Vacation part 2

Camping wasn't the end of our vacation.  We came back on June 26th, put everything away, did the laundry, then prepared for our next trip.  We are going to California!  

Mt. Shasta - I think

We left on June 30th to spend July 4th with some friends of ours in Benicia, CA.  We arrived July 1st .  We spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday with the Howe family!  Beautiful house and great pool.  I did get sunburned, which doesn't happen.  Mostly because we don't have sun in Washington.  

Avery cleaning the pool - she hates bugs!

Salted caramel - made treats for the Howe family!!

 On Tuesday we went to Santa Cruz so my husband can visit his old stomping ground at UCSC!  We went to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

Jeff and Avery on the Pirate Boat!

Tyler on whatever this thing is called.

 On Wednesday we left the Howe's and spent the day in San Francisco.  My husband lived several years there so we went on a tour of where he used to live.  Explored Chinatown and the Italian section of the city (which are next to each other).

A 'real' Italian Market

Outside of the Italian Market

Chinatown!

Nobb Hill

  I have to confess, I was the one driving and while I was driving normal for most of the time it became rapidly apparent that that wouldn't work.  People kept blowing their horns, not necessarily at me but at people in front of me.  Okay!  Time to switch hats from Seattle driving to East coast driving!!  At one point my son said, "SLOW down mom!!"  WHOOO HOOO!!  I love it!!  (I know, bad example!)  BUT - the horn blowing stopped!

Golden Gate Bridge

We decided we would take the coastal highway home.  We stayed the night in Santa Rosa and took route 1 north to 101. Spent the night in Garberville so we could do the Avenue of the Giants.  Then spent the night in Crescent City.  The next day was Oregon, finally arriving home on July 9th, I think.

The following pictures are a few of my favorite.  I took 691 pictures of this trip.  It is so hard to decide which one was my favorite.  Sometimes I changed the settings on the camera and took multiples of the same shot to see how different they would be.

That's a chocolate mustache on Avery!

This tree is falling over, not sure what is holding it up!

Obviously we stopped along the way home.  I have the travel book on fiber and fabrics so we were able to stop at a bunch of towns and shop at the yarn stores.  Some good, some not so good.  The kids did fabulous!   Being able to travel like we did, stopping when we wanted, was an excellent way to go.  I recommend anyone to travel route 1 then 101.  I have to say that 101 in Oregon wasn't that exciting.  The coast of California and Oregon are amazingly different.  Personally I prefer the coast of California.  

The Redwoods through the Avenue of the Giants are gorgeous!  It took all day to do the 34 mile route.  Its very difficult to not take pictures of every single tree!!  That is another trip everyone should experience.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures!  Between my husband and I we probably have over 1000 pictures of our trip!