I return!

[bladespark]

Two days earlier than originally planned, turns out. I shall summarize the notable events of the trip below.

Day 1 - Started way too early in Oregon. Drove all the way down to southern California. Counted 112 tomato trucks (that is trucks filled with tomatoes) going the other way.

Day 2 - JJ quoted Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about a dozen times as we crossed the desert. Nearly hit an insanely driven semi truck who swerved suddenly in front of us doing about half our speed. Survived to reach Vegas, met a few boardies. Had a confusion about Kaura which resulted in my not calling him. Oops. Sorry Kaura! Board games were played, fun was had.

Day 3 - Last boardies arrived. Jousting at the Excalibur was awesome! Walking around the strip not so awesome, but at least I discovered I hadn't lost my heat tolerance. Harry Potter release party was sought, but only a lame one was found. Ended up just staying in the hotel instead. Much board game playing.

Day 4 - Day out on the strip. Awesome fun was had! Dinner at Bennihana's was highly amusing. Trek experience still geeky.

Day 5 - Line for the free aquarium/zoo exhibit at Mandalay Bay was WAY too long. I went and saw "Bodies" instead. JJ didn't come. He doesn't like dead things, I guess dead people were a bit much for him. (Bodies is a really creepy-neat exhibit of actual preserved humans. I now know exactly what a spleen looks like, among other things.) Fondue in the evening was tasty, as always. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Day 6 - Departed Vegas later than planned, as JJ had bought the last Harry Potter the day before, and ended up staying up late to finish it. I started reading it that afternoon. Crossed Death Valley, where a bunch of extremely crazy people were running a Mega Marathon (twice regular marathon distance, as far as I can tell.) Who the heck marathons across freaking Death Valley? O.o Set up camp that evening in the Sierras, discovered that our tent (which we borrowed from JJ's dad) is full of holes! BIG, gaping holes, even. Thankfully due to dry conditions and high altitude there were few bugs.

Day 7 - Descended from the mountains into the valley. Road down has more curves than a busload full of Playboy models. I was very carsick. Ugh. Drove back up into the mountains through Sequoia National Park and past King's Canyon, which was fogged in. Saw HUGE trees, including a stop to hike out to see the General Sherman tree. Wow. JJ phoned home to complain about the tent. Parents insisted tent would be OK with a little duct tape. Massive scope of holes totally underestimated, despite fulsome descriptions. Stayed at a hotel in Fresno.

Day 8 - Went out and bought a new tent. Now we don't have to borrow one any more, woot! Drove on, stopping only to get peaches and grapes at a fruit stand, and arrived in Yosemite. Went up to Glacier point to look out over the valley. Very scenic! Found a campsite at the end of four miles of potholes and patches masquerading as a road. Not too crowded down there at all. Pitched new tent, new tent is spiffy. Finished Harry Potter. Not bad!

Day 9 - Went to get backpacking permit for the following day. Found out that in Yosemite "light use" of a back country area means 20-25 people per night. Contemplated half-killing our geeky, out of shape selves to get into the wilderness and share a camp site with 23 other people. Said screw it. Changed plans to ditch two nights backpacking, and add in a day in San Fransisco instead.

Day 10 - Packed up camp and got on our way bright and early. Saw tomato truck #113. They're following us! Despite city traffic, and a horrific wreck that nearly closed down the toll bridge we had to cross, we made it into San Fransisco. Found a surprisingly posh Super8 Motel downtown with a room left. Showered (yay for soap!) and then went out to have dinner and poke about Fisherman's Wharf. Much fun was had.

Day 11 - Set out for Redwood National Park, intending to camp. Took scenic route along the coast. Regretted scenic route after making less than a quarter of the distance we needed to cover in three hours. Found even more scenic road connecting scenic route to the actual highway. "Scenic" in this case meaning very windy, narrow, and with lots of hills. Was carsick again, ugh. Arrived in the park around 6pm to find all campsites full! Went onward (Onward!) to the next town in search of a motel. Seven or eight towns, a hundred or so "No Vacancy signs" and more than six hours later we finally found one motel with a single room remaining. Collapsed into bed some time after midnight.

