In Portland the Dollar clerk convinced us to upgrade to the Prius over the cheapest car we’d had reserved. It’s a fun car, but we didn’t save enough money in gas to warrant the extra cost. I had fun with it though, with all the controls on the steering wheel and the fancy GUI to display everything. We managed to average right about 50 gallons per mile for the week, too, so at least we helped keep gas prices low for the rest of you.

The resort we stayed at was nice. Our “condo” consisted of a living room with open kitchen, and a large bedroom. The best part was the ocean view. We dragged over the couch to sit opposite that window, and spent most of our condo-time right there. There also was a fireplace which I frequently used to roast marshmallows. We also had access to a pool, hot tub, Internet-connected computer in the lobby, and some rec room which we looked at once but never used.

The weather was not what you’d call typical vacation weather. It rained, it snowed, and it even hailed. It was also windy, and never got much warmer than 50 degrees. But it never precipitated for very long, and we basically did what we wanted. We just did it wearing all the layers that we packed, and with frequent indoor stops. It was good to learn that we could deal with the weather in this way.

Not far from our resort was Yaquina Bay where the tidepooling was excellent. The beach was filled with volcanic rock, polished smooth through wave action. Just beyond the beach was a rocky shore filled with tide pools. We saw lots of the spineless stuff that Danielle loves, but no sunflower starfish. There were some nice little trails in the area too.

On our way home from the first tidepooling session, we picked up a live crab from a boat (kind of pricey, $6/lb). Together with some nut crackers from the dollar store, we had a good time cooking and eating him. Having a kitchen is nice. We would not have been able to do that while camping. We only ate out a few times. The only really good place we found was Georgie’s.

In between meals and sitting on the couch, we did a fair amount of walks/short hikes. The most impressive one was the hike to Drift Creek Falls. The drive up was half the fun, because there was half an inch of snow on the ground. Luckily others had driven it before us, because I don’t know if I would’ve taken the rental car up a twisty snowy logging road without that. Oregon is very green, and we really enjoyed all the leaves, moss, mud, fungi, and ferns that we saw. It’s totally different from the dessert, but no less pretty. On one of hikes we saw large amounts of what we think is mountain lion scat. This had Danielle quite worried, while I figured that it wouldn’t attack two hikers together. We never did see any cats, but we did later confirm that mountain lions live in that area.

The highlight for Danielle was probably her glass blowing experience. A place in town lets you spend your hard-earned dollars to assist an expert glass blower in making your own glass float. Danielle had fun while I watched from outside and took a very large number of pictures.

Half way through the week, we decided to leave a day early and make time to see some of Portland. Through couchsurfing we found Devidas who was kind enough to let us stay at his place. This was our first couchsurfing experience, and it couldn’t have gone any better. We spent a fun afternoon exploring the downtown area, eating food, and in general trying to stay warm in between bouts of being outside. We like the train and trolley, even though at one stop I decided kind of late that this was our stop, so I got off while Danielle didn’t. Washington Park also really impressed us. It’s pretty cool to have that much park right next to downtown.

Overall we really enjoyed our week, and think that we can cope with the weather enough that we’re tentatively planning on moving to Portland after our big trip.

Arriving at the elephant seals, it was even colder. We parked at the lot just past the main one, and walked off in the other direction to stay away from the crowd. Instead, we got to see the stupid people who crossed the barriers to get even closer to the animals. (As if 20ft isn’t close enough.) When we got too cold, we walked back and set up camp at San Simeon campground. In the morning we hiked about 3 miles of trail that ran around the campground through very varied terrain.

Then we went off for more seal watching. It was high tide, so beach space was at a premium, and all the seals seemed more edgy than usual. Females were even fighting each other for a place for them and their pups. We also saw a pup get separated from his mom. It was interesting how the pup appeared totally lost, while his mom was 30 ft away, watching him and barking at him. (Note that the 30 ft was covered in seals, so they were pretty far apart.) The giant males don’t need to fight for their turf. They just look at the younger males and they retreat. The younger males fight each other, one was chased into the water, and under water. It’s a great spectacle, and you get front row seats. I don’t know of any place on earth where you can see big wildlife that close in its natural environment.

Around 12:30pm, we finally hit the road. We stopped by Trader Joe’s to get some lunch food as well as several Tasty Bites to serve as flavor for otherwise pretty basic dinners. In the checkout line I grabbed a chunk of the plastic-wrapped chocolate they keep there. That turned out to be a good move. It was good chocolate for not a lot of money, and it served as a tasty treat throughout the trip. After this delay we drove straight to Dry Gulch Campground which is just west of Yosemite. The drive was pretty boring, and didn’t get fun until we were well on our way on 41 where the scenery got steadily prettier. There were flowers, green rolling hills, mountains, forests, etc. Winding our way over to 140 we even saw several deer on the side of the road.

The campground turned out to barely fit between the Merced river and a small access road. You can’t park next to your campsite, so you have to walk 50-200 yards from the parking spots to your campground. The sites themselves are pretty big but not level. There are no bumps in the ground, it’s just at an angle. The river does do a really good job of drowning out any noise from nearby 140. We quickly set up camp, cooked and ate dinner, and went to bed.

In the morning I was happy to discover that my back felt fine. Apparently sleeping on a Thermarest on top of my closed-cell foam pad gives me enough padding to be comfortable all night long. After a quick and tasty breakfast, we headed towards Yosemite Valley. Just before entering the park we filled up with expensive gas, but presumably not as expensive as any gas we might find in the park would be. We briefly visited the visitor’s center and then went to set up our tent at Upper Pines Campground. I wanted to get that done soon, as it was quite wet from the night’s condensation. The campground was full and packed quite densely, but was nice otherwise.

Afterwards we set out to explore the valley for real. We drove around and walked the short tourist trails to the bottom of Lower Yosemite Falls as well as Bridalveil Falls. They were both very crowded. Because we wanted to have lunch somewhere without a million people around, we decided to head up Four Mile Trail a bit to get away from them. This worked great, and we had lunch with a quiet and wonderful view of Yosemite Falls. Watching Yosemite Falls is amazing. Just to state the obvious: a lot of water falls down a long way. It falls so far down that something happens in your brain and you think you’re watching a movie in slow motion. Varying winds make patterns in the water as it falls down. It’s obviously far away, but the water is so loud that you can hear it anyway. All of this happens with a backdrop of granite cliffs, pine trees, and blue sky. This sight is up there with the Grand Canyon on a list of 2 things that everybody should see once.

After lunch, I decided I’d like to continue to Union Point, while Danielle decided she was still a bit tired from the 13.1 miles she ran on Saturday. I went up and she went down. I don’t think I ever made it to Union Point because I encountered a closed gate before any obvious viewpoint. However, at that gate I did have a nice view of Half Dome, and it was just before my turn-around time. So I hurried back down to find Danielle reading a book while lying on a large rock in a meadow.

We decided to head back to our campground to just sit around and relax for a while until dinner time. I don’t sit around and relax very well, so instead I studied the map. We’d decided to do a day-hike on Thursday, and I found just the one. We’d leave from our campsite, walk past Mirror Lake, up on Snow Creek Trail, bypass North Dome, head to Yosemite Point, then to Yosemite Falls, and finally back down to the valley. This route is over 14 miles, but we figured we could take it slow (2mph) and still make it, as long as we left early enough. To be extra sure, we hurried back to the visitor center where we got in the door just before closing. The ranger told us that, according to their reports, there were some snow drifts up there but nothing requiring snow shoes. We returned back to our tent, ate dinner, and got into bed nice and early in anticipation of a nice long hike.

In the morning everything went according to plan. We started walking at around 8:30am, just as most people in the campground were waking up. A little while later we arrived at Mirror Lake, which was as reflective as its name suggests. The weather was forecast to be cooler than yesterday, and so far the clouds made that true. It warmed up to a comfortable hiking temperature just before we left Tenaya Creek behind, and started a near endless series of switchbacks which would take us 2500 feet up. It took a long time to get up, but we enjoyed wonderful views of Half Dome all the way. We were going even slower than we would otherwise because Danielle’s legs were still tired from the recent half marathon.

Once we conquered the switchbacks, I figured the major climbing was over and we were basically home free. I misread the map, and thought we had about 550 vertical feet to go, but much less steep. Looking at it now, it is clear that we had 1100 vertical feet to go. Even though it had taken longer than expected to get this far, we pressed on, optimistic that soon we’d be on easy streets. A slight damper was put on our optimism when we met a guy who had camped out the previous night. He said they walked through deep and soft snow, post-holing all the way. I asked for how long that section lasted, and he said one to two miles. We decided to hike on a bit to see how bad the snow was. When we saw the snow, it seemed frozen enough that we could walk on top of it relatively easily. How bad could 2 miles of fairly frozen snow be? We continued on.

At first there were just occasional snow drifts, but quickly this changed to where there were just occasional patches with no snow. The snow was still mostly frozen, but we would regularly sink in a foot or even two feet. This slowed us down quite a bit, but we were committed to finish the couple of miles of snow before it could melt into the miserable mess the camper had described. After at least 1.5 miles of the snow, and with no end in sight, Danielle declared that she was going to have lunch right there. Her legs were really tired, and to top it off her ankle was bothering her now. We ate lunch, and kept on going. We briefly considered turning around. We still hadn’t reached the highest point of our hike, we were less than halfway there, having a late lunch, and Danielle was falling apart. The smart thing to do would have been to turn around, but we didn’t really take the time to make an informed decision. Instead, we just kept going, hoping for the snow to end, and not wanting to have to go through the snow on the way back.

