homework so he has now moved on to carving me a walking stick as I blog. I think for dinner we will head right across the street to The Peg House, a cute little gift shop and outdoor restaurant that smells amazing. There is actually a Harley Rally going on so the area is full of bikers; I just think it’s so awesome to see them all out and riding. I guess we’ll probably make some new friends as the campground is filling up with them. Well we are off in the morning, making our way closer to San Francisco.

6.9.09 Pictures

6.9.09

Well today wasn’t our average day. We made it through Utah, Oregon and the north part of California before stopping in Crescent City for an overnight backpacking trip last night. The drive through the Redwoods National Park was beautiful and we have yet to seen the biggest and the best of it. We stopped at the first beach overlook we came across and it was absolutely breath taking; A cliff overlooking the ocean full of rocks in all sizes and a mountain top view of Redwoods behind us. We then made our way to the end of Enherdt’s Beach Road, where we parked the car for the night. We hiked about a mile to set up our tent and claim our spot, then headed down to the ocean. We witnessed the ocean at sunset and it was amazing, probably the most beautiful place we have ever seen. And the sad thing is pictures can’t even come close to what we were seeing. We collected firewood from the beach and headed back to start a fire. We then met a guy, about mid twenties, who set up camp next to us that was hitchhiking from Montana, talk about being adventurous. After hanging out around the fire for a bit we called it a night. Oh and there was a creek just about 20 yards from the site so we had a first hand ‘sound machine’ all night long. We had a great night’s rest and woke up feeling refreshed, but that was all about to change. The two of us, and the hitchhiker, made our way back up to our car and as we were approaching it, I made a comment about how awesome it was that our car was still intact. But little did we know, the windows that were broken were the back and passenger side so we were not able to notice until we got closer. And to think, we were actually going to be nice and give this guy a ride to the end of the road so he could keep on his way. At first we were devastated! Everything was gone, including both our laptops, my nice camera, all of our electronics (battery chargers, cell phone chargers, camera chargers, heating pad etc.), all of our clothes (except for what we are wearing), both of our favorite pair of jeans, our nice expensive Columbia jackets, my other Kelty backpack and a bunch of other stuff. We wrote down everything with estimated costs for the officers and it was over a whopping $3000 loss! Yea, that was hard to take in but at least we still have the car and each other. So we now sit without a change of shorts, shirts, underwear, socks or anything! That’s actually something to laugh about but I‘m pretty bummed we lost all those clothes!!! We got through it, just reminding each other that God has a plan, a bigger and better plan, so all we can do is go on without any regrets for what we did or are doing. But hey they didn’t steal our Bibles, haha. But really, we are going to recover just fine and this only adds some excitement to the blog for yall to read. We did make our way to a Target to buy a laptop since Steveo has a project due tonight and I managed to find two shirts on sale for $6 each. We also got a hold of his insurance so the windows are going to be fixed in the morning so for now, we are going to explore and find a campground in the area. I’m sure we will have more adventures to come!

6.7.09 Pictures cont...

Another amazing arch

Beautiful

It was such a long, steep rock

Christmas Trees! I was so happy


Just walking along the trail

6.7.09 Pictures

Us in the Arch... I forget which one

Steveo being stupid and climbing

It was so awesome!

Me trying to be like Steveo

Beautiful Landscape Arch

*No more pictures until I get a new camera cord since my other one got stolen :(