Why I Am So Great, or, My Travels Up the Pacific Coast

If I haven't talked to some of you in a while, it's because I've suddenly become very important and much cooler than I was before. And I've had to make hard decisions about relationships that are life-giving for me, and, sadly, some of you didn't make the cut. Also, I've been very busy wearing these cool new sunglasses (which the girl in the sunglass shop said "definitely take eighteen years off," effectively returning me to the mentality of a nineteen-year-old).

Okay, okay. None of that's really true (except those sunglasses do make me look much younger and cooler). I flew out to Laguna Beach, where my friend Loren lives, for the 4th of July, and then I spent the past week driving up the West Coast to Seattle. He needed his car in Seattle, and I was looking for an opportunity to get out of Minneapolis for a little while. Fortunately those two things coincided nicely.

I decided to take my time and drive the slow route up Hwys 1 and 101, which are old two-lane highways that hug much of the coast. I camped along the way, ate lots of good food, listened to a couple books on tape, and took way more photos than I should have. In a perfect world I'd gather us all together, pop some popcorn, and then slowly narrate through my 609 photos from the last couple days. Sadly (for you), you'll have to settle for a handful of representative photographs. Please provide your own popcorn.

 The view from Loren's window, overlooking Laguna Beach (and the lesser people who live below him).

My automobile companion for the drive, an Audi Q5.

A beach outside of Malibu

Pismo Beach, near Big Sur.

A rocky stretch of coast near Carmel.

The Mission at Carmel-by-the-Sea. It was founded in 1770, though this chapel was built in the 1920s.

There's a lot of farming country north of San Francisco, which surprised me. Lots of fields and grazing pastures that run right up to the edge of the ocean. This scenic farm sits outside Pt. Reyes Station.

Some scenic highway north of San Francisco.

A dilapidated dockhouse in Bodega Bay, where Hitchcock filmed The Birds.

A nice beach in Trinidad.

The fog rolling through the redwood forests of Northern California.

This, finally, is in Oregon, near Gold City.

Also Oregon, near Coos Bay.

The beautiful sand beaches of Newport. It was amazingly windy out here, and reminded me a lot of Lake Michigan.

The fishing fleet in Newport. Behind me is the seafood restaurant where I ate dinner (presumably fresh off one of these boats) that night.

I found this sign in Forks, Washington, which is where they filmed the Twilight series. They weren't fooling me with their "Puget Sound Blood Center" name. I know they're really vampires.

This little weather-beaten tree is at the tip of Cape Flattery, the most northwest point in the contiguous US.

 

The sea caves along Cape Flattery.

And photographic proof that I was there (or am very good at Photoshopping myself into landscape shots).

Along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Those mountains on the other side are in Canada.

The snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountains. This photo is taken from Hurricane Ridge, which is a really pretty highway that overlooks the mountains.

And Seattle! After five days on the road, I boarded the ferry from Bainbridge Island for a quick trip across Puget Sound to my destination.