2800 Miles. From Dunsmuir to Port Angeles. I think.

Some fast photo updates...

Gates on the CA aqueduct, somewhere east of Salinas:

Cooking in the rustic cabin at Dunsmuir. Packed into the "kitchen":

Mount Shasta the next morning:



And out to the Oregon coast to Cape Lookout:

followed by ...

a tour of the Tillamook CHEESE factory!

Then on to Fort Stevens.

The wreck of the Peter Iredale:

 

and the stairs up to the Russell battery, all of which is a testament to reinforced concrete:

over the Columbia at Astoria...

through Forks, Wa (with an abundance of schwag for you Twilight fans):

to Port Angeles - here's the ferry coming in from Victoria tonight:

Relaxing in the fancy motel down by the waterfront:

 Coming up - Victoria to Tofino by way of Ladysmith!

From Malibu to Sierra Madre to Santa Barbara to Dunsmuir - 2100 miles so far

Hard to believe I haven't updated this since Sunday night....
Took a quick spin to Santa Monica and Venice on Monday,
(somewhere in Venice:)

followed by a trip to Sierra Madre to ship Maggie's luggage back to Bozeman and then catch up with all the random Boyd Family riff raff at Cathy's house. Holy smokes what a crowd, with lots of good food, experimental margaritas, and idle banter. And of course, Bob the dog. No sign of Ian and Melissa as they were waiting for Miles to arrive back at St. Joe's. He did finally arrive on Tuesday morning!
Tuesday was a day filled with varying forms of excitement - Started with the girls getting a tour of the celebs houses up and down the coast with aunt Barbara while mom and dad packed up all the gear. The car is now even heavier, if that is possible.
Then away we go up the PCH. With a stop at the in-and-out burger joint in Ventura, and then landing at aunt Barbara's (the other one) in Santa Barbara. And surprise - surfing lessons at Santa Claus lane for the girls. Here they are with surf instructor Ry:

Then back to SB, a lovely dinner, somewhat early bed, and then up at the crack of dawn to hit the road. Drove all the way to Dunsmuir CA (just west of Mt Shasta), in time for bratwurst and beer and spinal elongation for us and the dog. And that, my friends, is why this post is so brief. Time for bed.

Carmageddon ends, world continues to spin.

The auto-apocalypse was called off at 1pm today.
Thank goodness, now we can deal with real So Cal traffic again. Sort of enjoyed being able to drive around the LA basin with impunity and Montana plates.
Oh well. Party over, vacation continues while watching dolphins breach (do dolphins breach?) south of Zuma.

LAX and back without incident (Not counting the unintended side trip to Brentwood).

Hard to imagine it's only day three. At the risk of jinxing it - still no carmageddon.
In order to avoid oversleeping, we set 3 alarms (2 cell phones and an iPod) which ensured that we were headed to LAX to pick up Maggie at 5am this morning. Little traffic to speak of (who else would be up at that hour on a Sunday, even in LA?).  The coffee shop in the Tom Bradley terminal FINALLY opened up at 6:15, and we may as well have bought shares in the place. For waiting spectating, the highlight was a little old lady who was halfway into the men's room while a group of three custodians kept yelling at her to go to the ladies room next door. At least three different languages were involved.
Cheap early morning entertainment.
The flight was a little early (6:02!), but customs allowed us enough time to adjust our early morning dispositions before Maggie cleared the gauntlet. Mom is clearly happy to have her back on home soil.
And here she is showing off her new souvenir leather bag and travelling stuffed sheep.

We decided to stop in Venice for a quick breakfast, then head back up the coast. Breakfast was lovely (at the Cafe Collage, smack in the middle of a somewhat bohemian neighborhood - is there any other kind in Venice - at Pacific and Windward), but on our way home, we discovered that we had unknowingly crossed over the freeway (Remember we only have one fwy where we come from) and found ourselves in Brentwood. I know the locals will say - "what a bunch of rubes", but that north end of Venice is poorly signed, I don't care what you say, bucko!

Fortunately, the fellow at the 7-11 on Wilshire and Barrington (see I told you we were a bit out of the way) knew his way around the neighborhood, and once we established that we did NOT want to get on the 405 ("it's closed, you know?"), gave us stellar instructions back to the coast. To the welcome home streamers on the gate thanks to Cayley and Barb, and time for more R&R for all involved.

Two days, 1137 miles. Welcome to Carmageddon! or.... not.

