Days 16-23

I would like to apologize for the delay in the blog updates, it's been awhile since we've had internet access, but anyway, we've had a lot of adventures these past 7 days. The first stop of this past week was San Francisco. This is my second favorite city next to San Diego. The hills in this city are one of a kind. We drove down the steepest hill in the world and the curviest street in the world all in one city. We saw landmarks such as Alcatraz from a distance and Pier 39. Pier 39 is a place where sea lions hang out, for a lack of better term. San Francisco has the largest Chinatown in North America, which was my favorite part of San Francisco. Everything in Chinatown is cheap, very cheap. I bought a souvenier shirt for $2 and a cool samauri sword for $50, but it's worth it. After San Francisco, we took the scenic drive on Highway 1 up to Redwoods National Forest. The drive was gorgeous, just look at the pictures. We had to drive about 30 minutes in order to get to highway 1, and we almost didn't make it there, literally. There was a mountain with about 30 miles of road winding and curving around it, and the gas gage was on empty, and we were 45 minutes away from the nearest gas station. We rode the car down the mountain in neutral for 10 or 15 miles, but we finally made it out and to a gas station. The west coast is very different from the east. The ocean is below these huge cliffs overlooking the Pacific and right behind it are these forests with huge Redwoods. You literally can be in the forest and then take a few steps and you will be on the beach. The Pacific is filled with huge rocks, and the clear blue water is constantly crashing over them. This ocean experience is completely different from an east coast one. Later on the drive, we arrived at Redwoods, where we saw a herd of Roosevelt elk, that were grazing in a nearby field. We camped on the beautiful and windy beach.

Our next stop was Crater Lake, OR. Before we started driving up to the top, the themometer read 54 degrees; by the time we were up at the top of the mountain where the lake was, it was 34 degrees and there was about 3 feet of snow. This lake is mysterious, none like any other. It is about 2,000 feet deep, maybe more; explorers have only made it to these depths. It's cold, windy, has dark, blue water, and a small snow covered island in the middle of the lake.

The next day, we stayed at Portland, OR. This city reminds me of Greenville, SC. It's not a very big city, but it's a nice, quiet, and clean place to live. There wasn't much going on in Portland, and after Portland, we drove up to Washington to see Mount Saint Helen's. Mount Saint Helens is know for obviously the volcanic explosion, and secondly, for its bigfoot country. Mount Saint Helens was closed due to 10 feet of snow, but we were able to take some pictures of surrounding snowcapped mountains. The bigfoot conspiracy was more interesting to me than the Roswell, NM conspiracy. There's just something intriguing about the possibility of an 8 foot sasquatch wondering around the woods.

Since Mount Saint Helens was closed, we drove further north in Washington to a campsite on the Puget Bay, but it wasn't anything special, just another campsite. But on the way up to the site, we drove past a drive-in movie theater and watched the movie Iron Man. This was a fulfilled goal for me on the road trip; I've always wanted to go in a drive-in theater, and the experience was great. Our next stop is Seattle, WA...