Day 23 – Ventura Highway

WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coastal highway driving for 20 hours…

All the way from the east coast to the west coast…

Loving every minute of it..

Incredible adventures off the beaten path…

Fortunate to have so many amazing friends and family to help us along the way…

Only to further strengthen our friendship…

Running free as vagabonds…

Never to forget these memories…

Inspired by the beautiful creation…

All together better than we could have ever imaged.

As we sit here by the fire pit in Lo’s backyard we are thankful to have made it to our final destination safely and will sleep well tonight knowing that we do not have to get up early and pack the car to drive somewhere new.  We always knew this trip had to end sometime, but it is still surreal that we did actually make it, and it is sadly over.

We would also like to say thank you to all of you out there who have been reading our blog and to those of you who supported us in one way or another.  You all have been great blessings in our lives and have kept us sane and not so homesick by reading your comments each night.  We love you all and look forward to sharing more stories with you in person!

Big hug, big kiss, little hug, little kiss, big hug (go watch the move Nacho Libre if you didn’t get this.)…

Lo, D, Eliz

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

-2 Timothy 4:7

Day 22 – Why must all good things come to an end?

Our final day in San Francisco. Our last day living as vagabonds. Tomorrow we make the gorgeous drive to Ventura on the Pacific Coast Highway. We began our day by taking a 6 mile hike along the harbor and across the ENTIRE Golden Gate Bridge and got some lovely pictures of ourselves…. and the view too. Some three hours later we made it to In-and-Out for some piping hot hamburgers and fries (well done) and a neapolitan shake. Elizabeth’s first venture to an In-an-Out was a great success. We did some shopping along Haight and Ashbury in the afternoon and made it back to the cousins’ house in time for an excellent dinner. Gourmet tri-tip steak, yumm. And apparently there’s a rule in these parts to have ice cream every night, no complaints here, haha. We enjoyed hearing some stories from Domingo about his college days in the 60’s while embarrassing his son, hahaha, no need to repeat those. Our feet are really sore from the walk (Lo went half the way barefoot), so it’s ok that we’re looking at a 10 hour or so drive down the coast tomorrow.

And on that note, goodnight.

Lo, De, Eliz, & Kat

P.S. We can’t wait to see momma cali!!!! And the islands!! wooooo

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Revelation 22:13

Day 21 – Free pot stickers!?

This morning we got up and went to a church in San Jose. Then we picked up some delicious Starbucks, courtesy of a gift card from Lo and Katrina’s Mom!!! After our refreshing coffee we headed into San Francisco to meet up with Elizabeth’s friend Andy for the day. He took us to an area with great views of the Golden Gate Bridge so that we could act like the tourists we are and snap a bunch of pictures. Then we went down to Pier 39 to get some real San Fran sourdough bread as a snack. We walked around Fisherman’s Wharf for a bit and then caught a cable car up to China Town. We got bombarded by some Chinese ladies on the street who practically shoved us into one of the restaurants and we ate some yummy Chinese food. After dinner we shopped around China Town for a little while and then walked down the hill that we rode up earlier. We were slightly frozen by the wind so we got back in the car and headed back to Andy’s studio on the coast. Oo la la. Tomorrow morning we are going to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge!

P.S.: We forgot to mention that we saw happy cows on our drive down yesterday.

Lo, D, Eliz, Kat

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” Matthew 5:14

Day 18 & 19 & 20 – Cruisin’ down the 101

Day 18- We started our drive from Portland by picking up a huge pink box of the day old donuts for 5 dollars from this place called Voodoo Donuts.  We heard about it from Lo’s brother who saw it on the the travel channel the night before, so we decided what the heck.  On our way to Grants Pass we tried to stop at a Safeway to pick up some groceries, but were unsuccessful, because as soon as we turned the corner and saw our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean we all screamed and said “keep drivinggggg!!!”…until Denzel (Lo’s car) had to park at the closest parking spot before we hit the sand.  We all sprinted out of the car ditching our shoes to get our first touch of the Pacific sand and water.  After enjoying our bit of absolute freedom, as we had made it as far west as possible, we got back in the car, got our groceries and headed south.   Once we got to Elizabeth’s friends house we played some hide-and-seek with the kids and even got to pick and enjoy some cherries. We also to feed their sheep and llama!

*voodoo doughnuts*

Day 19- Cotton falls from the sky in Oregon, who knew! We headed into downtown for the day, in which the highlight of our day was going to the old fashioned pharmacy to drink some phosphate soda pop things for only 25 cents!!  We also went to the park to have lunch and feed the ducks, who kind of just looked bored with people feeding them the same bread day after day.  It was fun nonetheless.  We then decided to change our plans a bit and head to the Redwood forest a day early.  We had never seen such huge trees!  We found this awesome campsite right on the beach after driving through “Elk country”…holy moly they are HUUUGE and have funnny furry antler things.  They kind of just stare at you.  Hmmm. We had no idea there were elk in California. Ps- Katrina had no idea that we had entered California when we did like 2 hours ago.  Haha.  We were again successful at starting our fire and made dinner to eat on the beach while watching the gorgeous Cali sunset and even had hot chocolate for later!  Ps- we also had soo much room to sleep because we had 2 tents!! (although still both from Walmart.)

