Warren Family 2017 Road Trip

We said goodbye to LA today.  And the traffic.  And the crowds.  We had a good run at Disneyland, and we are so happy it worked out to get there when we did.  Lilly is already planning her next trip back!   We headed out of the city, and back out to the coast on highway 101.   Chad and I both let out a small sigh of relief when we saw the Pacific Coast again.  This is where we spent the evening of the summer solstice.    This is Jalama Beach Campgrounds, north of Santa Barbara.  The Native American Chumash tribe used to inhabit here, and it is a serene and relaxing place - despite a full campground with over 80 campsites.  It was filled with surfers and families and interesting people from all over.  We met a father and his son taking a 6 week motorcycle ride all over the west coast.  The father has seven children (!), and lives off the grid 7 miles outside of Yuma, Arizona.  Henry is noticing all the different licens...

Highlights from our two days at Disneyland (the most magical place on earth) and California Adventure Park! We had a nice, reasonably priced hotel with a pool (thanks to Karrie's recommendation).  The pool is key in the heat - upper 80's.  Between the pool and the adventure parks the kids are loving it!   Cali schools are out so the theme parks are busy.     And the lines are long.   At one point the Matterhorn had a two and a half hour wait (!), but wait times could be cut down significantly with the fast pass feature (only available on some of the rides).  We didn't wait more than 30-40 minutes for any of the rides.  The creators of these parks are creative geniuses They are also masters at handling high volumes of people.  For example, they have elaborate sets that match the theme of the ride that go on and on - constantly giving you something to look at while waiting in line.  The kids seemed really happy and it was fun to experience...

Happy Father's Day!  We began our day by fully utilizing our hotel stay with pool time.     We left Watsonville, stopped at a store in Salinas and headed south on 101.  Then we took highway 46 in Paso Robles, and met up with I-5.   It was 105 degrees at a rest stop somewhere around Blackwell's Corner on highway 46.     Three words about this photo - black fleece pants.  In 105 degree weather!  Yes, he got out of the van in the heat and yes, he decided not to wear shorts.   This is pretty much what we did all day.             And here we are heading into LA area.  And even closer...   So much traffic  on a Sunday evening!  Aaahhhh!  This isn't even rush hour.  Very different from being in the Redwoods.  Of course Henry is loving seeing all these cars!  We stopped in Burbank for dinner, and made it to Anaheim by 9 PM.  Whew, we did it!  

We woke up this morning refreshed after a good day the day before, which included a stop at a laundromat and some authentic Mexican food in the town of Fort Bragg, and even better the two were right next to each other!     We ended up not staying at the beach and getting an actual camp site in the Van Damme state park (the one across the street from the beach) at about 9 PM.  We had gone out to get dinner and on the way back decided to check the campground across the street from the beach (Van Damme State Park) for any last minute cancellations.  They happened to have one - lucky us!  We rolled into the campsite and got ready for a good night's sleep.  We have quickly gotten into a summer schedule by staying up until 11 and sleeping in until 8 or (in Chad and Henry's case later than that).  I am amazed at how well we have all been sleeping.   We woke up to a beautiful, sunny day.     Chad and I had made a decision the night before. ...

6/16/17 We woke up in the beautiful Redwoods at Hidden Springs Campground.     I practiced running from the mosquitoes on a trail we discovered right next to the campground.         I felt much happier after a short but sweet run.  We hit the road and took highway 1 towards Fort Bragg.  It was such a windy road that after about an hour on it we had to pull over because 3 of the four of us were feeling pretty car sick (and really probably four of the four of us with 1 not wanting to admit it)!  This was nothing a little extreme cheese goldfish crackers couldn't fix - strictly road trip food.  With settled stomachs we all made the final push out of to the coast.  Beautiful sunny, California day - weather so perfect that all of the people from inland came out to the coast for the weekend, as anyone would to escape 100 degree heat.  The only problem was that we didn't reserve a camping spot for the night because we didn't know exac...

We all slept well on our first night in the Redwoods.  We woke up to cloudy skies and hungry mosquitoes.  Just as we started cooking breakfast it started to rain.  Thankfully Chad and I had already had coffee and it wasn’t raining too hard.  Without any cover to cook under we kind of did a rush job on breakfast and clean up and got on the road as quickly as we could. We headed out to Highway 101, and caught our first glimpses of the beautiful California coast.  We passed by the Paul Bunyan restaurant (?) with the big statue of him and his ox.  We made the smart move to not fall into that tourist trap!  Chad shared a memory of when he was a kid and he stopped there with his Dad.  He said that when they came out of the restaurant/gift shop or whatever it is, his Dad saw someone putting a bumper sticker on their car (the nerve!).  John got so mad that he made the person scrape it off!  Not sure how that same interaction would go in this ...

6/14/17 Made it to California!  We put in a long day of driving and made it all the way to Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park from Bend.  We even took a side trip to Crater Lake where we had a bit of a National Lampoon’s Vacation moment.  What I mean is we took a long drive with cranky, tired kids and got there and honestly were a bit underwhelmed!  Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so many pictures of it that I felt like I had been there before!   Updates from our Bend stay – June 12-June 14: We arrived in Bend in the afternoon.   After a necessary stop at REI we met everyone for dinner at Worthy Brewery (our first Oregon brewery).  It was fabulous to see the Soares family, along with Nicole and her kids.  The kids outnumbered the adults 6-5 and it was a bit chaotic at times!   The next day was definitely a big day of activity.  The morning was filled with lots of trampoline jumping (by the kids, but I w...