In memory of Huell Howser...

Mark's a pretty well-seasoned traveler, but he hasn't seen much of California. (Completely my fault--I live all my California adventures when he's at summer camp!)

So over winter break, I decided to fix that. I asked myself WWHHD (what would Huell Howser do?) and then I planned our trip accordingly. (Sidenote: I was soooooo sad to learn that just days after returning from our Huell-inspired trip, the man himself passed away. Tear drop.)

We packed up the car and headed north. Our first stop was Morro Bay, and Mark was completely unimpressed. 

"What is there to see in this town?" he asked, dubiously.

"A giant rock!" I said. "Ta da!"

"Seriously?" he asked. He looked around. There really wasn't much else to see. 

"Seriously," I said. "Let's go check it out."

We stopped on the way over for a photo op, where Mark learned his first lesson about Central and Northern California--it's much colder than Southern California! It was freezing--he refused to even get out of the car. (OK, it wasn't literally freezing--it was actually about 50 degrees, but that's damn cold for us thin-blooded SoCal people. And Mark was wearing shorts--he didn't believe me when I said it would be cold.)

I parked the car just below the Rock, and then insisted he get out. We trailed the edge of the cliff, about 20 feet above the water, where I pointed out a couple otters bobbing in the surf. 

Mark saw a dog darting out of the waves and asked if he could go down to the beach. I told him to go for it, and suddenly, Morro Rock became a lot more fun.

Mark dumped his big jacket on a rock and took off. I walked behind him, enjoying the gorgeous day, when I spied something in the sand. It was a sand dollar!

I couldn't believe it! It was unbroken, perfect, and lolling in the waves. I've never seen an actual sand dollar on the beach before, and I called Mark over to look. 

We kept on walking. Suddenly, three feet over, I saw another sand dollar. Then another, and another, and even more. The tide was washing them on to the beach with each tiny wave. We collected about 50 of them and placed them in the sand to take a picture. As we watched the waves reclaim them, I couldn't stop smiling. It was so cool!

Mark was all over the place. He found a little river that was just big enough to jump over, so he spent a good 15 minutes working off the energy he'd pent up during the 4-hour drive.

We watched the sun set over the rock, and felt the temperature dip 10 degrees when it left. That was our signal to go home!

After a big dinner, we turned in. We had a big day ahead of us.

It was even colder when we got up--in the 30s--but the sun was shining. It was another clear, California day as we snaked through the hills and up the coast. 

Our first stop was Hearst Castle. I remember coming up here numerous times as a kid, and gasping over how big the castle was. I remember the ketchup bottles on the fancy dining table, the enormous swimming pools, and the herd of zebras grazing freely on the property.

It was all still there--the ketchup, the pools and even the zebras, which we spotted at the end of the tour, on our way back to the car!

Mark was really impressed with the castle. I was equally impressed with the view. Because it was so clear and sunny, you could literally see for miles in either direction, all the way up and down the vast ocean and the coastline. 

"I'd be a horrible bus driver," I told Mark during the 15-minute ride up the steep, winding road. "I'd totally be distracted by these amazing views and crash the bus." He agreed.

We took the grand rooms tour, then spent an hour meandering around the property on our own. Then we jumped back on the bus to the visitor center to watch a movie about William Randolph Hearst's life. I could've another couple hours there, easily, but we had places to be. We'll be back again, I'm sure.

We made a right turn onto the famous Highway 1, heading North. Three miles later, we pulled off the road to join the throngs of other tourists parking at the beach. But these families weren't there for swimming or relaxing--they were there to see the other creatures sunning themselves on the beach. The humongous elephant seals.

Most of them were females who'd arrived to give birth. There were new pups all over he beach. You could tell the older pups by their golden fur, and the newborn pups, by their skinny little black bodies. And I am talking literally newborn--one little guy still had his umbilical cord attached! 

We could've turned back on the 1 and taken it to the 101 freeway to our next destination, San Jose. But it was such a nice day, we opted to continue on the 1, up the coast through Big Sur.

It was an awesome decision for about an hour. We saw whale spouts, and sheer cliffs. We saw amazing bridges and islands far out in the sea. We saw the ocean change from blue to green, and we saw the sun shimmering on the waves like a thousand sparkly lights. We wound through the mountains, through pine trees and then redwoods, and we inhaled at all the beauty surrounding us.

And then we were bummed to realize there was no cut off point where we could turn inland and speed things up. But I realized maybe that was really the whole point--to enjoy the amazing scenery, to understand there was nowhere we had to be, and to just take it all in. So I did (although I faltered for a moment when I realized Mark had only packed two snacks and we were in the middle of nowhere. Next lesson: Roadtrip food, and the importance of good choices). 

