After much planning and anticipation, Spring Break finally came and we were off! We packed up the rental car (Chevy Tahoe...cause my car's in the shop, from getting rear ended on the last road trip...) and headed out nice and early the morning of the 22nd. Look how excited they are!
Day 1 - Vista to Pacifica
We shot right up the I-5 with no traffic. We did make a stop to check the water levels at Pacheco Pass Reservoir...
The drive was great and we made it to Pacifica with lots of daylight left to enjoy! Once we got checked in to the hotel, we went exploring Rockaway Beach.
We had so much fun hiking the hills and enjoying the views and playing down on the beach. Jeremy talked shop with the local surfers and we even got to enjoy a little concert in the parking lot. OK, it was 2 guys playing guitars out of their trunk...but it was still cool. We had dinner at Denny's and discovered the land of "Belgia" (Ha!). Then we snuggled up in the hotel room and got some sleep.
Day 2 - Pacifica to Crescent City
After a nice free breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express Pacifica (plug!), we jumped into the Tahoe and drove through the streets of San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge...
Honked our horn and held our breath through the rainbow tunnels...
Drove up the 101 and then cut west through the beautiful hills and trees...
And ended up in Mendocino County by Noon! Isn't it beautiful???
We pulled over for a pee stop and then hiked down to the cliffs to take in these amazing views-
Our tummies were growling, so we stopped into Mendocino to find food and adventure!
We walked around the cute hippie town and even made some book purchases at the local book store. Then we enjoyed a delicious fresh lunch at the Mendocino Market Deli. Everyone got sandwiches and I got fresh rockfish tacos. They were amazing!
We were behind schedule, but we made sure to make a stop at the Pt. Cabrillo Light Station just north of Mendocino. And the walk down to the lighthouse was gorgeous-
Brody and I were walking along the cliffs, when all of a sudden we saw a huge whale jump out of the water!!! It was incredible! We yelled and everyone came running. We didn't see any more jump, but we could see the pod of whales spouting as they migrated north. It was pretty dang cool!
Farther up the PCH, the 1 meets up with the 101 in Leggett. This is where we found the drive-thru tree! We had to try it! It was sooooo scary. We barely fit. We had to pull in the mirrors and go through so slow. My hand would not even fit between the inside of the tree and the mirror.
I can't believe we tried it...and I can't believe we made it!
The tree was the last exciting thing we did that day. We needed to make up time and we just zoomed up the 101, and made it to our beach bungalow around 10:00 PM. What a day!
Day 3 - Crescent City
Brody was the first one up and came and woke me up! He was asleep when we arrived the night before, so he woke up a little confused. Our little house was so dang cute. When I looked out the front windows in the morning, I was stunned at our beautiful front yard and view! We were literally on the edge of some of the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen. The house had an awesome sun porch and we spent the morning staring out at the ocean while drinking hot chocolates and marionberry smoothies.
Here's Jer playing his ukulele in our front garden...Heaven!
How cute is this place?
We took a vote and decided to hang out at the bungalow all day. So we did!
After lunch, we decided to go outside and take a walk and check out our neighborhood...
There's the Crescent City Lighthouse...
We found some really neat views and even went down onto the beach to check out all the cool rocks and tide pools...
And then the sun came out in full force that afternoon!
Cali and I took our chairs and our books out to the front and soaked it all in!
And look at our pretty sunset...
That night we BBQ'd. And Jer pulled the BBQ over to the driveway so that he could see the sunset while he was cooking.
These are my attempts at sunset shots of Me & Jer and then the kids...
Day 4 - Redwoods
Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park is just 10 minutes from our beach house. We slept in and packed our lunches and headed up to check out WHERE THEY FILMED SCENES FROM RETURN OF THE JEDI!!! The Forest Moon of Endor....We are here!!!
I had googled where they filmed the Ewok world and this is the place. It was so cool...
And we brought some of our Star Wars friends to enjoy it with us...
We think we may have stumbled upon Dagobah too!!! This pic is so fun. Jeremy put the camera on a bridge pretty far away from where we are standing. He only had 10 seconds to make it back to us before the picture took. He just jumped in right at the last second. We were dying!
Look at these beauties...
I took soooooo many pictures. But I'm only putting a few on here. You'll have to check out the Picasa album if you want to see more. Once we hiked through the amazing redwoods, we continued to drive on the road we found and ended up here....the Smith River.
We stopped and had a picnic on the banks of the river and had fun throwing rocks into the water.
We were so close to so many different Redwood Parks, we decided to head down to the Trees of Mystery to say hi to Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe. We got to talk to Paul and ask him some questions. He liked it when the kids would sit on his foot. He said it tickled! We wanted to take the trail, but they charge you money on this trip! What???? Nope-we were going to stick with seeing trees for free. Thank you very much!
We spent the afternoon driving along the 101, seeing all the things we missed on the drive up, because it had been dark. This part of the world is so breathtaking! The Redwoods come down off the hills and meet the ocean. It is so spectacular to see. We made one last stop before heading back to Crescent City. The Klamath River Overlook. WOW! We had the most amazing views of the coast and the river mouth to the ocean. We once again decided to hike down and get a closer look.
So glad we did, because we saw 3 or 4 pods of whales splashing around down there! No jumping again, but we did get a tail wave. And we got this awesome family shot-
And here's "the team" at the end of out hike. These 4 are the best! They are so great and have so much fun together. I love that we get to make all these special memories. And I love how well they get along and love each other...sniff, sniff.
Here's what we came home to that night! Jeremy and I took a little stroll north along the cliffs..
We loved our little house on the cliffs of the ocean. Neither one of us wanted to go to sleep that night, because we knew we would have to leave it in the morning. It was such a sweet little home away from home. We will definitely miss it.
Day 5 - Crescent City to Redding
We woke up and were so sad to leave our little slice of heaven. Even Crescent City was sad to see us go because it was crying when we left. But we quickly recovered as we made the beautiful drive on the 299 through the Six Rivers & Shasta-Trinity Forests to Redding, CA. This was our last stop of the trip. And we made this stop to see my sweet cousin Jamie and her family. It's been too long since I've seen her...
We woke up and were so sad to leave our little slice of heaven. Even Crescent City was sad to see us go because it was crying when we left. But we quickly recovered as we made the beautiful drive on the 299 through the Six Rivers & Shasta-Trinity Forests to Redding, CA. This was our last stop of the trip. And we made this stop to see my sweet cousin Jamie and her family. It's been too long since I've seen her...
As we were about to enter Redding, this is what welcomed us-and we drove right through it! Cool!
Jamie's roommate has to get up really early for work, so instead of hanging out at her house, we went and had some pizza-
And went to see-
It was such a fun and beautiful movie! We all loved it! And it was so fun to be able to go see it together and have a great time and make great memories with our cousins.
So glad we made this detour. Jamie is so happy and doing so good. That makes me so happy too!
Day 6 - Redding to Home
Thursday was our day to head home. Here's how we felt about it-
I was not ready to go back to reality. I love our adventures! And I love us all being trapped together...having fun hanging out and making amazing memories. Cali was conflicted. She didn't want to leave, but she missed home. The boys were so ready to get back home...to their computers, video games and free (ha!) wi-fi. This was a truly fantastic trip. One we will always remember for so many reasons. Can't wait to see where we end up next year! Another successful Wilson Family Road Trip is done. If you would like to see all 450+ pictures I took, Click HERE.
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