*we made it!!!*

*beach sunset*

Day 20- Car ride…greatly underestimated the time to drive…12 hours later = San Francisco.  Wooo.  Buttt the coastal drive was beautiful the whole way, sea cliffs, redwoods, beaches, everything we had hoped for. We even detoured a bit to drive through a tree, yess through a Redwood, almost didn’t fit.  The best part of our day was when we realized that the Golden Gate Bridge is a part of the 101 Freeway, we all screamed as we drove across, not believing that we were really actually on it, which also led us to not see any signs about the inevitable toll at the end of the bridge, oooops.   We  had to all frantically search our change purses and ended up paying the last 10 cents in pennies, the lady hated us and so did everyone else in our toll line.  As we were leaving, she even said, “Now go get your broke ***es home.”  Fill in the blank…but she laughed and said she was totally kidding. Hahaha.  So we are now tired but well fed and safe in Denise’s cousin’s house and will be ready to conquer the city tomorrow.

*bahh here goes nothing*

From the land of fruits and nuts, goodnight,

Lo, D, Eliz (and Kat, kind of)

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Day 17 – Going WESTTT in a covered wagon

This morning we left Grandpa’s house and headed back to Pike Place for the third time. We love that place, except for its lack of parking spots. Each of us got a beautiful tulip and then we went across the street to get a baguette and some cheese to make a nice French picnic lunch. Then we tried some signature Seattle coffee at Tulley’s rather than Starbucks. Yummm. Lo’s uncle provided us with a free oil change and then we headed out on the road to Portland. The three hour drive was a nice change from the usual 8 and 9 hour drives. When we got to Portland we made Lo’s sister, Katrina, walk 20 blocks with all her luggage to get to the car because we couldn’t find the train station. The weather in Portland was gloomy so we decided to stay in for the night. After getting some great endorphins from the exercise room at the hotel we ordered pizza and had a chill recovery night to gear up for the amazing drive down the West Coast this week!!!!!

Peace Love,

- Lo, D, Eliz, Kat

       “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, 
       so great is his love for those who fear him;

       as far as the east is from the west, 

       so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:11-12

Day 15 & 16 – Sleepless in Seattle

We FINALLY made it to Seattle and to the original Starbucks. Our first stop in the city was to find that coffee, soo good. Three venti’s yay! So, super hopped up on caffeine we wandered around the famous Pike’s Place fish market and made horrible fools of ourselves when they threw a fake fish at us. This one guy mocked Elizabeth like no other as she was amazed at the size of the king crab legs. There are some very interesting people in Seattle, ya, very interesting to say the least. We loaded up on free samples of fruits and nuts and even chocolate spaghetti! while peering in all the windows of the cool little shops along the street, and then headed back to Lo’s grandpa’s house for the night. We even crossed floating bridges and lots of tunnels on the way, after Lo totally squealed her tires when trying to drive up the hills in the city. San Francisco will be fun for sure.

Today we ventured back into the city and saw the infamous space needle, took the monorail back down to Pike’s Place, and had cookies and coffee for breakfast. We checked out a ton more shops and didn’t even get close to seeing them all. There really is a coffee shop on every corner of the city, by the way, in case you were wondering. And this afternoon we took a ferry across the sound just because we wanted to and it was so much fun! The water was really still so it was a great ride across the water and we braved the cold, standing on the front of the deck the whole way. Denise gave an impromptu show when the wind blew her skirt up, thank heavens for leggings haha.

The weather in Seattle was amazing these last two days, in the 60s and sunny! We feel like that isn’t normal for the city but we are not complaining. Tomorrow we start our trek south along the coast and will really see the Pacific ocean for real! Bonus: we are picking up Lo’s sister along the way as well wooo!

gettin kinda sleepy in seattle….. g’night!

Lo, D, Eliz

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:19-20

*angels shadows*

Pictures!

As you may have already noticed, we figured out how to put up pictures!! Yay! So go back to each post and see the ones we posted for each day. Some don’t have any but others have more than one.

Enjoy!

Lo, D, Eliz

Day 11 & 12 & 13 & 14- oooooooops

Day 11- We started our 2nd day in Colorado by hiking around and climbing up the 3 billion stairs of Red rocks, it was amazing!! Talk about out of breath…try running stairs plus being at 10,000 feet altitude, whew. We then ventured to the hippie town of Boulder that had cute shops and we bought friendship bracelets for a dollar, heck yessss. Later that day we went to Denver where we stumbled upon a lovely city park in the middle of downtown and proceeded to make fools of ourselves by rolling down the huge grassy hill, it was amazingly fun. The city was beautiful. For dinner, Katie took us to her favorite wanna-be Mexican restaurant, Casa Bonita, that reminded us of a Disneyland ride. Elizabeth cried after braving the scary cave desinged not even to sare 3 year olds, but we love her nonetheless. Lo might have screamed once too. Haha. Alsooooo, in the middle of the restaurant there was something that we had ever seen before; a waterfall complete with a super hot cliff diver, umm random ya.