The snow did not end, and we were still going up. Finally we reached the highest point, where we started going down. Surely the snow must end soon now. At least walking down was easier. For a little while it appeared that we had gone through the snow, but then we hit another long stretch of nothing but snow. At this point the snow had also melted some more, and we were sinking in more often. After several hours of walking over, in, and through snow our socks were wet, and it was starting to look like we’d be hiking down in the dark. We filled up a water bottle from a creek we crossed. I’d brought some purification tablets, but after checking on the map that this creek came from a spring not very far away, we decided to drink it like it was.

Crossing that creek, we briefly lost the trail for a second time. We worked our way up more snow, until we finally reached Yosemite Point. The snow had been thinning for the last mile, and from here on out it was no longer a real problem. After a 15-minute break to enjoy the view, we headed down towards Yosemite Falls. Despite losing the trail a few times, going down made me feel like everything was going to be all right. We briefly lingered at the Yosemite bridge, and headed on. At this point I decided I had to make the quarter mile round trip to the lookout point. When was I ever going to get that chance again? Danielle joined me for what made another 20 minute delay. The view from the lookout point is impressive, but you can’t see much of the falls itself.

Just before sunset we started heading down the penultimate series of switchbacks. Since this is such a heavily traveled trail, we expected it to be easy to follow and easy to hike. It is fairly obvious where the trail goes, but it is quite steep and lots of rocks made for uneven footing. Despite the late hour, there was still plenty of light to see by. It was clear, however, that we wouldn’t make it down before it got properly dark. Another hiking couple passed us as they raced down the hill. I asked the guy if they had any extra lights and he just managed to mutter some kind of negative answer before he was gone.

Soon thereafter we hit a relative flat section of the trail. We took a brief break to admire a small mountain kingsnake that was crossing the trail. By this time it was so dark that it took a little while to see that the red was next to black, and not to yellow. Just a little further down we passed the other couple, who had gone off the trail where they thought it took a switchback. A minute later they passed us again while I was checking the map. The trail was switchbacking up, and I wanted to make sure there wasn’t some other trail that we may have gotten lost on. By this time, it was too dark to read the map. We pressed on.

Again we passed the other couple, as they’d gotten off the trail. And again they passed us right back. The trail had changed from rocky to mostly sandy, which was making our descent much easier, when it changed to switchbacks again. With the switchbacks came more rocks, and the steps down were hard to see. I began calling out to Danielle, who was much more tired than me, what was coming. “Sand… just a few rocks… big step down… sand… big rock… step down…” As we got lower, there were more trees blocking out the light. At this point I was getting more than half of my trail information from my feet, instead of being able to see what was coming. Just as the trees got so dense we could barely see any trail at all, we heard some shouting from down below, and saw lights.

We yelled back, and the voices told us to stay put, and that they were coming up. Less than a minute later, one of the hikers who’d repeatedly passed us earlier showed up holding an LED key chain light. It turns out his name was Costa, and his mom had given him and Dani, a pair of small flashlights for Christmas. They had completely forgotten about them until it was completely dark. When they discovered they had 2 flashlights on them, they came back to help us get down safely. Greatly relieved, but no less tired, we continued down the switchbacks. Costa with a light in front, followed by Dani, followed by me, followed by Danielle with the other light. After another 20 minutes we finally arrived at a parking lot near the bottom.

Thank you, Dani and Costa, for coming back for us, and slowing down so we could keep up as we walked down. Without your help, it would have taken hours longer, and been a lot more miserable to come down. I apologize for the awful picture of Costa, but it’s the only one I have.

From the parking lot we walked to the nearby Yosemite Lodge. There, Dani and Costa continued to the shuttle because they were driving home that night. Danielle and I walked to the front desk, to ask what our dinner options were. We were told that the restaurant was seating people for 5 more minutes so we hurried over there. In our hiking clothes, boots still wet, carrying packs, we entered the Mountain Room Restaurant and were seated immediately. Instead of 7 or 8 hours it had taken us 12 hours and 20 minutes to cover just under 15 miles. You can see our route here. Needless to say we wolfed down our excellent dinner, which was served to us by a very friendly wait staff. After dinner we took the shuttle bus back to our tent, where we finally got to take off our boots. Our feet were wrinkled from being wet so long, but amazingly neither of us had any blisters. We went straight to bed and slept very well.

In the morning Danielle was unbelievably sore, while I was feeling remarkably good. We packed up because our reservation was over, and headed to the visitor center to see what we might do that day. It took Danielle a while to complete the 0.4 mile walk from the parking lot to the visitor center, and she even had to take a break. We decided right there that we would go home a day early, since she was clearly in no shape to do anything. At the visitor center we watched the movie, and checked what roads were open. We decided to take 41 south, and drive home from there.

We made several stops on the way home to look at El Capitan, to admire the valley from the tunnel view point, and to enjoy the Mariposa Grove (where Danielle stayed in the car while I hiked in just a little). Mostly we just wanted to get home.

Lessons Learned

On the positive, Trade Joe’s chocolate is great. When planning several days of meals, there’s nothing wrong with repeating a lot. We ate the same thing several times and it never crossed my mind that it was boring.

Our hike very nearly ended in a disaster. We were very lucky that some light showed up exactly when we needed it. When we were half-way to darkness, and less than half-way to the end of the trail, we should have turned around. I need to be more strict about deciding what the turn-around time is, and to make a good decision when we arrive at that time. In addition, I’m also going to put together a small survival kit that I’ll take along on every hike. If I don’t feel I can carry the extra pound, then I shouldn’t be going hiking.

At the visitor’s center we got a campground recommendation and info on construction. They were only letting people through the construction area on the top of every hour which wasn’t due for a while. We spent some time eating and observing a woodpecker and another cute little bird. When we continued up, the construction was over and we could drive through after just a short delay. On the way up we caught glimpses of a great sunset, but we didn’t stop because we didn’t want to put up our tent in the dark.

We arrived at the Lodgepole Campground with a little light left. Unfortunately most of the campground was closed off for replanting which left just one small section open for tents. After driving the loop once, we eventually settled in the last open spot, which was a handicap site. I felt a bit guilty about that, but figured if somebody with handicap plates did show up, we could worry about it then. I chatted briefly with our neighbors who had taken the one-but-last open spot which was also labelled as a handicap spot. They felt the same way I did.

Setting up the tent was cold, as we were promised. Then we heated up chili that I had made a week before, even though neither of us were all that hungry. It made for a great dinner, and we ate it all. Then we went off to bed, there not being much else to do, and did I mention it was cold? I didn’t sleep well. Some kids had driven up late into the closed section of the campground, and were running their car stereo by their campfire. Finally at 1am I went over there to ask them to turn it down. They did, and after that I did manage to sleep some.

Despite that, we were up fairly early, enjoying a breakfast of eggs, sausage, and very cold honeydew melon. When I was walking back from the restrooms (which are heated!), snow flakes were coming from the sky. This confused Danielle, who had to ask one of our neighbors if it was really snow. It was, and when we left to go see some sights, a little bit of snow had accumulated even. On our way out of the campground, the “chains are required” sign had been put up which was cause for some concern because we didn’t have any chains. We headed towards a “village” in the park where, we reasoned, chains would be available. Instead of ending up at a village, we found a fine hotel where the receptionist assured us that chains were unnecessary. Our minds at ease, we headed to see the world’s largest tree.

The parking lot was huge, and we felt lucky that we were out here on a cold but quiet day. After getting into our hiking boots, we hiked down the trail to discover all of it is paved. There are sequoias visible all the way down, but the Sherman tree is noticeably larger than those. Even when you stand there at the bottom it’s hard to appreciate how huge the tree is. To drive this point home even more, a chipmunk crossed the trail as we were walking around the tree. It ran straight for the tree, up it a foot or so, and took a break. Then it ran up a few more feet and took another break. It kept doing this until we finally lost track of the chipmunk as it reached the lowest branches, 130 feet above the ground. To the chipmunk, this huge tree was just a very nice climbing wall. I took a picture but haven’t been able to find the chipmunk in it yet.

Instead of heading straight back to our car, we walked the Congress trail. This was not paved, and made for a much better experience. We got to see more trees, including some interesting burnt ones and some that had violently fallen. All this time it snowed lightly, on and off. It was warming up though, and the snow was no longer sticking. When we got back to our car, the snow that was on the road had melted.

Because my back was getting achy, we returned to our campsite where we munched on snacks and read. A few times the sun even came out and it felt almost balmy. Eventually my back regained its strength and we decided to hike to Tokopah Falls. We started out going the wrong way, staying in the campground instead of crossing the bridge to the trail. When we reached the end of the campground and hadn’t found the trail, I assumed that the trail must be on the other side of the river. Due to the season there was very little water flowing and we easily crossed the river where we did find the trail.

The trail followed the river and was never steep. It led us through a pretty pine forest with occasional views of a huge granite face on the other side of the river. Clouds were low enough that the top of this face wasn’t always in view. When we finally reached the waterfall we weren’t surprised to see that it was almost dry. Enough water ran through it to make some noise, but it was clear that in its prime it would be huge. We did have a nice view of all the surrounding granite from there. The way back was even less eventful than the way up and we arrived safely back at our campground.

