The second half of our road trip started from Crescent City, California. We drove down through Redwoods National Park and did some short hikes through the massive trees. We drove through the scenic 'Avenue of the Giants'.
We stayed just outside of San Francisco in Fremont, where my aunt lives. We parked BB outside of her front door and I got to spend some quality time with my cousin.
The next day we met up with Amanda, one of my good friends from medical school. She is finishing up her radiology training with a fellowship at Stanford, and met us in San Jose for lunch.
We continued to the Monterey area, where my aunt Carolyn lives. We parked the trailer near her place and stayed two nights with her. We disconnected the truck from the trailer in order to take a day trip on highway one. The pacific coast highway is narrow and winding, but has incredible views.
We drove down through Carmel to Big Sur and took Hazel to Julia Pfeiffer State Park. It was a beautiful day, and Hazel had so much fun in the waves.
Afterwards, we drove back up to Monterey and stopped at Folklore winery for a wine tasting, which was excellent. We stayed another night with my aunt Carolyn, then headed to Pinnacles National Park, about an hour southeast of Monterey.
We did a short hike to the Balconies Cliffs and the Balconies Cave. It was pitch black in the cave, but nice and cool. It was an interesting park, but after seeing some of the other national parks on our trip, it paled in comparison. We got to cross it off our list though.
Next, we drove south to Ventura and took a boat to Santa Cruz Island, a part of Channel Islands National Park. The boat ride was about an hour long, and we saw a pod of dolphins on the way.
On the island, we hiked about 8 miles, with great views of the coast.
The islands are known for the silver foxes, and we saw a few on the trails. This was was curled up under a tree, with no cares in the world.
We returned on the boat that afternoon. Hazel spent the day in the trailer with the air conditioning on.
Next, we drove to Joshua Tree National Park and spent the afternoon there. It was hot and dry after our time on the coast. We did a short hike and checked out some of the cool rock formations.
Then we headed east and stayed the night in the desert in Arizona just past the California line. We returned to Prescott the next day, with only three days before we left for our next adventure... (coming next post).
And the obligatory GoPro- the song choice is two fold. One, I learned William used to listen to classic rock in high school so we played Bob Seger radio for quite a while. And two because William tends to let the gas gauge go down as far as possible before filling up.
Comments