Day 14

Yesterday, we all woke up with different stories of how none of us slept well. There were reasons of noise outside, the room not cooling enough, the bed not being as comfortable and from eating dinner too late the night before. In the scheme of the last 2 weeks, having it NOT be our own bed, we have all been sleeping pretty well, and we are grateful for that. Since this was going to be a place we stayed for 2 nights, we decided after breakfast that we would check out and play the whole thing by ear. We had a big day planned...a day at the San Diego Zoo!!

It was a picture perfect day. The temperature was about 70 degrees with a light breeze. The low humidity factor has been amazing! We are an animal family (well most of us anyway), so the day was spent ooohing and aaahing over every animal under the sun! It truly is one of the finest zoos ever with the lushness of some of the most unique trees and plants ever plus some very unusual animals as well. After 6 hours of enjoying a day with the animals, we collapsed our very tired feet into our home away from home…our Toyota Sienna van. Some of our favorite animal picks were…the panda, the koala, the meerkat, the river otter and the Mediterranean donkey.

We decided to see a little more of San Diego before parting ways. We headed towards the Pacific Ocean and strolled along an oceanfront area called Seaport Village. It was just beautiful, with quaint little shops along the harbor and all kinds of boats lining the docks. It had huge rocks piled along the water so after a bit, we discovered our one last time stroll on Pacific Coast sand could be found at Coronado Beach, just minutes away. Just amazed at the variety of military tucked into the beauty of this place!! What an absolute treasure to find this spot! We said our last hoorah, brushed off our sandy toes, and decided it was our time to head east.

Thankful that getting out of San Diego was much easier than LA, we were trekking before long. A few hours up the road we were passing Indian reservation signs. I am not sure where that was but after dinner we decided to mix it up a bit. Emily took the wheel and Olivia joined her in the front seat. David and I took the middle seat, to enjoy a movie with Sophie before stopping for the night in Yuma, AZ. We’ll see what today holds, as we now are a few hours ahead on our itinerary, not having stayed a 2^nd night in San Diego. One thing I know for sure though….

…we are no longer, Westward Bound!

Posted by: Cheryl

Day 13

Yesterday was a super interesting day. After staying in LA the night before, we rose early to get to Warner Bros. studio for our scheduled tour. Our tour group only consisted of our family and 4 other people, so it was a nice small size. During the 2 ½ hour tour, we got to see and go into several different outdoor sets. It was amazing how many times one set has been changed and reused for different films….and you would never know it. I can’t even start to list all of the movies that were filmed on the sets we visited. Some of the sets were made to look like a neighborhood; others were made to look like a downtown or part of a small town. We saw an indoor set where they film a lot of sitcoms as well.

In addition to seeing sets on our tour, we got to see lots of other behind the scenes stuff. Such as: their prop/decor collection, costumes that were actually worn in the movies, where they make sets and props for the sets, etc. Over all, it was a very enjoyable and interesting tour. It was especially neat to take the tour because we could relate to some of the stuff that we saw due to our own experience with film making. We also saw just how much more in depth and over our heads real “Hollywood movies” are :)

After our Warner Brothers tour, we drove to Hollywood, saw some of the Hollywood landmarks and walked down the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Even though we wanted to see Hollywood, we weren’t all that into it or impressed with it…so we didn’t stay too long there. Then, we made our way to Beverly Hills. Boy, is that a ritzy town. We drove down Rodeo drive to see all of the extremely expensive shops; so expensive and nice that I only had heard of one or two of the stores before. Apparently that is a very well-known street in Beverly Hills-though I had never heard of it until my parents told us about it, haha.

After doing all of our site-seeing late in the afternoon, we found out which city in the USA has the worst traffic/rush hour that we have ever experienced. LA has crazy 7 lane highways that you can only inch your way through. Needless to say, we made it a few hours south to San Diego. After checking into our hotel, we walked around a neat area in San Diego called ‘Old Town’. We ended our evening with dinner at an authentic Mexican restaurant.

