Another trip down

Well we finally made it home, for now. Looking back, our trip spanned 6 states, 5576 miles, 9 National Parks, 3 State Parks, 2 National Recreation Areas and countless tourist traps. We experienced the 121 degree heat of the desert and the chill of San Francisco Bay. We got to see family and a bunch of old friends along the way and even made some new friends.

The 4Runner has now officially driven from coast to coast, from the north most point in Maine to the southern point in California. During the trip we collected t-shirts, post cards, coffee mugs, one speeding ticket and over 4000 pictures.

It is impossible to tell about everything we saw and did and for every one thing we saw we missed two things to see, but we eventually ran out of time. That is the great thing about traveling though, we have a reason to go back and see everything else.

Thanks for following our travels, feel free to post any questions and we will keep you posted when we hit the road again.

To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

Location:Denver, Colorado

Mesa Verde

From Lake Powell we made the trip back into Colorado stopping by Four Corners on our way. The Four Corners monument is currently under construction, so you can wander around in a circle between 4 states, but you can't stand in all four until September when they are supposed to finish the renovations on the monument. From what we saw there is no way it will be finished by then, but who knows. We did get really good fry bread though!







After a fairly disappointing trip to the Four Corners we made the 50 mile trip to Mesa Verde.This was Mesa Verde when we rolled in on Sunday night.



Our trip into Mesa Verde, outside the road construction, was great. We got to wander around a bunch of the archeological sites and got good views of most of the cliff dwelling sites. We ran out of light before we ran out of things to look at but we were not worried because we had the entire next day to see all the things that we missed, plus we were all set to go on some ranger guided tours of some of the dwelling sites. So we headed back to camp and we were in for the night.







This was Mesa Verde Monday morning when we woke up to go on all of the tours we had booked.


As you can tell it was a drastic difference from the day before, but being the diehard tourists that we are, we made the best of it and into the Cliff Dwellings we went, at least for a while. We did the first tour and a few more overlooks before we were chased off by the weather and the rain. Most of the sights we wanted to see were being restricted by the rain so we added Mesa Verde to the list of the places we're going to come back to and we pointed the truck for home.













To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

It sure is grand and it sure is a canyon

After leaving the less than sunny California coast we blazed a trail for Arizona and the Grand Canyon. Lucky for us our friends the Victory's live in Kingman AZ, which happened to be on the way, and they took us in for the night. We got a good night sleep, had a good breakfast and we were on our way again the next morning.



With 4.5 million visitors every year the crowds are as grand as the Grand Canyon and being there over the weekend during the summer did not help. The good news is there is so much to look at and so many places to look we had no problem getting great views of the canyon. The bad news was that someplace between San Diego and the Grand Canyon I picked up a bug and was sick the entire time we were there. It was a good thing that we did not plan much hiking because it was all I could do to get from the truck to the view points. The canyon must really be spectacular because even in the shape I was in I still found it to be awe inspiring.















Our trip started at the South rim, which is by far the more tourist filled. We spent the first night and the next day between canyon views, gift shops and dodging huge tour groups. We had been told that the North rim was much less crowded so we packed up and head North.
Now the Grand Canyon from the South rim lodge and the North rim lodge is only 10 miles, as the crow flies. To drive from one to the other is about 203 miles of winding desert road which took about 4 hours, but we got to see so many views of the canyon it was well worth the drive.
We pulled into the North rim just in time to snag the last camping spot and get set up right before it started to rain. Now when I say rained I mean poured, we're talking get Noah on the phone kinda rain. At about 3am it started to lightning and thunder. It was a mighty show and the sound of the thunder echoing around the canyon, which was only about 100 yards away, made it worth missing a little sleep. When we actually woke up however, it was still raining and the fog had set into the canyon so bad it covered any views we might have gotten. We would get a glimpse of the canyon every once in a while and one time we got to see all the way across the canyon, but it was short lived and the fog bowl continued.









We waited around until about 2:30 and glumly admitted defeat and headed out of the park toward Lake Powell without getting any great views from the North rim.


To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

Location:Grand Canyon National Park

Lions, tigers, whales oh my.