Once there, Danielle decided she wanted to go for a drive. I think she just wanted to be warm. This was confirmed when she fell asleep about as soon as the car started moving. So I decided to look for a good place to photograph the sunset which had shown some amazing color the previous day. We found a decent spot and lingered there for a while, but the colors we saw last night didn’t show up again.

Back at our campsite we made a dinner out of precut veggies, a tasty bite, and a ham steak. While Danielle attended the food I made a fire out of logs scavenged from abandoned camp sites. There were a lot fewer people at the campsite this Saturday night than the night before. Presumably the snow scared some people away. Happily the music people were also gone. So we ate our food and sat around the fire for a while. Then it was bed time again.

Despite the lack of music, neither of us slept very well because it felt just a bit colder than the night before. We both got some sleep, but not as much as we would have liked. We got up early again. Danielle prepared the warm parts of our breakfast while I took down the tent. It really was cold. Our tent was covered in frozen water drops, and the water bottles we took out of the tent had a significant amount of ice in them after just 20 minutes. We ate just the warm parts of breakfast and got out of there.

On our way down we stopped near Moro Rock. It’s a large piece of granite which has a nice but steep trail carved out of it that we followed to the top. There we were treated to some spectacular views. We thought we could just make out the tops of the coast range, over 100 miles away.

On our way back to the car we took a side trail to the Roosevelt tree, which was not quite as impressive as many of the other trees we saw, but it was close. The trail wasn’t paved, there were no fences, and no other tourists. This made this area a lot nicer to visit than the grove the Sherman tree was in. Back at the car we took off hour cold-weather clothes and drove down. At one curve we noticed a bunch of people stopped, and as we passed it Danielle shouted “a bear!” I saw it in the rear view mirror so we turned around as soon as possible and headed back up. As we got back the bear was still visible, but it disappeared into the brush before I could get my camera out. It didn’t run away, It just went to forage in a different place.

We stopped at the Hospital Rock parking lot to eat the cold parts of our breakfast. Several deer were also having their breakfast, until some tourists tried to get too close to them and chased them away. After that we drove home, this time taking route 65. It’s probably comparable to taking route 99 without the slow crawl through the mall, but it’s more scenic and shorter.

A little before 5pm we arrived at our lodging for the long weekend: William Heise County Park. The campsite there is large, with lots of scrub oak. The sites themselves have the standard table with benches and a firepit that keeps the heat in with a grill. They’re good size, and fairly private. We set up the tent and went for a short hike over the desert view trail. It leads up to a viewpoint where you can see both the Pacific Ocean and the Salton Sea. It was a bit too hazy to really see the ocean, but the sea was fairly obvious. The best part of the trail was that it led through an area that had burned in the last year or two. Towards the end my back was getting pretty tired, but the hike was over at just about the right time.

The campsite is at 4000 feet, so it was getting cool and we put on some layers. I then proceeded to decorate my outer layer with Trader Joe’s brand Tasty Bites which we had for dinner. During dinner, suddenly an owl flew overhead! I was quite excited because I’d never seen an owl in the wild before. We saw it again a few times. One time I tracked it flying through the trees behind us. It’s quite amazing to watch one twist and turn through fairly dense foliage. A little bit later another owl flew over and then two of them went up, circling each other. They seemed to be climbing higher and higher but soon they disappeared behind some trees. Meanwhile a 3rd one was hooting in the trees behind us. That owl’s hoot kept us company throughout the night.

The next morning I woke up with a sore back from sleeping on an unsupportive (but soft) air mattress. Danielle cooked oatmeal while I was lazy. Shortly thereafter we were on our way to Anza Borrego Desert State Park. The area near our campground was quite pretty with a mix of rocky hills, scrub oak, and meadows. We enjoyed an impressive view as we descended the 3000 feet or so continuously down to the desert floor. At the bottom it was just a short way to the visitor’s center where we got out of the car. Turns out it’s hot and sunny in the desert and we’d totally forgotten to pack hats. The gift store did sell hats, but the good ones were too big, and the baseball caps were too heavy. So we bought some bandanas (with park maps on them, no less) and Danielle knew how to attach them to our heads. To top it off I got mine wet to keep me even cooler.

We wandered around the garden next to the visitor’s center which sported a nice array of desert flora complete with signs so Danielle can remember the plant’s name. Most of the ocotillo in the area was in bloom and some of the barrel cactus was as well. Afterwards we took a short tour to the newly built and opened archaeological building. The tour wasn’t terribly interesting because it was mostly focused on the building, but we did learn a few things about the local history while browsing afterwards.

We ate lunch at a bad deli in Borrego Springs before driving on to Tamarisk Grove Campground. There was a guy with a 300mm L lens (and I believe a TC stacked in front of it) so we walked over to see what he was shooting. There was a long-eared owl sitting in a tree that was his subject. I took a quick picture, and we started on the Cactus Loop Trail, a short hike that took us up a small canyon. There was a nice mixture of various cactus and some blooming agave plants. Then we took a break at the campground. We talked to a bird watcher (identified by the binoculars around his neck) and he showed us a barn owl that was sitting in a tree just 100 yards away. Then on the way to grab something from the car we saw another long-eared owl. This prompted me to drag out my long lens and tripod while Danielle explored some more. She saw several more long-eared owls (and I saw some more as well) and we also spotted a hummingbird in its nest. I had fun taking pictures although none of them really came out well. The birds were all somewhat obscured by branches and a stiff breeze made them sway quite a bit.

After taking a bunch of pictures, we took our rest for real. Then we went on a short hike on the Yaqui Well Trail. This trail starts out with the standard cactus and rocks but quickly drops into a wash where the vegetation has more leaves. It ends close to a natural spring where lush green grass grows in the middle of the desert. It was getting later in the afternoon so we drove back to our campsite. Along the way I saw somebody do the dumbest thing in traffic I’ve ever seen. We were going up hill, stuck about 3 cars behind a large RV which only managed to go maybe 25 mph. The truck behind us was tailgating since it caught up with us. Eventually impatience beat out wisdom and he accelerated past us crossing a double yellow line. He then proceeded to pass the cars in front of us and the RV, still on the wrong side of the double yellow, at the point that the RV was just about to turn a blind corner. Lucky for him, no cars were coming the other way and we didn’t pass his burning wreck further along the road either. (I suppose it’s possible that he was wiped clean off the road into the canyon next to it.)

Back in Julian we bought fajita ingredients at the market there and inquired about the weather forecast. The boy behind the counter told is in no uncertain terms that it was supposed to start raining that night and not stop for 40 days and 40 nights or until all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered, whichever comes first. We were understandably concerned because we planned to be camping for 2 more nights (albeit at 3000 feet) and visit the San Diego Zoo tomorrow. We figured we’d wait and see so we drove back to the campground. I sealed the seams of the tent while Danielle took a nap. After a tasty chicken-heavy dinner, we spent a short time trying to find the owl that we could hear around our tent, but every time we walked towards it it would stop hooting so we never found it.

On Monday morning my back felt better than Sunday morning because I slept on an uncomfortable but supportive sleeping pad. It still wasn’t raining so we went on with our plan of visiting the San Diego Zoo. Laziness made us decide to eat out for breakfast and find a grocery store to bring food with us into the zoo. We did eat out for breakfast, but didn’t come across a grocery store on our way to the zoo. We got there at about 10:45am and there was a pretty long line at the entrance. They made it sound like we could have printed out tickets at home and gone right in. 8 hours later, just before closing time, we left the zoo. Needless to say we had a good time. I particularly enjoyed the great apes. Their exhibits have fake termite mounds with holes that hold sugar water or something. We watched one bonobo take a branch, strip the leaves, and then use the stick to get food out of the hole. It’s pretty cool to watch an animal make and use a tool like that. In general the zoo had engaging exhibits where you could observe animals that were fairly active. Some other things that we saw were elephants forage for food, an otter catch live fish, a giant panda cub immitate its mom who was scratching her back, some of the orang utans playing around, a snake with two heads, really old galapagos tortoises, and lots more.

In the last hour we were at the zoo it started sprinkling occasionally. Between that and the late hour, Danielle convinced me to eat out for dinner as well. Our AAA book guided us to Anthony’s Fish Grotto in La Mesa. It’s a large restaurant and busy, even though it was a Monday night. The decore was fun, the food was good, and so was the service. It’s a great place to go.

The drive back to the campsite was pretty hairy. As we went up in elevation, the clouds came down to meet us and we drove through some pretty dense fog. At some points visibility must have been less than 40 yards. Eventually we made it to the campground in one piece. Danielle ready to hit the hay, and me all hopped up on adrenaline. It was drizzling just a bit and had evidently been doing that for quite some time. We brushed our teeth and went to bed. In the morning we packed up quickly and drove home. As we were leaving the park 4 male turkeys crossed the road. We managed a quick shot before they disappeared into the forest.

The pictures for this trip are in the photo album.

People are starting to leave the wedding reception. Not to be upstaged by anybody I decide we’d better leave while most people are still there to tell us goodbye. Danielle and I say our goodbyes to our respective immediate families, a group which has suddenly merged a few hours ago. Then we walk off to my car, passing the grill where Paul is just throwing on the rest of the meat (some 30 pounds or so). Some people at the other barbecue site applaud us as walk by there, and then we reach the car. A few honks later we’re out past the exit, just barely escaping the kids at our wedding who have been armed with soap bubbles.