Posted by: Emily

Day 12

Today started with great excitement. Over the past few months of planning this trip, we were absolutely amazed at the ‘out of this world, beautiful views’ along the Pacific Coast Highway that we had seen while online. So today, when taking off after our freebie hotel breakfast (yippee!!), we knew we were in for a real treat. There was a little confusion as to what ‘driving the PCH’ really meant. Should we stick with Hwy 1 or should we be pulling into every little town? Just as we were trying to figure things out, ‘the’ 17 Mile Drive sign popped up and that definitely jogged our memory as the thing to do. That was the entrance to the famous Pebble Beach Golf Course. The homes, the water, the lushness of the greens, all were a perfect start to our drive.

We stopped at Carmel-by-the-Sea for about 30 minutes. What an absolute charming town. We realized that we had 2pm Hearst Castle reservations up the road in San Simeon, and stopping too long would impact the agenda. We snapped pictures left and right and just couldn’t get enough of the breathtaking views all along the coast. We stopped some, here and there but it wasn’t long before Emily and I were feeling a little on the nauseous side. I think there was just so much to take in, that we didn’t want to miss. But, that kind of twisting, turning road requires some sort of ‘eyes on the road’ kind of behavior, and unfortunately we weren’t following that rule. There was added stop and go traffic because there was some construction going on. Needless to say, we ended up missing our 2pm reservation. We resigned ourselves to letting it go, and did a great job of taking it much easier along the drive. Had lunch in Gorda, a small oceanfront town, at a place called Whale Watchers Cafe. There were no whales spotted but, just up the road, to break things up a bit, we saw thousands of beached Elephant Seals. We eventually made our way to our final LA destination of Studio City, feeling much better by our stopping time of 9pm.

A few noteworthy random findings…

The Elliott crew has become the fastest efficient team around, getting in and out of hotel rooms like nobody else around!! Farming is HUGE in CA. We have never seen so many orchards, for so many miles, all over the state. Today it was groves of macadamia, almonds and cashew nuts for miles. Deer seem to be very tame in CA, as we have seen them walking real near the road, and they don’t seem to run off when you are right next to them. Ever since entering CO on day 2, mountains have been in sight, and we are now on day 12 and the Sierra Nevada range is present. Cherie Shedore…thanks for the suggestion of shortbread cookies at the bakery in Carmel. I guess there is a reason that bakery has been in business since 1906! We spotted hundreds of oil pumps in an area called Lost Hills, CA. Never have we seen so many in one spot, ever. Lastly, Sophie has played restaurant in our hotel every night and we have enjoyed her service every night!

That’s all for now…Holllywood, here we come!

Day 11

As much as we have had a plan for most everything big we’ve done, our day today was everything but ‘planned’ and hinged on a little frustrating. Our dilemma was that we had tickets for a 10:30am tour of Alcatraz. We started out the door thinking we knew where we had planned to have breakfast but ended up really off on the destination. When we finally got there, we saw a line out the door and felt waiting could possible jeopardize our 10:30am tickets to Alcatraz. We needed to opt for quick and ease at IHOP, as it was close to where we were parking our van.

The ferry over to Alcatraz was beautiful. Seeing San Francisco from the bay was perfect for pictures. The sun was trying to come out, which was an improvement from the fog and rain the day before. We all thoroughly enjoyed the audio tour of Alcatraz. It was seemingly narrated from the perspective of a warden who had worked there and had inmates stories ‘salt and peppered’ into it, giving the feel needed to imagine the place when it was up and running.