Ginger and I had the opportunity to crash the vacation of our friends Chris and Liz and their new daughter Addison. They were staying in Palm Springs for a couple of days so we stopped in on our way to San Diego. On our way we paid a visit to the Salton Sea which is the 2nd lowest point in the lower 48.








There really was not much to see at the Salton Sea so we quickly made our way to Palm Springs. We spent some time at the pool basking in the 120 degree weather and it was not long before the sun and the heat got the best of us so we had lunch and headed for San Diego.








We arrived in San Diego around 8 pm and the damp cool weather was a drastic change from the heat we had just been in. My sister Jessica and her family (Jason, Lela and Olivia) live in San Diego and Olivia was super excited to show us her two favorite places, the zoo and Sea World.
One of the exciting things about traveling is you never know what will happen next. In J-tree we snapped a tent pole. So on our way to San Diego we had to pick up a replacement pole, which we could not find. So a $25 tent purchase later we were back on our way. Well the saying you get what you pay for is so true, no more did we get our new tent up in Jessica's back yard and it ripped. The good news was that they had a tent the size of a small town that my father had given them so we were not without shelter for long.
The next morning after a slow start Ginger, Olivia and I were off to the San Diego Zoo. We did not miss a thing, we saw every animal from things that slither to things that would rather eat us than look at us. Jessica met us later in the evening with dinner and we continued our tour of the zoo. It started getting late and we were running out of light and energy so we called it a night knowing that we had a day at Sea World planned for the next day.
Now a trip to Sea World with the Salonen Family requires snacks, lots of space on your camera and 15 good hours. The was no fish left unseen, we even found a small little aquarium that my sister and Olivia had not been to. Some of the highlights of the trip were Ginger feeding the stingrays, the killer whales soaking the crowd and the Pets Rule show. We stayed through the Shamu Rocks show complete with fireworks and were some of the last people out of the park.
Our last full day in SD we spent at the beach, roaming around town and one last BBQ and night of cards in the back yard. There is so much more to see in SD but our time was starting to run out so we packed up camp and headed East. Grand Canyon here we come.
































































To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

Location:San Diego

To J-tree we go

Waking up on the beach was a new experience and driving out at low tide was a lot easier than the drive in, the beach was like a highway on the way out. From Pismo we continued south to Santa Barbara where the sun finally came out. Our entire trip down the coast has been in gloom so far so when the sun came out we stopped and enjoyed the water and the rays. We walked along the beach and out on to Stearn's Wharf where we had lunch and watched a pod of dolphins swim by.
From there we set our sights back inland and headed for Joshua Tree National Park. The drive took us much longer than we had expected and we got into J-tree later than we wanted, but driving through the big rocks and the trees under a near full moon was super cool. We camped for the night enjoying the very calm and very quiet desert at night.
The next day we spent the entire day exploring the fine points of J-tree in the 104 degree heat, but at least we had sunshine. A highlight of the day was a 3 mile hiked to the 49 Palm Oasis which was the first Ginger and I had ever seen. It was truly unbelievable to see the palm trees and plants sprouting in the middle of the barren desert. After our hike and our best J-tree impressions we called it a night, went back to camp made dinner and off to bed.


















To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

Location:Joshua Tree CA

Paso Robles and Hearst Castle

Paso Robles is about a half an hour from the coast and is the home of the Mid state fair for California, a ton of Vineyards, the Firestone Walker brewery and most important of all Jamie, Marty and Keely Smith. Jamie is a friend of mine from college, Marty is his wife and Keely is the boss, she is 9 months old. Jamie works as the marketing director for the Firestone Walker brewery, Marty works as the Manager of the Firestone vineyard. They took pity on us and took us in for the night, fed us a great meal, pumped us full of wine and beer and gave us an extremely comfortable place to sleep.
The next morning we had breakfast in town, visited the Firestone Vineyard and Brewery sampled the products and even picked up a few bottles for our own collection. We hated to leave so soon, but Jamie and Marty arranged for us to take a tour of the Hearst Castle and never wanting to pass up an opportunity to see something we were off, back to the coast.
The Hearst Castle is the standing example of extravagance. Construction started in the 1920's and took 15 years to complete. The castle was built by William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper mogul with a ton of cash. The castle has 165 rooms, 4 guest houses, two unbelievable swimming pools and even a private zoo. Hearst had the castle decorated with items from all over the world and every different time period, and in the 1920s and 30s that was quite a task. The castle had a private airstrip and a private dock so Hearst could bring in his guests and all of his supplies.
The tour of the castle was unbelievable and looked more like a very high-end museum than a house that someone once had wild parties in, inviting the who's who of society at the time. Hearst eventually died and the trust gave the castle to the state of California who turned it into a state park that gets over a million visitors every year.
We finished our tour and continued south, we made it to Pismo Beach where we actually camped on the beach. We had to drive about 2 miles down the sandy beach and growing up in land locked states made the drive very interesting. We only got kinda stuck once, but we finally found a place to camp about 20 feet from the water. We sat on the beach, watched the waves, ate dinner and watched the sun go down.











































