4 Hours & 54 Minutes

Sunset at SeaTacIt takes 4 hours and 54 minutes to fly from Seattle to Atlanta, then you add the 3 hours clock time and you end up with a whopper of a trip back. Although we have had a blast out west, it is time to get back home.

No pictures from yesterday as it was filled with nothing but NW Washington weather, AKA liquid sunshine, so we spent most of the day indoors. There was breakfast followed by a snack, which was immediately followed by a big ol’ family style meal with the 5 Morrisons (Scott, Donna’s brother, Beth his wife and the kids James, Madilyn & Susan) who we were staying with, 3 other Morrisons (Donna’s brother Jim, his wife Linda and their daughter Jennifer) from California, a family of three that centered around Beth’s sister (Meghan, her husband Tyler and their son Eli) and last but not least, Beth’s parents Les & Joanie. Dessert was a birthday brownie for the newly 4-year old Susan. An afternoon of building Legos with the grand finale of going to bed early.

Today the 8 Morrisons along with Donna and I rode a couple of Washington State Ferries including the one from Winslow (Bainbridge Island) into downtown Seattle with fabulous views of the skyline. I didn’t take any pictures because I’ve become jaded, this has been our tradition to take this ferry on the way to the airport the last bunch of times while out here. See photos here and here from a couple of previous visits.

Let’s Go To The Races

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We went geocaching with the kids (and their parents) this morning and in the evening we went to the Evergreen Speedway to watch the Western Washington Racing Association put on their monthly Friday night racing extravaganza. It is short track madness that couldn’t be explained here if I tried and it was free!

Granite Falls

The View From Our Second Floor Balcony

The View From Our Tolovana Inn Second Floor Balcony in Cannon Beach

After a somewhat noisy night in the Tolovana Inn, we awoke to partly cloudy skies instead of the rain that we thought we’d get. A few minutes later it poured for about 5 minutes then stopped.

Because it was low tide this morning when we walked down to Haystack Rock, we could walk right up to it. On the way back to the hotel we stopped in to a local place, Sea Level Bakery + Coffee for a light breakfast.

We got sprinkled on during the short walk back to the hotel, that and the earlier shower were a harbinger of the day to come. The whole drive from Cannon Beach to Granite Falls it rained, sprinkled or was sunny for brief and alternating periods.

Cannon Beach

Cannon Beach Sunset

We spent last night in Medford, Oregon and tonight we are in our favorite town in the whole state, Cannon Beach. Along the way we saw some elk, a lighthouse and some California gray whales.

I was driving along towards the Oregon coast when I noticed a sign that said elk viewing area, so I pulled in. It was a big old open marshy area and we got lucky, there actually were some elk to view. There were four of them and they were a long way off, so much so that you can barely tell what they were. Trust me, they’re elk. We stopped at an overlook on US101 and there was a lighthouse on a point across the way, Heceta Head Lighthouse. I actually took a picture of the same lighthouse from the same place in 2011. We walked up to the lighthouse and there was a crowd along the fence looking down at the ocean. There was a small pod of whales swimming around feeding just off the point. It was 200 feet down, so it is kind of hard to tell exactly what they are, but trust me, they’re California gray whales.

One for Tuesday

Mt Shasta

A lot of driving today and not much sightseeing. Not that we needed it as driving on the back roads of northern California is a treat in itself. I took exactly two photos today and both were of the same thing, Mt. Shasta. The first was from about 80 miles away when it first became visible to us along CA-89 and the second (above) from about 5 miles away.

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

Today was a “rest day” of sorts because the main event was just a drive around Lake Tahoe. We drove in a clockwise loop so as to be on the side of the road that is closest to the lake for better views. At some points the lack of guard rails and steep drop offs made for a tighter grip on the steering wheel, but worth it. The first half on the left of the lake was all in California. It seems that this time of year is when CalTrans does all the maintenance on their two lane CA-89. Felt like we came across a flagman holding up a long line of cars every 5 miles. Thankfully the Nevada side was almost entirely construction free making for smooth sailing. With stops, including one for lunch, it took a little over four hours to drive the 75 miles.

Owens Valley

Owens Valley

Today was a long interesting drive from Barstow to South Lake Tahoe, California. Almost all of it was on US395 through high desert with mountains on both sides. The last 1/3 of the drive consisted of travel through a place called Owens Valley before we climbed into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The valley road was similar to Interstate, 4 lane divided before turning in 2 lanes, with occasional passing lanes, for the climb over a 7,000 foot pass and another of over 8,000. With a final drop of 2,000 feet to Lake Tahoe.

Owens valley was interesting for several reasons, we stopped at two of them, but were flabbergasted by a third. The City of Los Angeles gets about half of it water from here via 223-mile aqueduct, turning once massive lakes into alkali flats. We did stop and tour Manzanar, the first Japanese American Internment camp during WWII. Around 110,000 Japanese Americans on the west coast were rounded up and sent to 10 such camps, with 10,000 ending up here in the shadow of the Sierras. Our other stop was Mono Lake, a place Mark Twin called, “lifeless, treeless, hideous desert… the loneliest place on earth.” He is kind of right, but the shallow, very salty, lake has a weird beauty to it due to its tufa columns.