It feels good to know that wedding is now over and that the cleanup is somebody else’s problem. We stay at the Emerald Iguana Inn in Ojai. Check-in is at the Blue Iguana Inn and of course we miss the turn-off. Nobody is there to help us when we get there, but luckily there is a rest room in the little office, which somewhat makes up for that. The receptionist, who appears to be the owner, shows up shortly thereafter and we perform the hotel check-in ritual. 20 minutes later we are in our room, turning on the heat because apparently the A/C has been set to overdrive until we walked in and turned it off. Showers, the bed, and other things feel great.

In the morning we walk from our hotel to downtown Ojai. It’s quiet and looks expensive. We eat breakfast at a diner where children play a large role. Not only are their pictures all over the walls, they are also pouring coffee and generally hanging out. This is not a sign.

After breakfast we pack up and drive to the airport. We find out the hard way that, despite the fact that our flight is an international flight, it does not leave from the international terminal. Security isn’t bad at all, so we make it to the plane with time to spare. Next to me is a chatty guy who offers to look the other way if we want to join the mile high club. We politely decline and eventually he gives up on trying to talk to me. Virgin Atlantic has a very neat system where you get your own LCD which lets you watch any of 30 movies or 100 or so TV episodes on demand. I’m impressed. Much to my surprise I manage to sleep a few hours. I don’t think I’ve slept in a vehicle since I was little kid.

I wake on what is technically Tuesday. It just feels like I’ve taken a nap though, and definitely not like I had the night’s sleep I’m craving. We go through the usual airport mess, and end up walking a long way to the tube. It feels awkward with our big packs, but it isn’t too busy. After a few stations they tell everybody to get out to wait for the next train because this one won’t go any further. We wait. The train comes. We get in. We get out at Victoria Station, where we pick up our train tickets to Sandwich. We also leave the station briefly and buy some kebabs at the hole in the wall on the other side of the street. 6 pounds seems entirely reasonable for a sandwich and fries – excuse me, chips. Then it starts seeming a little expensive, but it turns out we get a large amount of food. Imagine a $10 take-out sandwich with fries. The only thing they skimp on is the pita bread which makes eating it kind of exciting. We’re still eating when the train pulls out of the station on the way to Sandwich.

In Sandwich we get out and using the little map I printed out at home we start
walking to the road our campground is on. When we get to it I guess that the
campground will be away from the center of town so we head that way. After
about a mile of walking there still is no sign of a campground. A passing girl
thinks it’s the other way but doesn’t really know. Jumping at the chance to
mispronounce Woodnesborough Road, I ask somebody who’s fixing an RC car in his
front yard. While he’s explaining to us where the campsite is, a woman walks
out of the house who offers to drive us there. Too tired to even properly
thank her, we squeeze into her car with our packs. A few minutes later we
arrive at Sandwich Leisure Park. It’s off a short and small unnamed road which
hits Woodnesborough Road a hundred yards or so west of the railroad crossing.
We eat the rest of the afternoon’s kebab’s and crash.

In the morning we acknowledge the campground some more. There is a mobile home
section as well as space for many caravans. Tent camping appears to be on its
way out in England although the area we’re in does have a few. They’re all
large tents with vestibules, extra rooms, and lots of guylines. I half expect
to encounter one with a second floor. The grass is perfect for pitching a
tent. It’s short, very flat, and soft enough that tent pegs go in easily but
hard enough that they don’t move. There is no privacy. The bath house proudly
displays a 2005 Loo of the Year Award. It’s not misplaced.

At the local co-op (which is a large national chain anyway) they’re doing
construction with loud tools. Unable to properly communicate, we buy some
bread, yogurt, and fruit. This will become our standard English breakfast. We
eat our breakfast near the harbor, watching some chaperones try to herd a
class of little kids to an unknown destination. Sandwich is a nice little
town. Its center still shows signs of real age in the shape of narrow streets
and nice stone buildings. A few buildings have signs next to them, the chief
one being a church which queen Mary reportedly visited. Inside it is big,
empty, and not ornate like churches that tourists typically visit. Close to
the church we find a local nature preserve. It’s small, but big enough to
escape the town feeling with trees all around. There’s a small trail that goes
to the side of the creek. As I arrive at the creek I notice a duck swimming
away, wiggling its butt, and generally drawing attention to itself. Looking
closer what it was swimming away from is a nest with 2 chicks and 2 eggs in
it. It’s the highlight of my morning.

In the afternoon we decide to walk to the Roman ruins nearby. On the way there
we take a footpath because it seems to go in the right direction. Lacking a
map we continue across the road we should’ve turned right on, which takes us
through nice green fields, some mud, and a patch of nettles. We decide this
can’t be right and backtrack, making it to the ruins over the road. They’re
interesting. We’re at the site of the first fort the Romans built in their
conquest of England. After being a fort it turned into a town, and at one
point housed an enormous 50 foot tall arch. In the evening we eat at the local
pub. I have some kind of stew while Danielle eats an Indian-inspired dish. I
like hers better.

Thursday morning we take the train to Canterbury. While at the station we ask
the ticket office lady how early we can get to Harwich if we leave as early
possible. After much digging in a very thick book, she tells us a time which
is not early enough for us to catch our boat on Saturday. So tomorrow night
we’ll have to be significantly closer to Harwich than we are today. At
Canterbury we walk around town a bit, changing some more money, and then
reaching the cathedral. We buy tickets for a guided tour and kill some more
time by looking for a place to browse the web. Doing this we stumble across a
cool-looking old building which currently houses a small public museum and the
library.

We share our tour guide with 3 other people: a French lady who recently moved
to the area, and two Australian tourists. Our tour guide does a good job. I
especially enjoy learning that houses of a certain era are built wider as they
get taller because at the time, property tax was based on square footage at
ground level. We walk around on the cathedral grounds but we don’t actually go
in the cathedral. Later we pay some extra money to go in by ourselves. The
main part of the cathedral is closed off because there’s a graduation ceremony
going on but other parts are still accessible. This does have the benefit that
we get to listen to some organ music while we were walking around. It’s like I
remember the old churches my parents used to drag me in. For all I know I’ve
even been in this one before. Or maybe they’re just all alike. Trying to take
the scenic route to the train station we get a bit lost and end up walking
down a decidedly unscenic road that lacks a sidewalk. Back at the campsite we
use the payphone to organize a campground for tomorrow night. We’ll be staying
at Abbey Wood.

Packing up goes pretty quick, but getting to Abbey Wood takes longer than I
feel it should. Train to London, tube to a different part of London, train to
Abbey Wood, and then walk maybe half a mile to the campground. The campground
is mostly caravans, with a slightly sloping grass area for tents. It also has
a very impressive fence around it. It’s probably 12 feet high with electrified
wire on top. The gate closes at night and we’re given a security code to get
in. We start walking to the grocery store and it’s taking a while. It’s hot
and the most scenic thing in sight are the red double-decker buses driving
past us. Then we hit a big road and we don’t see how to cross it. So we figure
we just get on a bus and it’ll take us to the grocery store. We do and it
does. The grocery store is huge and we pick up some meat rolls which we eat
sitting on a bench that’s falling apart at the side of a lake. Behind the lake
we can see masts of boats going up and down the Thames but we never make it to
the river. Instead we take the bus back to the train station.

From the train station we walk to the Abbey Wood Monastery, which still has
some of its walls standing. It’s in a very nicely landscaped park, next to a
forest. We wander around a bit, but bladder pressure has us return to the
campground sooner than we’d like. Later that night we return to the park to
eat our kebabs there.

We’re up, and I don’t think anybody else is. If they know what’s good for
them, they’re not up yet. But we need to catch a boat, so we’re up. We time
everything about right, and get to the train station a few minutes before the
train. We take the train to London. (In the area we’ve been to it’s true that
all trains lead to London.) Subway to Liverpool Street, and then the train to
Harwich. Somewhere in there we buy some sandwiches from a chain which claims
no sandwich is ever more than 30 minutes old. It tastes good, even if it’s
overpriced. We get to the boat too early. There’s nobody in the check-in line
so that’s over quickly. There is nothing really to do at the terminal but sit
and read.

Getting on the boat is pretty painless. We go through security etc. but it’s
pretty low-key compared to the mess at most airports. The boat is a lot
smaller than I remember North Sea ferries being when I was little, but maybe I
was just little then. It certainly goes a lot faster. The crossing takes 3
hours and 40 minutes. I remember it taking all day when I was a kid. We eat
some bad food. I sit and read while Danielle watches a muted Tour de France,
and then volleyball which she really gets into.

The boat arrives and to me, this is really what the vacation is about. So far
it feels like we’ve spent twice as much time traveling as we have
vacationing. Upon arrival in Hoek van Holland we go to buy some train
tickets but the ticket office is closed. There are two ticket machines there.
One takes coins, the other takes Dutch bank cards. All we’ve got is a few
20-Euro bills so neither of those are helpful. Luckily we track down a
conductor who tells us that we can just buy our tickets on the train which, at
this point, is right about to leave.

We sit on top of a double decker train to Rotterdam, and then a different train
to Utrecht. The Dutch train system feels like it’s a lot easier to navigate
than the British one. At first it’s a little disconcerting that there aren’t
monitors everywhere telling you when which train is leaving, but then you
realize that all that information is right there on the big yellow boards. And
you know right away what track your train is going to leave on, instead of
having to wait until that information is posted on the big board. We have a
bit of a wait in Utrecht where we pay to go the very clean restroom. Then we
buy 1 liter of freshly-squeezed orange juice. It doesn’t taste as good as at
home, but I suppose the oranges are grown more than 50 miles away here.