To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

Location:Central Cali...still

Coastal Highway 1, part 1

After leaving Napa we drove well into the night, we were looking to get south of San Fran and onto the Pacific Coast Highway 1. Finding a place to camp that night proved to be more difficult then we had planned. We ended up staying in Half Moon Bay in the Pillar Point RV park which was really just a parking lot near the ocean that people pay a ton of money to stay in. Our little spot cost us $30 and it was literally just a parking spot, but it did the job and we woke up the next morning to the sounds of the ocean and a bunch of people looking at us like we were half crazy for sleeping in the back of the 4Runner. We are used to this behavior by now so we jumped out of the back of the truck and down the road we went. We tracked down a gym, which took about an hour longer than it needed to, got all showered and cleaned up and started our trek down the coast.
The drive down the coast was everything people say it is and more. Sheer cliffs that drop straight into the ocean, the surf breaking on the rugged rocks below and the narrowest, windiest stretch of road you have ever seen. It was awesome. We had read about the boardwalk in Santa Cruz so we pulled over for a while, walked along the beach, rode a roller coaster, played a few arcade games and strolled around the boardwalk.
Back on the road we had our sights set on Monterey, home of Pebble Beach golf course and our stop for the night. We got a spot in the city park for the night and headed for fisherman's wharf. It was great, every restaurant was giving out samples of their clam chowder and there were plenty of tourist shops to peak in and out of. We sat down for dinner right on the water and we were entertained by a colony of seals and an otter while we ate.
The next morning we paid a visit to the old Cannery Row section of town, yet another fine place where a tourist and their money part ways. There were more tourist shops than even Ginger could explore, it was amazing. We saw even more seals lounging in the sun and a few more otters playing in the ocean. Our time and money were both starting to run short so we moved on down the coast. Along the way we saw the Big Sur area, the purple sand beach of Pfieffer beach, the McWay Falls which fall 50 feet straight into the ocean and a colony of elephant seals. Even though it was foggy and cold we enjoyed seeing everything and the coastal views were worth the drive.













































To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

Location:Central Cali

Sonoma and Napa

After an interesting night learning all we ever wanted to know about NHRA racing we were off to wine country. Now we already knew the races were in town, but what we did not know was that the Napa to Sonoma half marathon was also going on that day. The town of Sonoma was really busy for 8 am on a Sunday so we felt lucky that we found a parking spot in town and we found a place to grab a bite to eat. Now there are two things that stand out about this region: one is the obvious vineyards that cover the country side and second, and more noticeable, is how remarkably fast a tourist is separated from their money. Everything from a heavy fee to taste wines to 4 plus dollars for a gallon of gas. Ginger and I knew full well what we were getting into so wallets in hand we spent the day driving around in circles, spending money, sampling the best the region had and really having a good time doing it.
A highlight for us was a little vineyard called Kaz vineyards. The owner is a crazy old guy who goes to great lengths to stand out in the area, in a weird way. In the Kaz tasting room we actually met Kaz and his intern Luke. We got to sample his entire selection and we even got to bottle and cork our own wines. It was a great experience and a great way to wrap up our day of wine tasting. All in all the food was good, the drink was better and seeing miles and miles of vineyards set a great backdrop. We finished up the day outside of Napa with dinner and headed south for a drive down the coast.















To see more pictures from our trip go to www.teamrode.shutterfly.com

Location:Sonoma & Napa valley