As we were talking about this road trip, we reviewed a variety of options and then decided that in some ways we would leave it up to the weather. However, we decided that instead of driving back to Salt Lake and flying to Seattle, we would drive to Washington and take a little time to "vacation" as we went. After looking at the weather reports on Monday evening, we decided to take the coastal route. We left early on Tuesday morning to make the trip to California and then up the coast to Tacoma. Weather wise it looked good in the predictions except for Tuesday afternoon and evening when rain storms were predicted. Our first planned stop was closed due to winter conditions and avalanches so we were aiming for the northern California coast and the Avenue of Giants! Off we went....
Tuesday (March 14) I love new roads as you know and enjoyed traveling west out of Oro Valley....
We made a special stop to get a Yuma sign. With my family, we came here in 1967 to visit Jim Sloaman who had lived with us after he joined the Church when he was a senior in high school. His parents had to move but he stayed to graduate from Columbia High. I was about 8 when he lived with us and he was great with 6 little kids around. We visited him and his wife here.
Farther down the road we found other "easier" signs to take a picture of...oh, well. I didn't realize how big Yuma is now.
This part of the road I traveled before in our old station wagon with eight kids (the seven Gibersons and Jan Call) and our parents. However, I found the scenery more interesting during this trip.
The sandy desert soil is everywhere...
As expected, we ran into a major rainstorm as we entered the northern parts of LA which made driving challenging for Gary. We were glad when we finally stopped in Lebec, California, north of LA for the night.
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Palm trees and Rain
Must be California coast country |
Wednesday (March 15): Another long driving day to reach the Avenue of Giants, a scenic by-way off of Interstate 101!
But first we got to drive through this beautiful farm and orchards between LA and the San Francisco area....
and on the west side of the road, this rolling mountains with big patches of yellow wildflowers...
We even got to watch two crop dusters spray some fields going back and forth over the roads and fields.
Believe it or not, in the middle of the picture below, I caught the Oakland Temple. As we were driving through Oakland, it occurred to me that we must be close to the Oakland Temple. I googled it and discovered that the temple was going to be immediately east of us in about 1 minute and as I looked at the window, I was able to see it. By the time I got the camera up, I had a more distanced photo angle and only I know for sure, but there it is. The Oakland Temple is the first temple I saw in person when it was under construction in 1965, I believe. Exciting!
"Traditional" San Francisco Bay view--colorful houses built on hills
and of course, bridges.....we took the north bridge over the bay.
We stopped for gas soon after leaving that area and I grabbed my traditional traveling snack--Hostess Cupcakes. It has been a long time since I have had one...yummy!
Approaching the area of the Avenue of the Giants and traveling on 101, we had to stop for a few single lane only due to road construction or road damage due to recent rain storms in the past few weeks.
I drove (and so no pictures) through the Avenue of the Giants which did have some amazing big and beautiful trees along each side. We got plenty of pictures of Redwoods in the next few days so no worries there.
We stopped for the night in Arcadia, CA and another late night fast food dinner ....
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