We take a train to Hilversum, and arrive there quite quickly. We buy a map and
walk to Hotel Ravel,
where we get a room in the attic. It’s hot when we get in, but the windows
open wide and soon it’s nice and cool. Using the hotel’s Gouden Gids and the
map I bought, I discover that all campgrounds would have space for a small
tent like ours. Next I call my friend Marnix who answers his phone, and we
agree to meet Tuesday afternoon in Amsterdam. We walk back towards the city
center and have dinner at the Greek restaurant there which is called, what
else, Parthenon. We’re a little bit confused coming in, waiting for somebody
to show us a table. Eventually we ask for one specifically and the waitress
tells us to pick any table we want. The food is excellent, and we really enjoy
it. Ouzo isn’t bad, either. After dinner we sit around for a while waiting for
the waitress to bring us the bill, but it’s not happening. We think maybe we
need to go to the register and pay there, but nobody else is doing that.
Eventually I ask our waitress where we pay, to which the answer is a slightly
puzzled “with me.” I think I’m confusing people by speaking passable Dutch,
but not having a clue about how to act.

The next morning we sleep in, and have a nice small-buffet breakfast at our
hotel. I make sure to have Danielle try the hagelslag. Afterward the first
order of business is to get a campsite. We rent some blue single-speed comfort
bikes from the train station. We ride them to the hotel where we pick up our
packs. The pack tops fit nicely on the bike rack, but most of the weight is
still on our backs. Getting used to cycling with a pack on doesn’t take too
long, and we leisurely ride to the campground, which is a few miles south of
Hilversum’s center, just across a nice patch of heather.

We get to a campsite where we’re pointed to the small-tent area, which is
about the size of a regular US site but is home to 4 small tents when we
arrive. Somebody is just packing up so we wait for him to load everything onto
his bicycle and set up our tent where his was. We’re going to relive some of
my childhood by biking to Lage Vuursche and eating pannekoeken there. On the
way there it looks like we’re in danger of arriving early so we take a short
detour to the Wasmeer. Arriving in the tiny town of Lage Vuursche, we see a
lot of other people have decided to do the same thing we’re. But there is
enough space for everybody so we find a place to sit outside, and once we
figure out that we’re supposed to flag down the waiter to order, we get food.
Danielle also gets a koffie verkeerd which we never quite manage to figure out
what it is, but she does like it. I drink a bitter lemon which doesn’t taste
as good as I remember it.

In the afternoon we bike to my old house. It’s pretty similar to the way it
was. The main differences are that they took out a lot of oak trees and bushes
next to the church. Next up, we go look for a grocery store where we can buy
some dinner. If you’re reading this I’m sure you don’t know what day it is,
and neither do we. It’s Sunday, which means all the stores are closed. We bike
through the town center where somebody has dumped a lot of sand so they can
have beach volleyball. The VVV recommends trying the large gas station on the
other side of what I recall as being a large hill. Actually it’s not that big.
They don’t have any food either. Because we’re so close we stop by the house
whose front door I ran through. The bottom part of the door is still wood. We
finish up the day by having dinner at the airport restaurant, which is right
by our campsite. This is not a big airport, but just a small local one. Most
of the air traffic consists of gliders landing. The food is good, and the
waitress shows off her English, which is also good, to Danielle.

We wake up and get ready to go pretty quickly. This is mainly motivated by the
fact that we don’t have any food. Getting on our bikes, Danielle discovers
that her butt is very sore from biking all over the place yesterday. There’s
not much to do except bike into town. I know what it feels like, and it’s not
a good feeling. Much to Danielle’s annoyance we bike past the train station to
the Super grocery store, which is the only one in town I know the location of.
We grab some yogurt, bread, fruit and tasty licorice. The bulk licorice section
I remember the store having is gone, but the bagged stuff is just as good. At
the checkout a frustrated cashier is wonders why we didn’t weigh our apples.
Apparently you’re supposed to put them on a digital scale, punch the button
that has your variety of apples on it, and then put the sticker that gets
printed out on the bag. Oops.

Breakfast in hand we return to the train station, where our train arrives
shortly. We do witness a conflict between some guy who doesn’t have a ticket
and 4 security guards who don’t want to let him onto the platform. After much
yelling by the guy, and some talking back and show of force by the security
guards the guy leaves. We change trains and eat our breakfast which turns
out to be quite good. We especially like the yogurt we got. In Apeldoorn we
wait longer than expected for the bus. Overall traveling takes longer than I
hoped it would, but really no longer than can be expected. We arrive at our
destination for the day: the Apenheul.

After a short safety lecture we get a monkey-proof bag and enter the zoo.
The Apenheul is known as a place where monkeys walk free and it starts out
good with an area filled with squirrel monkeys. They tend to stay away from
the visitors, but occasionally they will climb on people and baby carriages
hoping to get some food. We organize our time in the park according to the
feeding times of the various monkeys and apes. Throughout the park I’m
continuously impressed by how many of each species they have. This really
allows the social animals to live in a group and you get to watch their
interactions. They even have a large group (we saw 4) of mongooses. Highlights
for me include the lemur feeding, the squirrel monkey feeding, and the orang
utans. Watching at least a hundred squirrel monkeys flow through the trees to
the feeding station is a sight to behold. To top it off a squirrel monkey
spends some time on my shoulder, until it finally finds a safe way off. The
orang utans (there are at least 7, including 2 enormous males) seem happy
in their homes. They swing leisurely on their ropes, climb around, and nap
a little. One of the females had recently given birth, and looks like she’s
protecting her little one from another jealous female. It’s probably natural
behavior, but I feel concerned about the baby. We stay in the park until
closing time.

On the way back to the bus we wander around a little bit in the park that the
Apenheul itself is in. We see some wild pigs (in a fenced off area) and climb
to the top of a lookout tower. It feels creaky and unstable, and I’m glad when
we’re finally on the ground again. We take a bus to the train, to another
train which turns out not to stop in Hilversum. Instead we end up in
Amsterdam. We get on a train that I’m convinced will stop in Hilversum and
luckily the conductor is understanding about the fact that our tickets don’t
match the train we’re on.

In Hilversum we bike to an Indonesian restaurant that’s on the way to the
campsite but it’s closed. Danielle is still very uncomfortable on the bike,
and she won’t bike any distance that’s not essential to get to the campsite.
Because I’m unsure how many restaurants are in between here and the campsite
we grab the first one we see, which is a sushi place. The menu on the outside
appears OK, but I must have been looking at the lunch menu because this place
is seriously expensive. We have our usual sushi meal of miso soup and various
rolls, and part with a large stack of cash money. Of course just a few hundred
yards on our bike ride to the tent we pass a different restaurant, that looks
like it would be priced a lot more reasonably.

The next morning we repeat yesterday’s process, except that Danielle feels
less sore and we take a train to Amsterdam instead of Apeldoorn. We decide
that the flower market would be a nice place to sit and have our breakfast,
but we’re wrong. The market itself is great fun with all kinds of plants being
on display. We especially like some huge hanging pitcher plants. Eventually we
do find a bench, but it’s not really warm enough to be truly enjoyable. To top
it off I’d selected some gooseberries as our fruit, reasoning that I hadn’t
ever seen them in the US and remember eating them as a kid. I don’t know what
I exactly remember but these taste very bitter and we toss them after sampling
a few.

After breakfast we decide we want to see the Rijksmuseum. When we get there
there is a huge line and we don’t care that much, so we turn around. In search
of a bathroom we go into a restaurant where we have coffee and hot chocolate.
Next we go looking for a place where we can take a boat tour, and we quickly
find one. To kill time until the boat leaves we walk a short ways through the
Vondelpark. The boat tour is quite good. It’s especially neat to see all the
houseboats everywhere. After the tour we head towards het Museumplein where
we’re supposed to meet my friend Marnix. On the way there we stop by a seafood
stand where I have my first ever Hollandse Nieuwe, which is raw herring with
onions. It tastes great, and it’s unfortunate that I never discovered that
while I lived here.

At the Museumplein we sit on the edge of the pond, waiting for my friend.
Danielle wants to know how we’ll recognize each other, and I admit we’re just
assuming we’ll recognize each other. I don’t really know how to describe
Marnix except as tall and blond, and he’ll look like he’s looking for
somebody. I spot several people who match that description, but none of them
look right. At last I see him walking towards us, looking very much the way I
remember him: tall and blond and smiling. After introductions, we go for a
walk around the city.

We speak mostly English so Danielle can follow along. We look for a hofje, but
the one we’re headed to is closed. So we wander around some more, sit down for
a drink, wander around some more, have another drink, wander around some more
still, and grab dinner at an Indonesian restaurant. Our wandering takes us
through the red light district twice, and past a church with a nice carillon.
But mostly I’m enjoying talking with an old friend. The food is very tasty,
and this lets me scratch another item off my list of things to show Danielle.
After dinner we train/bike back to our tent.