*hiking at 5000 feet*

*handstands in denver*

Day 12- Rocky mountain drive!!! Sooo we had our bikinis on as we intended on stopping at the hot springs, meanwhile it was flurrying outside and the mountains were covered in fresh snowfall. Haha. We also took a slight detour to Vail, such a cute little mountain town, also a very high altitude, nothing like us girls are used to. Once the Rocky’s disappeared, we entered the endless flatlands of what is called Utah. And crazy storms came along with it. We definitely went a long time without seeing any form of civilization, and when we did stop for gas, the town we stopped in had a population of 43, ya, 43…people….total. We checked out some of the arches before it got dark, and almost had to sleep in the car at the campsite, haha, because of the bipolar weather…it reminded us of Harrisonburg Annnnd, we cannot even begin to tell you all how close and bright the stars were that night over the desert sky!

*this picture doesn’t show the snow very well*

*moab utah*

Day 13- We got up early and had a lovely bfast at the BK Lounge, courtesy of santa claus and Denise before heading to the arches again to beat the crowd. We hiked around the park for awhile; the arches were breathtaking and we have never felt so small. We then drove to Salt Lake City and took a tour of Temple Square and even attempted to trace our genealogy at the Mormon family history center. Lo is black. Denise has no ancestors…hmmm, where did she come from?? And Elizabeth didn’t really find anything new, better luck next time. We then drove to Park City, where we stayed with the Holden Family in their cute mountain cabin! Hard to believe that just a few weeks ago they had snow up to the 2nd floor of their house! O and it stays light out until 9pm, soooo nice!

*pretty arch*

Day 14- We had a wonderful breakfast with the Holden’s two little girls, they were sooo cute, and we were sad we had to leave them so soon. But on we went to Home of the 2002 Winter Olympics; Olympic Park in Park City. We saw the summer ski flying slopes and the bobsled track, soooo coool. We then got on the road to Idaho and found the best little diner for dinner complete with waitresses on roller skates. Tomorrow we head for the Pacific!!!! And you know what that means…STARBUCKS!!!

The end,

LO, D, Eliz

“He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.” -Psalm 62:6

“Those who live at the ends of the earth stand in awe of your wonders. From where the sun rises to where it sets, you inspire shouts of joy.” -Psalm 65:8

Day 10 – Rocky Mountain High

Today we made the switch from central to mountain time on our way up to Denver, saying goodbye to Texas and traveling into New Mexico and Colorado. Denise who has never been to Colorado was not allowed to drive today because she spent the whole time ooh-ing over the landscape, which isn’t even the real mountains yet, and taking about 500 pictures of the same thing over and over again. But it was definitely a nice change from the super flatness of Texas. We were getting just a little tired of it.

Another peanut butter and jelly picnic was enjoyed on our drive today, followed by slurpees and slim jims at a 7-11 in Colorado Springs!! We also took our first detour this afternoon and made our way to the Garden of the Gods. Not too hard to find, either, with lots of signs pointing the way from the highway. It was absolutely gorgeous! We even made the circle around twice, because we couldn’t find the way out, haha.

We are staying the next two nights with Denise’s teammate Katie and are totally excited to hit the town tomorrow. Katie is going to show us all over the place, so long as she doesn’t get us all lost in the mountains. It’s gonna be an adventure, we can’t wait!

Peace out L-town

Lo, D, Eliz

“I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. ” Psalm 121:1-2

*slurpees and slim jims*

*first view of the rockies*

Day 9 – Amarillo Dillas!

Today we drove what is probably going to be the most boring stretch of road on our whole trip. There is apparently not much between Fort Worth and Amarillo besides tiny towns of populations smaller than our high schools and a random camel farm. Haha. Texas super troopers are nice peeps, ummm ya. They wear cowboy hats as a part of their uniform and we think its funny. Amarillo is definitely a much smaller town than we imagined. We are going to miss Texas, but are super excited to see some mountains again, Rockies here we come!!!!! Tonight we went to a Texas minor league baseball opening game, the Amarillo Dillas, and small world, we met a guy who knows a guy who we know who plays baseball for JMU, wooooo! We were the most obnoxious fans, mainly for the fact that we knew we would never see any of these people again. We had our first supermodel documentary hour/ photo shoot at the baseball field, but you all cannot see the pics just yet because we are still not sure how exactly to post them, hmmmm. By the time we get to Cali, we will have pics, hehe. We miss and love you all!!

Good-bye Lonestar state!

-LO, D, Eliz

“And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 4:19

*amarillo dilla’s game*