After Alcatraz, we hoofed it back to retrieve our van and made our original breakfast choice, our lunch spot. It was at a neat little place named ‘Mama’s on Washington’, in North Beach, which was again recommended by my sister Julie. It was quaint and a place I’d for sure return to!! There are a lot of neighborhoods in SF, and would need a few more visits here to really get around the right way! We had decided to leave San Francisco at the end of our full day instead of spending another night, and leaving in the morning. Before leaving the city, we skirted around a bit more, before catching a ride on the famous cable cars. The wait is long but well worth it. I wanted to hang off the side and really ‘look the part’ but the girls wouldn’t let me! We met people from New Zealand, England, France and Scotland…just to name a few!

Getting out of town, with rush hour and trying to get to the Pacific Coast highway, added a little more stress but nothing that the Lord and CA Hwy 1 can’t cure!! Needing to keep the camera accessible, that’s for sure! Got a few hours down the gorgeous, winding road, before stopping at the Quality Hotel, in Marina, CA, to end up in hot tub under the stars as a family! Again I say, thank you God for these memories!!

Posted by: Cheryl

Day 10

Note: Below is the blog post for day 10 of our trip(AKA the 17th). We're a bit behind...sorry about that.

Well, we’re almost to the half way point on this 21 day westward bound adventure. By now we have a really great rhythm with getting in and out of hotels, covering our planned, mapped out territory and moving on. I can honestly say, there have been no major glitches. We have pretty much stayed one night at each place until now. San Francisco required more time, so we’re giving it a few days. Let me tell you how yesterday unfolded…

Other than a damp rainy day, all was good. It really has been our 1^st day when rain was an issue with our plans. (We had rain/snow conditions in Estes Park, but it didn’t affect our agenda and rain when traveling to Monument Valley). Having never been to San Francisco before, we decided that a Gray Line City tour would be beneficial to help us get a good overview of the city. As in any big city, there was such an array of different nationalities present. It is very evident that tourism is the number one industry in San Francisco. Since it was raining, we made the best of it and grabbed an umbrella, shopped for sweatshirts, enjoyed the tradition of the sour dough bread bowl with clam chowder for lunch and drove around a lot, conquering Lombard Street…the ‘crookedest’ street in the world. By dinner time, we decided to visit China Town and went to one of the locals favorites, House of Nanking. After climbing a bunch of hilly streets and getting a good amount of exercise for the day, we came back and crashed.

The fog and rain made pictures for today a little more difficult. We’ll see if we can make up for it tomorrow! We are enjoying ourselves immensely…sleeping well, eating well, and sightseeing well but…the cost of everything in San Francisco is a little ‘pricey’. One more day here and I think the weather is going to be much more pleasant. No matter what, we’ll make the best of it!!

Posted by: Cheryl

Day 9

Not sure who gave the girls permission to make fun of me the other day on the blog(heehee) but it’s my turn to tell you about our day yesterday, so we won’t have to worry about it happening this time. We have met a few people here and there, so why not at the Econo Lube?!? One thing for sure, there are certainly a lot of people speaking different languages every place we have been thus far.

After our continental breakfast at the Comfort Inn in Oakhurst yesterday morning, we only had about a 30 minute drive to Yosemite National Park. We had purchased the annual national park pass early on, so we’ve been able to get into all national parks, making that well worth our while. We have definitely done our share of parks this week, thus the winding around the twists and curves in the mountains and in canyons has taken its toll. Yosemite was truly a treat. It was the most family friendly place. It was so lush with huge trees, rock formations, the rushing Merced River and very impressive waterfalls. We shot a lot of pictures because we were really able to get right out and walk around a lot. We hiked to areas that made us again very grateful for the beauty of God’s creation. There is no way that pictures can describe what we saw, but we did our best to snap as many pictures as we could! I will say that I was disappointed in one thing. As much as we’ve heard about the black bears in CA, we didn’t see a single one of them. I looked really hard, but it just didn’t happen. We saw a handful of deer crossing but no bears.