Today, we move camp south. So we’re up our usual early time, stuffing all our
belongings into the backpacks. While biking towards the station we see that
it’s market day. We can’t pass that up, so we get off our bikes and walk
around the market a bit, heavy packs and all. While there we eat some fresh
stroopwafels, which don’t taste quite as good as I think they ought to. We
also buy some cheese which is fun. You ask the guy who runs the place for a
specific age of cheese, and with a few flicks of his huge knife he’ll get you
some samples. Then you ask again, until you’ve find the cheese you like. We
get a sizable chunk of fairly old cheese.

After that we return our bicycles at the train station and buy our tickets to
Dordrecht. Once we get there, the first order of business is to rent some
bicycles. Since almost every train station has a bicycle rental place right
next to it that is not a problem. We stop by the VVV for campground
information, and we decide to stay at a campground that is in the Biesbosch, which we want to visit anyway.
The Biesbosch is a large wetland, with hundreds of small creeks, beavers, and
vegetation that can handle the brackish water. We get directions (take a left
and keep going straight) and we’re on our way. I decide that straight means
“follow the signs that read ‘Biesbosch’” and we take a right. You can see
where this is going. We end up biking through some beautiful polder landscape
with horses and sheep, but eventually decide we’ve gone too far and bike back
to the last sign. We confirm that we were in fact going in the right
direction. Danielle, who is still suffering from bicycle soreness, takes a
rest while I go to figure out where we should actually be going. A friendly
man and his dog explain the way, which involves taking a turn that isn’t
signposted.

The campground where we arrive is situated right behind a low-budget hotel
(almost more like a hostel). We consider getting a room, but low-budget still
means expensive so we skip. The campground might be nicest we’ve staid at so
far in that our tent actually feels a little bit private. We spend the
afternoon doing laundry and lounging about in the hotel’s common room while it
rains. We also go for a walk and check out the Biesbosch visitor center. For
dinner we eat at a restaurant at the swimming lake. It’s deserted, but the
food is decent.

The next morning we show up at the canoe rental place right as it opens and
get a two-seater. We follow one of the recommended routes that takes is on
some small rivers and much smaller creeks. It is very peaceful floating on the
water, in between trees and reeds. This is definitely the best way to see this
area. Some ducks come begging for food but we pass them by pretty quickly when
they discover we don’t have any. The weather looks a little bit threatening
but it’s quite nice, if a little chilly.

After our canoe trip we bike into Dordrecht, discovering the route we
should’ve gone yesterday. It is in fact straight all the way. In Dordrecht we
go to the harbor, and find the water taxi. After a short wait it takes us to
Kinderdijk, which is probably the most
touristy spot in The Netherlands. Along a dike are a lot of windmills which
used to pump water out of the lower-lying polder into a body of water next to
it. Modern pumps do that job now, but the windmills are still standing. When
we arrive a number of mills even have the sails on, which is nice to see.

We wander down the dike, trying to understand the signs that explain what
water gets pumped where, and why. One windmill is open to visitors, so we
go in. The neatest thing is probably the huge, handmade, wooden gears. We
walk around a bit more, but there really isn’t all that much to see besides
a lot of windmills. It starts to rain a bit so we hide in a restaurant where
we have hot drinks and pie. It’s dry when it was time to take our boat back,
and it rapidly gets us back to the Dordrecht harbor.

It’s still early in the afternoon, and with nothing better to do we decide to
follow the Dordrecht historic trail. The weather is dreary, with occasional
drizzle, so this isn’t as nice as it could be. The harbor is quite nice, with
a lot of large sailboats docked here. The town’s center also feels right, but
because of the weather the streets are fairly empty. It is telling that one of
the highlights is seeing rabbits in the pet shop window. We hide in Pim’s
Poffertjes restaurant, where we eat poffertjes (another check mark for my
list) which are very tasty. Afterward we go back to our campground and spend
the rest of the afternoon reading in the common room. For dinner we wind up at
last night’s restaurant again.

Today is a day I’ve been looking forward to, and Danielle’s been apprehensive
about because we’re planning on a long bike ride. We get up early and take our
bikes on the boat to Dordrecht, courtesy of free tickets we got at the
information center. From there we take our bikes on the train to Middelburg,
which is in the far southwest of the country. On the way there the train stops
in the middle of nowhere. Cows on the left, and cows on the right. It turns
out somebody pulled the emergency brake, and soon we’re on our way again. We
arrive in Middelburg, and make our way to the VVV, which isn’t where our
guidebook says it is. We do find it, though, and buy a bicycle map of the area.
We also buy yummy broodjes haring for breakfast.

Finally, we’re off. After a bit of searching to find the right road out of
town, we are headed towards the Stormvloedkering.
Our guidebook promised a nice bike ride, but soon we find ourselves on a bike
path that parallels a fairly busy road, and we follow this for a while. It
does run through farmland, but the traffic takes away from the beauty of it
all. Once we hit the North Sea things do get prettier, but also a lot windier.
We’re cycling on a paved path atop some tall dunes, looking at the beach.
There isn’t much going on at the beach, but some people are kite surfing.

Eventually we arrive at the dam itself. Biking over it, we face a strong wind.
We stop to peer over the side at the massive metal doors, which are currently
open. We slowly bike onwards to Neeltje-Jans, an artificial island that isn’t
quite halfway. We stop to watch a few sailboats go through a lock. (Thinking
about it now, I can’t imagine why a lock would be required there, but there
was one.) A little bit further we arrive at our destination: a museum about
the Deltaworks. There are several interesting exhibits, but the best part is
the movie about the creation of the Stormvloedkering (subtitled in English for
Danielle’s benefit). After a couple of hours we begin the bike ride back.

To avoid the busy roads of the way in, I decide on a different way back, and
it is indeed a lot nicer. It does involve taking a ferry, though. When we get
there it turns out to be just a small stop, where a ferry picks up passengers
just 3 times a day. This is not what I expected, since the map just showed a
regular ferry route. Lucky for us, the last stop of the day is in about an
hour. We kill time in a restaurant at the harbor, where I eat onion soup while
Danielle takes pictures of some swans. The ferry is in fact quite small, and
it involves a bit of work to get everybody’s bicycles on board, but we do
manage. Crossing the water only takes a few minutes, and we do the same dance
backwards.

From there it’s more or less a straight shot back to Middelburg. We take the
train back to Dordrecht where we decide to find Pim’s Poffertjes again. It
takes a while, but we do locate it, only to discover that it’s closed. We
wander around a bit looking for a restaurant that looks reasonable and open.
We settle on De Reiziger, which
advertises that they have the best desserts in the area. I’m looking forward
to those desserts, but I’m so hungry that I do order appetizers. When the main
course arrives it’s so huge that any plans for dessert are thrown out the
window. After dinner, Danielle dance to an appropriate song, but the floor is
very grippy so it doesn’t work very well. Our waitress seems to like it,
though, and offers to play any song we like. Since the floor (and our shoes)
aren’t very suitable, we decline. Finally, we bike back to our tent, actually
getting to use the lights that come with them.

Today we start our journey home. We pack up and bike, fully loaded, back to
Dordrecht to return our bikes. From there we take the train to Rotterdam,
where we stuff our packs in some lockers. We wander around a little past the
construction that surrounds the train station, looking for a pleasant place to
eat our breakfast. We find some benches with some water, but the weather isn’t
that great. A multi-lingual homeless person asks us for money, which just goes
to show how prevalent English-speakers are in Holland. Afterward we wander
about a bit, but there’s nothing to see really except lots of stores.
Rotterdam was flattened during World War II, so it doesn’t have the old charm
of many of the cities we’ve been to.

We decide to check out the architecture museum, which our book recommends.
It’s got some interesting information, but I’m not a big fan of the
presentation. The best exhibit concerns similarities between Amsterdam,
Tokyo, and Venice. I would’ve loved to read more about the socio-economic
factors that lead to this similar development, but I suppose this is an
architecture museum. Afterward we also get to see Sonneveld House, which is a
house built to be extremely modern, in the 1930s. It’s not very interesting
either.

We meander back to the train station, and on the way happen upon a
skateboard event that’s going on. They’ve got a huge halfpipe set up where
several semi-pros are showing their stuff, as well as some of the locals. We
get to see people do many “basic” moves as well as some 720s and backflips.
Seeing this kind of thing live is much more impressive than on TV or in Tony
Hawk. There is a very real many (10?) foot drop if something doesn’t work out
right. This is the best thing we get to see in Rotterdam. We stop by a
chocolate store where Danielle buys some gifts and souvenirs. Then we get back
to the train station. We don’t get there with much time to spare, and there is
a little bit of excitement getting our packs out of the lockers as about 12
Germans are trying to get their packs in, but apparently lacking the correct
change.

On the brief trainride to Hoek van Holland we wave goodbye to the cows, and we
stand in a few lines until they let us on the boat. The boat ride is pretty
uneventful. I buy a copy of Spanish
Steps, which at that time seems to be the funniest thing I’ve ever read.
(Completing the book at home, it’s not as funny as I first thought but still
worth reading.)

The boat arrives in England and we get on the train to Colchester, where we
have to walk to our hotel. Some local train conductors point us in the right
direction, just take a right and keep going straight. Again we fail to follow
directions, this time because we follow the signs to Colchester’s center
instead of going straight, but we do make it to our hotel. There, a nice
Indian lady walks us through what feels like a maze to our room. We grab fish
and chips from a small place just down the street, which is also run by
Indians. We take it back to the hotel room where we eat a ton of fish and
chips while watching British TV. Tummies full, we enjoy sleeping in a bed for
a change.