I pointed out all the gorgeous things to Mark, who made a great effort of sounding interested, even though the windy roads were lulling him to sleep. 

It took about 3 hours to drive the 84 miles of coastline. I congratulated Mark at the end, telling him he is a real Californian now that he's taken the 1 up the coast to Northern California. 

It was dark by the time we reached San Jose, but our family was there, which made it all better. They had a hot dinner waiting, a fire in the fireplace, and a two-hour marathon of Finding Bigfoot. Life was good, and it was only the first weekend of our adventure.

The Great American Roadtrip Adventure!

We've embarked on our aggressive drive across country. Here's a recap of our first day...

Day 1
Long Beach to Grand Canyon -- 8 hours

We got off to an early start on our adventure--we were on the road by 6 a.m. (Which, for anybody who knows me, is dang near unbelievable.) I honored my vacation bribe/tradition with Mark--I bought him donuts in exchange for getting up peacefully and cooperatively.

The drive to the Grand Canyon took about eight hours, but it didn’t feel that long. We were so happy to start our vacation that it felt like the car was running on excitement instead of gasoline. But just in case, we stopped a few times along the way for gas and to stretch our legs.

It was fun to watch the scenery change as we moved ever closer to the Grand Canyon. I was surprised at all the trees and greenery--this was Arizona after all, and we were in the middle of the desert.

As soon as we arrived at the Canyon, we hit the ground running. We pulled in to the first view point and giddily trekked toward the Canyon. We rounded the corner of the path and suddenly, it took our breath away.

There it was, the Grand Canyon in all its glory. I’d been once before, when I was a kid, but my childhood memories did not serve the Canyon justice.

It was stunning, various layers of sandstone, mudstone, and limestone stained red from oxidized iron. It was huge, vast, colorful. The edge closest to us dropped dangerously, and through the shrubs, you could see the steep drop.

The other side of the canyon seemed so far away, and it was so picture-perfect, it looked fake. It really looked more like a painting than real canyon walls. We just stared and stared at it, mesmerized. We eavesdropped on a ranger explaining how the canyon was formed to some other tourists. We listened to all the different languages spoken around us, and watched all the tourists crowd around the edges and take photos.


On the way back to the car, Mark and Edra started calling out license plate states. I’d printed up a U.S. map for Mark for the trip. Every time he saw a license plate from a different state, he had to color it in. But we should’ve started the game AFTER the Grand Canyon, where every car was from a different state. Mark even found Hawaii, which I was convinced we’d never see! By the end of our first day in the car, he’d colored in 22 states.

We grabbed a quick lunch, then checked in to our room. It was a “partial view” room, though after looking out the window, I realized there was nothing partial about it. It’s about 20 feet from the canyon wall, and looks right into the majestic canyon. We were thrilled.

We dumped our bags off and took off to explore. The first stop was the visitor’s center. We got lots of great info about all the ranger programs, and watched a cool little movie. Afterwards, I strolled down toward the bathrooms, and noticed a crowd of people taking photos of something. I moved in to find out what.

It was this little guy:

I couldn’t tell what he was at first; I thought it was a mouse stuck in the wall or something. Then it dawned on me--it was a little bat! It was our first wildlife sighting.

The visitor center was closing, so we jumped into the car to go back to our hotel. And that’s when we had our second wildlife sighting--this elk, standing on the side of the road! She was gorgeous, and completely unafraid of us. We drove right up next to her and she never even budged. We erupted into another fit of excited giggles.

Then it was on to our next adventure--the sunset. We knew it would be spectacular here, and didn’t want to miss out. We caught a bus to Hopi Point, which we’d been told was the best place to see the show. The bus driver told us it was packed, and that’s when we realized Arizona has different standards for being crowded--there was tons of room left. It was not anywhere near my definition of crowded--which is the sunset in Santorini, when people literally climbed the roofs of all the buildings a good 90 minutes before the sun even went down.




And then our early morning finally caught up with us. We’d planned to attend the ranger program at 8:30, but opted for dinner instead. We filled our water bottles with Colorado River spring water, and headed home. But as were entered the parking lot, Edra spotted another female elk, only five feet away from us! It was dark, but even in the dark she was beautiful. She had no fear of humans either.

It was only 10 p.m., the earliest I’d been to bed in a long time, but considering I’d been up since 4:30 a.m., and had spent eight hours driving and another eight hours exploring the Grand Canyon, I was okay with that.

So, our Great American Roadtrip Adventure is already off to a spectacular start!