Manteca to Arcata California

Day 11 was full of curvy twisty road driving through the always incredible Redwoods of California. We also drove through lake-side towns that felt like seaside towns and both were wonderful drives. At one point there were rumble strips on both sides of the lane and driving became like driving in a game of Operation. I was never very good at Operation.

We had lunch at the most 50's-tastic Burger King with a Wurlitzer (gorgeous!) and James Dean posters on the walls and stopped briefly in the very hippie town of Fort Bragg; which, for being on the coastline is very not touristy.

Later in the drive we took a scenic alternate route through Humboldt Redwood Forest, stopping several times to take photos and just wander in awe of their size. Redwoods are so beautiful, I would love to build a log cabin in a Redwood Forest. The trees are massive and the mood is awesome.

 We drove through the Chandelier Tree. Or, rather, I drove through it and Matt took photos of me driving through it. We also found a store devoted to Big Foot (he lives in that area somewhere).

When we arrived in Arcata, we found that most hotels were sold out because the local college was having an orientation. Luckily we got a room at the Best Western and took full advantage of their pool and hot tub before crashing for the night.

Route 66: Barstow to Santa Barbara CA

After the movie in Barstow, I stayed up late trying to blog. The internet was just too slow and it wasn't happening, but I was up late working on it so I didn't get much sleep. The next morning I was a bit groggy and felt nauseous most of the morning. It was not a good start to the day, for all the awesome things we ended up seeing.

We found out via the TV that morning that there would be a huge parade in LA celebrating the Lakers winning the NBA champs - the very city we were supposed to drive through. Luckily it ended up working out fine, but we were a tad worried going in.

Anyway, we picked up Route 66 outside of a town called Rancho Cucamunga (or something like that, seriously) and from there it was suburban town after suburban town. Palm trees lined the streets and cute houses abounded. The hills were also lined with houses in places and our first big cheer came when we passed through San Dimas (high school rules!) and saw a Circle K. There really wasn't too much to stop for until we hit LA proper.

We saw the Hollywood sign, which made us both happy and drove Sunset Blvd. to Santa Monica Blvd. which was interesting. I directed us towards Hollywood and Vine with Matt's iphone and then to Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

We walked around there looking at all of the hand/foot/cigar prints (George Burns for that last one)  taking a ton of photos. Here are the two that we were most excited to see, well maybe not most excited but I can only show so many photos here!

 After walking around for a while we drove the rest of Route 66 to Santa Monica where we parked again.

The Santa Monica Pier was pretty cool to walk down. It had everything from a Trapeze school to a Carnival along with shops and restaurants. It also had the new Unofficial Official End to Route 66.

Yes, that's right, you have to walk to the end of Route 66. It was fun and well worth it. We walked a little more around Santa Monica and decided to find a campground closer to where we were than the one we originally planned on.

 Driving CA-1 along the coastline we saw Malibu, which was actually kinda of a cute beach town. In Santa Barbara we changed course and drove up into the mountains. We camped at at Lake Cachuma that night and it was beautiful.

The Lake was on all sides of us, with mountains beyond. Then we noticed the holes. All around our campsite were this holes in the earth. I was a little nervous about snakes but it turned out there were ground squirrel holes! Super cute ground squirrels were running around all over the place. It was a really fun place to camp and there were only two other small groups of people on that particular peninsula with us so it was also kind of solitary. Once the girls turned down their music.

Route 66: Day 7: The Grand Canyon to Barstow CA

 And on the seventh day... we drove more. Well, actually it was a day that started late (.. forgot to turn my alarm back on after resetting it) and consisted of our shortest driving day yet. Arizona Route 66 is full of dirt roads, blocked roads and advice to stay away. Our guide book suggested taking the highway most of the time, exiting for certain towns. We followed this advice, although didn't stop in as many towns as we had in previous states.

 In Hackberry we stopped by the general store, a treasure trove of great photo ops and a "tastefully" decorated mens room. One great thing about Route 66 is that it's a haven for great cars, both in good shape and bad. Along the way we also saw a giant Tiki head:

and a worn out sign pointing the way to a lot of the towns on Route 66. This was a great 66 detour and I'm really glad we took it, though the open desert scares me so I was cautious at first. But once we saw the Tiki I was excited again and anxious for the next awesome thing.

Around this time we realized that Toy Story 3 was out in theaters and I started researching drive in movie theaters theorizing that if there was anywhere they could thrive it would be California. I was right and we discovered that there would be one in the very town that we were staying in that night!

Crossing the border into California we entered an alien planet. The landscape was so different from what we had been seeing that I just couldn't stop staring. These bizarre hills that looked dark purple or black dotted the landscape and I truly think that there must have been some outer space film shot here that I was remembering because I felt like we were on Mars. It was really hard to photograph though.

 We arrived in Barstow with time to spare. We got a room at the local Days Inn, stopped at a taco place for Matt and went right over to the drive in. We chose our spot, close to the screen, and I went to the snack shop. It was near perfect sitting in the car eating corn dogs and watching the sunset over the desert mountains as we waited for the movie to start. And start it did - with a Bugs Bunny cartoon - "That's Opera Doc" and a slew of trailers for movies we didn't know about but are excited to see.

The short before the movie featured both traditional animation and CG and was very unique and stunning. I loved it but can't really describe it. Toy Story 3 itself was awesome, a great conclusion to the story and a bit of a tear jerker. We both loved every minute and were so glad to be seeing it in a drive in.

All in all it was a wonderful day with a perfect conclusion.