In the morning we get up early, downstairs for our complementary breakfast
just before they start serving. A few minutes late our Indian hostess walks
in, and just a few minutes after that she appears with 2 plates of English
breakfast. We eat our food faster than I would’ve thought possible. In a few
minutes I eat my egg, sausages, bacon, and even 2 bites of toast. At that
point we run off to catch the train to London. It turns out we left breakfast
earlier than necessary, but that is good because once again we fail to just go
straight to the train station. We do make it in time, and are even able to buy
tickets despite the early hour.

In London we take the tube to Heathrow, taking to care to follow the
directions that route us around the outages caused by the bombing. We arrive
at Heathrow without any problems, but much later than we would have liked. So
we queue up with everybody else, nervously watching the clock. To our relief
we get pulled out of the line to go ahead, only to be told that we need to be
in another line. We make it through there by being pulled out again, advance
to the beginning of the first line, and finally get to queue up for security.
It makes you wonder why you should bother showing up early in the first place.
Danielle is quite nervous still, but I’m pretty convinced we’ll make it. We do
in fact make it to the gate before the airplane starts boarding. Due to our
late arrival we don’t get the seats next to each other that we would like, but
Danielle convinces the girl next to her to swap places with me.

The flight is long, and I watch many movies on the personal in-flight
entertainment system. The best one was probably Hitch. Finally in LA, we find
our car (despite not being able to find the piece of paper where we wrote down
where we’d parked it) and drive home.

Lessons Learned
On a honeymoon your primary goal should be to relax. We did way too much. It
was fun, but we weren’t much less tired when we got home than when we left.
There was too much traveling in England. We should’ve just stuck to one
country. Camping really worked out well. It saved a lot of money and wasn’t
uncomfortable. The Big Agnes sleeping pad
I got was awesome. It folds down to very small, and is as comfortable as an
air mattress. I like to eat.

With full bellies, we went on to Oakland. Ron wasn’t home yet, so we went for
a walk with Andrea. We visited the rose garden which is close to their
apartment. It’s nice, and was surrounded by tall trees. Oakland has some
pretty nice parts, although I’m sure there are also parts that deserve the
city’s reputation. For dinner we at chicken with couscous, while watching Spellbound, which is a very
entertaining documentary about the spelling bee. Afterwards we watched Underworld which was quite
amusing, including a fairly creative final battle.

Sunday we slept late. After Andrea cooked us a delicious breakfast, we left
around noon. The REI chosen for this trip was the one in Berkeley. We bought
an inverter, so I could charge my camera battery in the car, and a car-camping
gas stove with 2 burners, along with a few small things. After that, we were
finally on the road, making our way to the 505. I-505 was actually quite
pretty, as we drove past huge fields of sun flowers. Lunch was at a Black Bear
Cafe, which fooled is into thinking it was a local restaurant. It was
certainly better than the general chains, but not as local as we’d thought. We
drove further north. Shasta lake looked really low, though that didn’t take
away from the view of the mountain in the distance. We got into Oregon pretty
late, and started following directions over small country roads to Daley Creek
campground.

We settled on a spot, and then on a different spot. We went for a short walk
on the trail, where a sign said that beavers might be seen. We walked about
1.5 miles one way (and then back), but saw no sign of them. For dinner we
tried out a freeze dried backpacking meal we picked up at REI, just to get a
feel for what they’re like. They seem OK for backpacking, but pretty bland
otherwise. While cooking/eating, we were continually chasing 2 raccoons away:
a momma and a baby. Throwing rocks, and chasing them to the other side of the
campground road helped a little, but they kept coming back. It was pretty neat
to actually see them climb trees, and if they hadn’t been so annoying the
raccoons would have been very cute. The campsite itself was pretty nice, with
a fancy pit toilet, fire pits and tables.

The next day we got up a little after 8. After breakfast we started driving
towards Crater Lake National Park.
Somewhere early on we missed a turn, though, which added a little bit of
distance. It also led us through White Creek where we found a grocery store.
We bought buffalo meat since neither of us had everhad that before, together
with some other more normal food. On the road to CLNP we passed through all
kinds of livestock farms: cows, horses, emus, and goats. We didn’t see any
buffalo, though. As the road went up, we entered forest. Somewhere in there we
stopped at a famous gorge which had water flowing through it very quickly, and
was pretty impressive. A little after lunch-time we arrived at Crater Lake
itself. It is quite an amazing sight, but we entered the food court-type
restaurant they had there for some mediocre food. Afterwards we attended what
was probably the best ranger talk I’ve ever been at. The ranger was engaging,
funny, and his gimmick (a top ten list) wasn’t annoying. The most interesting
thing he talked about was an insect with an impressive life-cycle. It’s a fly
which lays its eggs in the lake. The eggs sink to the bottom (well over 1000
feet deep), where larva live for a year. Then they swim to the surface, mate,
and die soon thereafter.

After the ranger talk, we drove clockwise around the lake to the other side,
where a trail leads down to the lake itself. The trail was busy, with OK
scenery. At the bottom there really was nothing to do except turn around. Boat
tours leave but it’s hard to get tickets. Some people were swimming in the
lake, which was quite cold. I got my shirt wet for the way up, and then we
hiked back up. We continued driving clockwise until the turnoff for our
campground for the night: Lost Creek Campground. From descriptions I’d thought
this was a primitive campground, but that wasn’t the case. It was quite dense,
had flush toilets and running water. We were lucky to get the last spot that
night. Having secured a campsite, we drove further east to the Pinnacles: a
place where rising gas in a lava stream has left some other-worldly columns of
rock. For dinner we had buffalo fajitas, which came out great. The buffalo we
bought was tasty and tender.

Tuesday morning we got up at 7, which was a little later than we’d hoped for.
We were going to hike up Mt. Scott, and wanted the weather to be cool at least
during our ascent. We were all packed up and done with breakfast by 8:10am. 15
minutes later we were going up the tallest peak in the park. It was a
well-maintained trail with a nice, steady incline. The views kept improving as
we climbed, and there were a number of wildflowers to enjoy as well. At the
top we had a great view of the lake, as well as a view of Mt. Shasta far to
the south. The fire tower on the top is closed to the public. A friendly hiker
took our picture, and after a short break we headed back down.

After our hike it was time to drive on to Portland, but we took one last look
at the lake from Cloudcap Overlook. We drove on smaller roads for a while,
until we finally hit I-5. We’d stopped at a fruitstand earlier to check out
there “bodacious” peaches. They were indeed good. After joining with I-5 we
ate at a grill place, which was OK. Several hours later we finally approached
Portland, an event marked by the drastically slowing down of traffic. We
crawled around for a while, stopping at a Fred Meyer for groceries. A Fred
Meyer is a lot like a Walmart, only bigger. It was hot in Portland. While
driving around looking for a grocery store, we passed 3 big thermometers: 92,
93, and 98 degrees. On our way again, we crawled to the east side of Portland,
and from there traffic picked up as we entered the Columbia River Gorge area.
We found our campground at Ainsworth State Park. For the most part it was an
RV campsite, but they had some walk-in tent camping. This meant a parking lot,
with a handful of tent sites in walking distance. We got the first pick, and
ended up with a campsite right by the parking lot. Next we discovered the
campsite had showers, which we gladly made use of. Finally we made dinner of
pork, mushrooms, onions with too much seasonings, and bad corn.

We slept in the next day, and used some of the many blackberries that grew
around the campsite in our oatmeal. On our way to Portland we stopped by
Horsetail and Multnomah Falls. In Portland we started walking along the
Columbia River, which has a nice park running along it. Pretty soon, we
decided it was too hot and were getting hungry. It feels we walked all over
down-town Portland before finding a place to eat: Long Island Cafe, which
advertises pizza, pasta, and Lebanese food. We both had Lebanese food and it
was excellent. In the afternoon we visited the Oregon Historical Society,
which AAA recommended, where we saw the “Oregon My Oregon” exhibit. They had a
lot of artifacts on display, but did not weave them all into a single
narrative. Instead there were a bunch of disjoint stories, and the years
weren’t enough for me to get a good mental picture of the history. On the way
back to the car we took a detour through Chinatown, which has a nice-looking
gate but looks to be a bad neighborhood otherwise. We picked up salmon and ice
cream (still hot) on the way to our campground, where we ate and went to bed.