Day 12 - Drove the rest of the way up the Oregon coast (having crossed over into Oregon somewhere during our search the night before) and finally arrived home. Was greeted by noisily purring cats. Intend to go shopping for new desk and possibly snake tank with funds not used up on trip.

So there you go, there's the short version. The long version would take too long to write up, so I'm not going to bother.

I am not going to be catching up on lj, there's too much stuff, so if anything important happened in the last two weeks, feel free to comment and let me know!

Comments

[gothkat.livejournal.com]

Dunno how important it is to you, but it's important to me...

I have a new mate =) Dunno if you know deyna_otter but that's who I'm mated to now, and I'm a hell of a lot happier than I was with Frost. By the way, you should read back in my LJ a bit to get the full story, if you're curious... Too much to post in a comment.

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

Glad you had fun- sounds like a fantastic trip!

[catwoman69y2k.livejournal.com]

Awesome trip!

[crystallinegirl.livejournal.com]

Alex and I got married. :)

....then he left for boot camp.

And his mother hates me. Hit up my LJ for details!

(Said mother-in-law that hates me doesn't know she's my mother-in-law yet....)

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read that entry over JJ's shoulder, actually. Congratulations, and condolences, as appropriate.

[crystallinegirl.livejournal.com]

*L* Yeah. I almost can't wait to find out what happens when she discovers we're married. Heh.

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

Surprised you went to Vegas via California. Last time I drove to Vegas, it was faster and more scenic to go directly to Nevada from Oregon.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Uh... you seem to have found some freeway that doesn't appear on the map, because unless you're talking about back country roads where we'd move at 25 miles an hour and take four days to make the trip, I'm not seeing anything at all that goes from Oregon to Vegas, other than through either California, or Utah, and we've been up and down I-15 way too many times already, not to mention that route's significantly longer.

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

Take US-95 (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=Portland,+OR&daddr=42.114524,-117.773437+to:Las+Vegas,+NV&mrcr=0,1&mrsp=1&sz=6&mra=dpe&sll=41.47566,-118.146973&sspn=10.927565,21.708984&ie=UTF8&z=6&om=1). Once you get clear of the Bend area until you hit the state line, you only slow down to 35 for the towns, the rest of the time the speed limit is 55 or no limit at all until you hit the Nevada line, in which it drops to 70, IIRC. Way less traffic, all you'd probably see is truckers even though it's a major highway. Nobody really takes that close of a look at the Oregon/Nevada line unless you're out there to make money.

The suggested default route Google gives is via Boise. While it's waaay shorter than going via I-5 (since you're not going around it to the west to get to something southeast of here), it's still not as quick as the 16 hour jaunt down 95.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Erm... 16 hours is what it took us to get all the way from Eugene to Vegas.

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

So same time for the same trip, just better scenery! :o) (Google's wrong on the time estimate, you really make up time in the desert once the speed limits end from experience, even though Crater Lake Highway can be a slow go with the tourists and just plain won't work in winter; I think I accidentally put the startpoint at Portland on that one instead of Eugene so it doesn't show that segment).

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Is there some reason why you are trying to convince me that we should have taken a route the way YOU would have done it? Because honestly it's really annoying me. The trip is over. We made good time on good reliable roads rather than dicking around on back roads, and the scenery wasn't exactly the point of that leg of the trip, we took the scenic route later on.

[baloo-ursidae.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound snarky. I figure travel is as much about getting there as the destination with as little fuss as possible. I don't care for the number of fairly sharp 60 MPH corners and CHP speed traps on 5 and merely thought you might like an alternate for future reference.

[moltare.livejournal.com]

I'm honour-bound to note that JJ is, in fact, a speed demon. ¬¬