We're back, jack!

[divsca]

I figured that with internet access all along our trip, I'd be able to post along the way about our various adventures.  Well, not so much because every day was super full.  It was all I could do to stay on top of email!  It was a worthy last child-free vacation, especially considering all the constraints I have, though it doesn't match up to some of our more epic trips.

Today I'm just hanging out at the UCLA guest house until the EMBA family picnic (Ryan is in class), so I finally have some time to really get caught up on the internet stuff.  Ergo, the travelogue.


We started the trip almost two weeks ago on Saturday afternoon when Ryan was done with class.  I spent the day packing and getting the house ready for us to be away for two weeks, loaded up the Rav4, and drove up to UCLA.  We hit the road around 4:30 and headed up to Mountain View for the night.  We arrived fairly late but stayed up for an hour catching up with Vieve & Steve, then hit the sack for our early start the next day.

Day one was a tour of Sonoma beer country with Vieve, Steve, and some of our beer geek friends from OC.  Yes, they have some excellent breweries up there in addition to the plethora of wineries.  We started off the day with brunch at Nick's Cove on Tomales bay.  We got a taste of the local oyster selection as well as some delicious brunchy food, all accompanies by great views of the bay.  From there, we headed up to Russian River Brewery where we ate some amazing brownies, and most everyone got to taste some of their best brews on tap.  I tried a sip of anything interesting that Ryan got, but I was pretty happy just with the brownies - yum!

Our next stop was the Bear Republic brewpub up in Healdsburg.  More snacking and drinking ensued, though they were missing some of their most interesting beers.  Finally, we rolled down to Moylan's in Novato for dinner.  They had some unusal stuff on tap, though the raspberry chocolate imperial stout ended up being unfortunately dominated by the fruit.

We started day two bright and early with a tasty breakfast at Cafe Borrone with Vieve and our friends Tom, Dee and their baby.  After that, Ryan and I hit the road for real.  We drove up the 101 with stops at Hopland so Ryan could pop in to Mendocino Brewery (home of Red Tail Ale), Ukiah for a really delicious, organic, crunchy lunch at Ukiah Brewery, and one of the many redwood groves along the way.  Dinner was at the Lost Coast Brewpub in Eureka (sensing a theme yet?), and overnight was at a motel in Arcata.

The next morning, we had another tasty breakfast at Cafe Brio in the old town square of Arcata.  The general vibe screamed hippie with lots of dreadlocks and tie-dyed clothing, but what else would you expect in the home town of Humboldt State U?  Our main stop of the day was at Redwoods National Park for a hike through the Cathedral Grove, which is actually in one of the adjacent state parks.  I expected to be a slow hiker, but we were even slower than necessary because it was all so beautiful.  I took a ton of pictures, and Ryan had fun trying to identify edible plants along the way.

After that, we drove up along the Oregon coast with a stop for some locally smoked salmon jerky as our light lunch.  Our destination was Newport, home of Rogue Brewery which turned out to be pretty awesome.  I cried a little inside when we discovered that they had every one of their imperial ales on tap.  We'll definitely be back there sometime when I can drink!  Dinner was at a lovely little restaurant called Panache whose owners were nice enough to stay open late for us on a slow Tuesday night.  Lucky for us and them that they lived just upstairs!

Breakfast on day four was standard greasy spoon fare at Pig'N'Pancake, a local chain along the Oregon coast.  We had a long drive up to Seattle that day, with lots of stops at scenic ocean view spots, but no activity.  We had a brief tour and snack break at the Tillamook cheese factory (the ice cream really beat the cheese).  Lunch was at Norma's in Seaside, OR, a touristy little town about halfway to Seattle.  I got my local crab fix with crab cakes the night before and again for lunch. 

We crossed an impressively large bridge that spanned Young's Bay and Wilapa Bay to get from Oregon to Washington.  The drive from there to Seattle took us inland, away from the spectacular ocean views, but we got some glimpes of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Ranier off in the distance.  We met up with Melissa (and her dog and cat), and then had dinner at Dan's fabulous resturant (restuarantzoe.com) in downtown Seattle.  Let's just say that it's good to know the chef!

The next two days in Seattle were mostly spent hanging out with friends, eating lots of good food, and having good conversation.  We spent one night with M & D, then hopped over to another couple's house in Burien with awesome views of Puget Sound.  Our bits of outdoorsiness were playing frisbee with the dog and walking her around Washington Park, and a short walk down to the sound and back up to the house in Burien.  The only touristy thing that we did was to visit Pike's Place market, where Ryan finally got to eat the elusive geoduck.  We had to make at least one beer related stop, so we hit the Uber Bier tavern, a tiny locals type place that had a small but excellent selection of rare beers from all over the country.

On Saturday morning, we left Seattle and made our way to Portland with a stop at Mt. St. Helens.  The mountain was too snowy to climb, but we did a short hike around the "hummocks" at the base, and then took a pit stop at the main observatory point.    Portland was fun - the night we arrived was parade night for the annual rose festival.  I didn't see any roses, but I did see a bus full of singing Italians and a large group of people in Star Wars costumes.  We had tasty Ethiopian food for dinner, hit another little beer bar recommended by some guys in Seattle, and got the best donuts ever at Voodoo Donuts.

Sunday brunch was at the Tin Shack with our hosts, Surya & Aleta, as well as some more friends (former coworkers of Ryan's).  Our bit of fresh (very warm) air was at the Japanese and Rose Gardens in Portland, and more beer and lunch were consumed at Cascade and Deschutes brewpubs.  We experienced the first ever showing of "It Came from the Internet" at the house that night, along with a BBQ for some locals hosted by S & A.

Monday was our biggest adventure, transitioning from the warm, sunny weather we'd been lucky to have, all the way to thunderstorms and even snow.  We drove East from Portland along the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, then turned South toward Bend.  We passed right under Mt. Hood, which was spectacular, then as we descended into the Deschutes River Valley, the clouds on the horizon got darker and darker.  Eventually, we hit the rainstorms, though they happened to clear just as we stopped for lunch. 

Our next destination was Crater Lake National Park, but as we drove up to the 7000 foot high rim, the rain started again, and soon turned to sleet.  Temperatures dropped into the mid-40s (!), and there were several feet of snow still on the ground as we got higher.  We popped into the Rim View Lodge just for a pit stop and a couple pictures, then kept going.  On the way down the Western side, we took a brief stop along the narrowest point of the Rogue River as it raged through a gorge.  After that, we paralleled the river most of the way to Ashland, our destination for the night.

Tuesday marked the end of the new stuff with breakfast at Mix in the small downtown area of Ashland.  They had awesome baked goods and really good coffee.  With full bellies, we got back on I-5 for the long drive to my parents place in Oakhurst.  We'd hoped to do a short hike around Mt. Shasta, but it was under a lot of cloud cover and didn't seem worth the detour.  The next two days we just hung around my parents house and ate good home-cooked food.  I did some laundry, and Ryan got caught up on all the school work he'd put aside for the trip.



To sum up, the trip was about tall trees, long rivers, spectacular mountains, great beer, delicious food, and catching up with old friends.  I won't be surprised if I've gained my entire four pound quota for the month in just these two weeks!  It was a thoroughly enjoyable and comfortable getaway and gave us all kinds of new ideas for where to go on future trips.