8/12
Got up sort of early. Because of the heat we’d decided to head to the coast.
On the way to Portland we’d check out some houses that are for sale because
we’re thinking of moving here some day. We drove by 4 houses. 2 that were
about $150k, and 2 that were about $250k. The ones that were $150k are
reasonable enough, but not what we’d call nice. Both $250k ones were in decent
neighborhoods. One we really liked, partly because of the blackberries that
growed on the street around the corner. All these houses have at least 3
bedrooms. You’d be lucky to get a 3-br in SB for <$700k. We drove west
towards Tillamook, stopping at a Newport Bay to eat. While driving we passed a
sign telling us to turn to 1410 am or something for info the air show. I
tried, but didn’t find the station. A few minutes later, we did see the Blue
Angels flying around, spitting smoke and doing barrel rolls. In Tillamook we
first stopped by the cheese factory, mostly to say we’ve been there. It’s a
big tourist trap, where you can watch the workers through big glass windows.
Makes me appreciate my job. Then we stopped by a Fred Meyer. Signs said the
county fair was going on today, so we went over there. The county fair was
quite an experience. We watched one round of the Pig-N-Ford races. The gist of it is that
every racer runs to a box, and grabs a small pig out of it. He then runs to
his Model T, cranks the starter, jumps in, and races a lap. At the end of the
lap they stop, kill the engine, and put the pig back in the box. They then do
the whole thing over again. They did 3 laps in the race we watched. The best
visual was somebody cranking the engine while holding a squealing pig under
the other arm, but it was definitely an experience not to be missed. The
second highlight was the beef show, where kids (4-H and FFA) were showing
steers they’d raised. We learned that the main thing you want in a steer is
for it to “hang a good carcass.” We also checked out the livestock in display,
including a goat that was eating the ribbon it had won. Once we’d seen most of
the stuff at the fair, we drove south to a campground along the beach. We were
lucky that, just before we arrived somebody had cancelled their reservation,
giving us a spot. This campground was very crowded, has showers, tables, and
fire pits. It’s also right next to the water (but small dunes prevent you from
seeing the beach from the campsite)

8/13
Up fairly early. We took a shower and headed south. In Newport we stopped at
the aquarium there. I really enjoyed it. Danielle says the Monterey Bay
Aquarium is better. There was an OK exhibit about bats, but their normal stuff
was much nicer. We got to see sea dragons, big jellies, and a variety of fish
that live in the area. Outside they had a very nice seal/sea lion setup, and
they had 4 active otters. There’s also an octopus there, which had stuck
itself to the glass nicely. Finally in the bird exhibit there were a lot of
tufted puffins and murrels, and a pair of oyster catchers. After the aquarium
we decided to get some driving in so we wouldn’t have it all left at the end
of the day. We cut over to I-5, and went south. Close to Ashland we went into
the forest, and camped at a BLM site. It looked to be full, since a few other
cars were driving around aimlessly, but they had walk-in sites which nobody
was using. We camped maybe 40 yards away from where the car was parked, and
enjoyed our privacy.

8/14
Up and out early, but we didn’t leave before the caretaker found us and asked
us how our stay was. The BLM site is in great condition, with all the
amenities. We drove down to Lassen National Volcanic Park, which was the
furthest south cool thing that would allow us to arrive kind of early, since
we didn’t have any reservations. It ended up taking until 2:30pm before we
finally rolled into the South Summit Lake campground, where we must have
gotten one of the last spots. For the afternoon, we hiked up Lassen Peak. We
made it to the top pretty easily. There we took over 45 minutes to explore the
strange volcanic formations, watching the pretty obsidian, and sulfur-tainted
white rocks. The first part down was quite cold, because it was windy and that
part of the trail was now in the shade. Just before we got back to the
campground, we noticed 3 deer grazing below us. I had to answer a different
nature call, though, otherwise I’d have taken some pictures. Back at camp, we
ate and went to bed.

8/15
In preparation for a lot of driving we got up just after 6 and were on the
road just before 7. We stopped at Bumpass Hell trail though, because everybody
who goes to Lassen should see that. Steam coming out of the ground, and
boiling water are all over the place. There are very pretty color deposits.
The boardwalk extends a lot farther now than it did when Tone and I were
there two years ago. I
was tempted to see if we could find the purple ninja homey, but its mountain
was just too far out of the way. So at 9:20 we were in the car, heading home
for real. We stopped for lunch between Sacramento and Stockton, and it was
Danielle’s turn to drive. At Kettletown we stopped for gas, and to change
drivers. We were parked, waiting for the guy in front of us to finish filling
up his car, and I asked Danielle to start the car again because it would make
the AC run better. The car wouldn’t start. I fiddled with the car some, but no
luck. By the time the guy in front of us was done, the car did in fact start.
I had to turn off the car to fill up (so says the sign), and it wouldn’t start
again. We rolled the car out of the way, and went to the garage across the
road to see what they could do. They had a battery tester (I suspected the
problem was with the batter), but would charge $35 to test a battery, so we
went back to the car, planning to ask somebody for a jump. Before looking for
a jump in earnest, I gave starting the car one last try. It started, though
hesitantly. We drove all the way home from there without any problems. The
traffic southbound from Santa Barbara was horrendous, but luckily we’re locals
so we took surface streets.

Lessons learned:
Too much driving on this trip.
Yoghurt and cereal makes a good breakfast.
Buffalo meat is good.

After a morning of fairly leisurely packing and pancake eating, Danielle and I
started off at about 11:30am. A quick gas stop in Ventura later (Seaward Ave
exit) there was nothing left between us and Mahogany Flat campground than
about 300 miles of road. Somewhere along the 14 we stopped for a rest room
break, and a little while later we started looking for a place to eat our
packed lunch. We had high hopes for Red Rock SP, but there was no day use area
to be found. Hungry, we just pulled off the road and ate in the car, while the
A/C tried increasingly harder to keep the intense heat out of the car. As far
as 90 miles outside of Olancha there were signs advertising “really good fresh
jerky.” We had to see what the hype was about so we picked up a package. It’s
“OK.” From Olancha we turned right onto 190, finally headed straight for Death
Valley, where the road became windy and steep. We stopped at a vista point,
but strong winds quickly chased us back into the car. More driving took us on
increasingly smaller roads, and finally to full-on dirt roads. We stopped
briefly to admire the charcoal kilns which were used to turn wood into
charcoal early in the 20th century. The echoes, when inside, were amazing, and
the slightest whisper seemed loud. The final bit of road was the worst, but my
‘96 Maxima pulled through and we made it to Mahogany Flat.

After we made camp we went for a brief walk, finished by a jog at the end to
highlight how much the altitude really affected us. The campground is nice,
with lots of trees providing protection from the strong winds we encountered
earlier. Each site has a fire pit or barbecue, a table with benches, and
reasonable privacy. On the east side, you can glimpse Death Valley far below,
with another mountain range in the distance. It is very quiet here. There’s
one other camper, and some quail-like birds, but other than there’s not a
sound to be heard. After a dinner of tasty-bites and couscous, I’m writing
this diary, listening to far away wind and the blood rushing through my ears.
Soon, a full moon should be rising over the distant mountains.

The moon rise was amazing, as it came up blood red in some clouds. Once it
rose through the clouds, it gave plenty of light to see by, which Danielle
found amazing. Once I had satisfied my picture-taking needs, we went to bed.
The night temperature was probably around 50 degrees; that’s a little bit
warmer than I like it, but Danielle enjoyed being warm.

We got up at 6 something, and set about getting ready for our hike. Breakfast
was left-over pancakes (recommended) and an apple. A little after 7 we left
our camp, and after a final stop at the pit toilets, we started walking. At
7:47 we passed a sign in book, just a short distance from the trailhead. We
signed that, and continued on. We were taking it very slow, limited by the
amount of oxygen our unacclimatized bodies could get to our muscles.

The hike starts in a Pinyon Pine forest, which gets thinner as we go up. As it
thins out, the open spaces get filled up by plants, most of which are
flowering. This isn’t an alpine meadow, but there is a lot more green than I’d
expected. Shortly before hitting Arcane Meadow, drops of water start falling
from the sky. It takes us a little while to acknowledge it’s actually raining,
and we start to think about getting out our wind breakers. The rain stops
quickly, though. The weather was pleasant the entire hike, probably in the
70s. I didn’t need my wind breaker at all, though Danielle put hers on a few
times.

At Arcane Meadow the trail levels off for a while. This is also the first time
that we get to see Panamint Valley. So far the trail has been on the Death
Valley side of the ridge. We packed in about 4 liters of water each, and at
this point it looks like it will be enough, for which I am grateful. Time
passes quickly as we admire different flowers, and ancient pine trees. After a
while the trail starts climbing again. Every hour or so a large group of
swallows comes by, turning and twisting through the sky. We plod on and make
it to the switch-backs, a sure sign that we are getting close to the top.

While hiking the second set of switchbacks, suddenly a very large bird comes
swooping in and rests on the other side of a tree. While fiddling with the
camera, it takes off before I can get a picture. We didn’t get a good look at
it, but based on size and color we figure it was a Golden Eagle. At 1:25pm, we
finally reach the summit. It’s a small summit, which makes it perfect. The top
is good for sitting on, and you can see both valleys at the same time. You can
see the Sierras, far away, but I have no idea which peak is Mount Whitney. We
take a long break, and sign the log book. Part of our lunch are preboiled
sausages, which we eat cold. That works out well. The weather at the top is a
little hot while the sun is out, and cool when the sun hides behind a cloud
and the wind picks up. At 2:20, we head down.

The hike down was much quicker than going up, but not far into it my lower
back started bothering me. It got worse as time went by, and I was very glad
to see the sign in book close to the trailhead. We reached it 5:45pm, taking
10 hours for the 14-mile hike. Back at our campsite, hiking boots were quickly
exchanged for sandals, and we sat and rested for quite some time. Dinner
consisted of 4 cans (beans, stewed tomatoes, tuna, and chili) mixed together
into hot creamy goodness. We went to bed early, mainly because I was still
feeling my back and wasn’t enjoying myself.

A little after 4am we got up, because I wanted to photograph the sunrise, and
we didn’t know what time it was. Turns out the sunrise was just before 6, by
which time we’d already eaten breakfast and packed up most of our stuff. The
sun was gorgeous, coming up over distant mountains through some nice clouds.
Since we were up, we left as soon as the sunrise became uninteresting. After
an uneventful drive, where I made poor navigating decisions twice, we made it
to Santa Barbara a few minutes before noon.