Our day at Dillon Beach

I just wanted to share some pictures of our afternoon spent at Dillon Beach.  I believe we were there last weekend and the weather couldn't have been more beautiful.  The drive was amazingly beautiful with farms and rolling hills.  We found lots of treasures and the girls had a great time playing in the sand.

I found my first sand dollar


and a crab burried in the sand. I think it was carrying an orange egg sack underneath it's body.

the water was as cold as Lake Superior, but that didn't stop him from getting his feet wet

there were surfers too!

Great memories were made that day and I hope we're able to make to the Pacific one more time before we depart from California.

Happy Monday everyone!

San Fransisco... the coolest city on earth!

Wow!  San Fransisco... what an awesome city!

Not only do they have the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, but they also have several awesome and fun sites to see.  So many that it's impossible to see them all in one day... as we found out.

Coming over the bridge was incredible!  Scott and I both found ourselves gawking at the humongous structure.  Maria thought it was pretty cool too.

We paid the toll to enter the city and quickly realized that a large truck with a 34 ft. trailer attached is no way to tour this city.  We missed our exit right off the bridge and found ourselves in the middle of busy and extremely tight intersection.  We got out of there as quick as we could.

We headed to a southern suburb where we stayed at a campground right on the ocean.  It was quite nice and we chose to run to the local market and make some dinner rather than head into the big city.  That would be left for the next morning, where we got an early start and made the most out of our busy day.

Our first stop was of course, the Golden Gate Bridge.  We walked around, took some pictures, and then decided to drive into the city.

We just happened to be on the right route to drive down the crookedest street in the world... Lombard St.  This isn't a very good picture of it, but it quite crooked and steep!

We were also able to take in all the beautiful row houses and architecture.  Each of the houses had beautifully trimmed hedges and gorgeous flowering bushes.  Some homes were brightly painted, others had awesome gated entry ways, and most had iron balconies.  This city was definitely turning out to be MORE than I had expected.

After Lombard St., we parked the truck down by the pier and headed out on foot.  We came to Pier 39 which was lined with tourist shops and restaurants.  There were fishing boats, sail boats, and seals!

Right in the middle of the pier was a carousel, in which Maria got to ride.  She chose the dolphin. :)

There was also a candy shop with barrels and barrels of candy and saltwater taffy.  Quite appropriate for being by the sea.

Maria caught eye of the candy cigarettes.  Something which took me by surprise considering the negative views on smoking these days.  However, it sure did take me back to my childhood.  I used to go to the gas station down the street from my house and buy these.  I'm sure I felt pretty cool with one of these in my mouth. Maria walked away empty handed.

The seals were fun to see too! I didn't expect to see them around the corner just sitting there like sardines.

I think Maria could've stayed and watched them all day.

Further down the street was Fisherman's Wharf.  We actually didn't spend much time here because we had so much other stuff we wanted to get to that day.  It was bustling with tourists as well as...

street musicians!  

This steel drum quartet made me feel like I was in the Caribbean.

We decided to take the old cable car up to Chinatown.  Little Ginger was hanging onto the pole like a pro.

It was fun to do and we're glad we had it on our to do list.

Chinatown was amazingly beautiful.  The main street was decorated with lanterns and flags, and the shop windows were so bright and cheerful.

I wish we would've had more time to spend here to grab a bite to eat.  I'm sure the Chinese cuisine is pretty impressive.

We met up with a friend of Scott's who lives in the city at The Irish Bank.  It's a bar and restaurant close to Chinatown.  We grabbed a Starbucks and headed to catch the F train back to our vehicle.  We wanted to see the Mission district before dark.  Unfortunately, we didn't know exactly where we were going and it was getting late.  The Mission is supposedly filled with many large, beautiful  murals.  We'll have to check them out the next time we visit... which I'm sure won't be too far off.

I bought a pair of John Fluevog boots, which I'm really excited about and then we were off, back to the campground.  On our way though, we happened to be driving past Twin Peaks.  We took the windy road up the hill to discover this beautiful site.

We're so glad we were able to see San Fransisco at night.  It's wonderful how things just work out like that.


Overall it was a wonderful trip to the city by the bay.


Can't wait to go back!

Portland and the Oregon coastline

Seattle was fun, but I was itchin' to get to Oregon.  Being there once before, I knew it was going to be gorgeous, green, and of course rainy.  But that was okay, we were able to work around it and we weren't going to let it spoil our fun.

There are so many cool bridges there too. In order to utilize them as much as possible, I'd want to live on the north end of town, because downtown as well as the markets are on the south end... and of course, because going over bridges is fun fun fun!!!

Once we were settled in at our island oasis campground (which meant even more bridge crossing) we decided to hit the city.  Our first destination was the Saturday market under one of the bridges.  I believe it's a place where artists can set up for free and sell their goods.  I'll definitely be setting up here to sell my jewelry once we move here for good.

We saw "Portland's living room" which is a big park in the middle of downtown.  When we arrived, there were crowds of people there and most of them were dressed up like zombies with fake blood and scary faces.  Come to find out, there was a reenactment of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" right there in the park.  Too many people though so I wasn't able to get a picture.  I guess all those t-shirts we saw that said "keep Portland weird" were starting to make sense. :)

We did a little indoor shopping and then headed over to the Pearl District to Deschutes Brewery.

Scott and I had a beer and shared a pizza while the girls had homemade mac & cheese.  It was a friendly atmosphere in a super neat neighborhood.  We walked through China Town and a few other districts as well and it all solidified our decision to move here permanently.

Oh!  The leaves here were really pretty too!  It's been nice to catch autumn all over again.

We took a drive around town to see the different neighborhoods and Scott made a point to check out the Burnside Bridge Skate Park.  It was dark out and in a bit of a spooky neighborhood, so he stayed in the car.  Supposedly that's where the "pros" skate.  Whatever :)

The next morning, Scott hooked up the trailer in the pouring rain so that we could get back on the road to cruise the coast line.

We were stalled for about an hour due to a traffic accident just ahead of us where someone was air lifted off.  If we wouldn't have stopped to get gas, that could've been us.  Scary.

Once we hit Lincoln City, we got our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.

Maria was in heaven.

It was windy and cold so we didn't stay out long before heading into the trailer to make lunch.

The seagulls here are much beefier than Lake Superior seagulls.  Must be all that seafood.

We crossed many more bridges

until we came to sea lion cave.  We weren't going to stop but were so happy we did.  There were really sea lions at sea lion cave!!  I wasn't able to get a picture because they were pretty far away, but we could still see and hear them.  It was pretty neat.

We're still on the coast and heading towards Redwood State Park in California.  There's so much more shoreline to be seen and more pictures to be taken.

The laundry is done and hopefully the trailer is all packed up by the time I get back. But not before a quick pit stop at Starbucks on my way back through town.

More soon!!