Summer Adventures Part 1

Well, I meant to post all the pictures from our traveling up north this summer as we went along... clearly that didn't happen, as I'm now sitting back home in Cali. As a result, I will be posting a few of my favorite pictures from our drive up the coast to begin, and in the next couple weeks, update with pics from our time in Redmond with my mom and dad, and from our time in Bellingham with Curt's family! :) All in all, we've had a wonderful summer filled with travels and time sooo well spent with family. Thankfully we still have a few weeks left before school starts - but it'll go by fast! At any rate, here's a look at our trip up the California coast in mid-June:

The scenery on the drive up Hwy. 1 was AMAZING. The constant hair-pin turns and narrow roads with steep drop offs that take FOREVER to get anywhere? Let's put it this way, we would never drive the entire California coastline again. Gorgeous, none-the-less, and glad we did it.

Ella loved, I mean LOVED the beach.

Family beach shot :)

These Elephant Seals were hideous. Seriously ugly (sorry guys!) and did not smell great either. My face pretty much sums up my feelings towards them below:

Ewww.

We had lunch in Carmel our second day on the road at this delicious cafe - and the gardens around the place were beautiful! This flower, as you can see, was HUGE! Very cool.

Can you see it?

So we accidentally drove past our campsite on day 2 - or evening 2 I should say - (in our defense, between 3 maps and our GPS, the campground existed in 4, that's right, 4 different spots), and ended up at this cute motel right on the ocean. Not a bad view to wake up to! And I did enjoy having access to a hot shower.

Checking out a beach area - any time the window came down even a crack, Ella would leap over us to stick whatever she could fit of herself out of it. What is it with dogs and hanging out car windows do you suppose? Sights and smells I guess. :)

The Golden Gate Bridge

A beautiful sunset as we were driving - the sky seemed painted! (thank you Lord! :) Love.

Our last night on the road was spent at a campground in the Redwood National Forest right on the beach. We had to drive a curvy, narrow, 6 mile dirt road down through the trees to get to the camp site - which was amazing and made  it really peaceful as the access was tricky. The sunset that night was incredible too! Especially since the sky was totally gray until the sun broke through a strip of blue at the horizon line.

Because the campgrounds were so secluded, there was no one on the beach - so Ella got to explore and run around without the dreaded leash! (which she STILL hates with a passion, by the way). We've never seen anything quite as funny as Ella running around like a crazy person, digging in the sand, trying to eat shells and seaweed, all the while getting soaking wet and completely sandy! She was super cute :) Can you tell we are dog "parents"? haha.

These Elk walked right through our beach campground - they were impressive with those racks of antlers! Sheesh! And no fear of humans, that's for sure. Ella, on the other hand, wasn't too sure about them. 

Checking out some of the old growth Redwood Trees. They were ENORMOUS!! Seriously spectacular.

Clearly not getting his arms around the thing! haha.

Pretty large tree huh? ;)

And like a bunch of other poor saps, we too paid $5 to drive through the "famous" Chandelier Tree... and we would be darned if we didn't get our money's worth! (see below): 

I don't know, worth $5? I'm still leaning towards no. But they take you down a narrow road before the pay station, and then you feel like an idiot if you don't go through with it after the drive in! They've got a great gig going, that's for sure.

More updates to come! :)