After leaving Yosemite, we had a 4 hour drive to San Francisco. We arrived there last night at about 6pm. How exciting to go from all of nature to the beautiful city of San Francisco. We have never been here before either so a lot of planning has gone into this portion of our trip. Thanks to my sister Julie’s expertise, we are staying in Fisherman’s Wharf, at The Wharf Inn. I know it’s her favorite city, and from what I’ve heard, a lot of others as well. We’ll be here for 3 nights. After walking down Pier 39, checking out the sea lions and enjoying a yummy seafood dinner, we made it back to our room to prepare for a big day today.

Posted by: Cheryl

Days 7 and 8

Yesterday we didn’t have any internet access, so we’re just deciding to combine yesterday’s adventures as well as today's in this one post.

As for yesterday…..well, it went a little bit different than expected! We pulled away from our Circus, Circus Hotel, grabbed a bagel and were off to a tour at Hoover Dam. We got a greater understanding of the power plant and the ingenuity of the great minds behind it, way back in 1936. After the Hoover Dam tour, we made our way through Death Valley. Being in Vegas kind of rubbed off on us so we decided to all guess what temperature it would be there, and then put money down, and whoever got closest to it won the money. It ended up reaching the temperature of 97 degrees! We made a few stops on the side of the road to see the dry desert. It was an interesting mix of flat and mountainous land that seemed to go on forever!

After Death Valley, we were going to head to Three Rivers, CA for the night, knowing we were going to be getting there early. It ended up that it was a few hours longer trip than we thought, even if we did choose the shortest route on our trusty GPS Linda! We soon learned that the

shortest route isn’t always the best. Once we were on our way we discovered that ‘Linda’ was going to take us through the very bumpy and curvy, thin and twisty road in the middle of the mountainous country. We were glad when that part of the traveling was over because it made for a very dizzy head! Along the way we saw a few stray cows along the road too. When we got out of that area, the country side was just beautiful! As we were traveling through, we saw orange groves and other fruits that filled fields that smelled so good when we drove by! It was a very different feel from what we had seen these past few days, but just as beautiful! The rolling mountains and the countryside were quite the contrast to the dry and sandy desert. We made a quick stop at Wendy’s for dinner and headed to the lodge we were staying at, which was placed right by a rushing river!

Now, as for today….Knowing we didn’t have a whole lot planned for today, we got to sleep in a little, which was nice after always have to get up early and head out on the road. So this morning was kind of a leisurely morning. Once we were out the door we went to this nice restaurant to have breakfast. We got to sit out on the porch, right over the river! After breakfast we headed to the Sequoia forest, which included more traveling on the bumpy and twisty mountain roads….oh joy! As we were entering the forest, we began to see more and more gigantic trees, which of course where the Sequoia trees! Now these are some serious trees! We hopped out of the van a few times to walk around, take pictures, and take in how huge these trees really were!

We got to see the biggest tree in the world named ‘General Sherman’, which stood at 275 feet at the base and with a circumference of 102 feet! It was so cool that we were able to see these mammoth trees that were only starting to grow when Jesus was on earth! We also got to walk through a tree, stand on a tree, and hug a tree…yes, we are tree huggers.

At about 1:30 we started to head to where we were going to be staying for the night, knowing it was about a 3 hour trip and that we were going to get to the hotel earlier than the usual 10:00 pm. At 3:00 we hadn’t even had lunch yet, so we stopped at McDonalds. Today we had a few things that had to be done like getting the oil changed in the van and do some laundry, so before coming to the hotel, we got the oil changed. While we were waiting, my mom being who she is decided to start talking to the lady sitting in the waiting room about our trip. Shocker, I know. ;) When we got back in our van, we of course started teasing her about the new ‘friend’ she made. “I wasn’t the one who brought it up and started talking….” she explained. “ ….she said ‘hi’.” You wouldn’t believe how easy it is for her to slip into any conversation with any stranger that we are on a three week trip out west and have gone over 3532 miles in her little power talk she does .

After that we checked into our hotel and now mom and dad went to do laundry.....hopefully tonight we’ll be able to go swimming and play some games and just relax at the hotel.

Posted by: Olivia