Well, remarkably enough, thus far right on schedule.
We were tearful (or was it just gas?) as we left mighty Beaver under the weight of a motel discount bacon and egg breakfast (proof once again that you get what you pay for).
But we were also looking forward to a trip across the desert - the first in many years for everyone. And we were not disappointed - but that might also have had something to do with the functioning A/C in the car. St George, Vegas, Baker, Barstow, you name it - dry river beds as far as the eye could see. Even got to see the somewhat famous "Cronese Cat" - a unique sand dune that was formed by wind blowing UP the side of the Cronese Mountains. (See http://www.jstor.org/pss/30071553. Former UCSB geology students may recall that Bob Norris had a photo of this outside of his office for years. Decades, perhaps!)

Came down Cajon summit and saw the San Bernardino flood control structure, and knew were were getting close:

But wait, a short side trip to say hello to sister Cathy and her dog Bob. Below, some of Cathy, most of Bob:

Ever the festive one, she offers some refreshments. Who were we to refuse?

(BUT, we had some distance to make yet, so being responsible travelers, we put the Padron in the cooler, ate the ginger snaps, and made our way westward along the 210.) The reports from near and far indicated that the beastly traffic was not yet materializing, so we changed plans and headed straight into the belly of the beast - (Traffic Olympics, part 2) west along the 210, crossing over to the 110 via Orange Grove, straight into downtown LA,

to I-10 to Santa Monica and the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).

And we saw:

And said, "duh."

And we got to gaze into the eyes of the culprit, the curiously empty 405 freeway as we crossed over it on I-10 (aka the Santa Monica freeway). Good time to make an apocalyptic LA film:

Sizzled out onto the coast and right along up the PCH:

Felt the cool ocean breeze, and said, "Ahhhhhh...."

Greeted by Barb and Frans with a beer, comfy chairs, and good old fashioned relaxation.

Next up: LAX at 6am.

Did I also mention...

That Carmageddon officially begins tomorrow?

Hey Castore! Welcome to Beaver, Utah.

609 miles later, we are here at the first target. In Beaver. Utah.
What a day - it started at about 2am with a call from Cayley telling us that she was getting a ride home (a thousand thanks to Amy!), and so another snap decision was made - everyone go to bed and we'll think about what's next.
But wait, what about Harry Potter? See for yourself (that's Cayley and her pal Natasha center left, from the front page of today's Bozeman Daily Chronicle):

Apparently it (the movie) was everything they had hoped for.

The article even included quotes from the girls (they were, after all, the second party in line for the show).

In Bozeman, EVERYONE is a celeb!

Fast forward to 7am, start rustling, packing, eating, feeding animals, etc.
Out the door by 9am, and the long drive begins, stopping for coffee recycling approximately every hour in the morning, and Idaho Falls for lunch, and then nuthin' but gas for the next 300 miles. Narrowly avoided full-court rush-hour gridlock in Salt Lake and Provo.
And here we are in Beaver, named for the Beaver River, which along with the Sevier River feed Lake Sevier, an intermittent and endorheic (look it up!) lake which lies in the lowest part of the Sevier Desert.
From Wikipedia:

"Beaver is the birthplace of two well-known, but very different, people: Philo T. Farnsworth and Butch Cassidy. Philo T. Farnsworth was the inventor of several critical electronic devices that made television possible, including the cathode ray tube. He was also the first to create table-top nuclear-fusion. Butch Cassidy was a notorious western outlaw."   (Apparently the authors were bigger fans of Philo than Butch.)  The article also states: "The town is famous for the giant letter 'B', which is visible from the freeway. It is also visible on Google Maps: 38 15' 52.26" N, 112 34' 57.20 W."

I can't speak for Google Maps, but we have indeed seen the giant "B" from the interstate. It is rather large.
Beaver also has the distinction of being the first town in Utah to be electrified. I can see the city fathers now - "Welcome to all-electric Beaver."

On the recommendation of the motel concierge (okay I am being generous, she worked the front desk too), we dined at the evervescent Kan Kun Restaurant (go ahead - try to pronounce it). Now, when we went looking around town, we were of course searching for the "Cancun" restaurant, but apparently the proprietors felt that a more phonetic spelling would be a better draw with the the locals as well as the touristas. It worked. The only embarassment to some was when Karin, in an hommage to her dad, did her best to speak Spanish to the waitress when ordering beer. Cayley, being new at this game, was mildly mortified. Below, the Kan Kun, where they are clearly more interested in you knowing what kind of food they server rather than the name of the joint:

And the explorer is safely tucked away downstairs, still somewhat stuffed, lashed, and bug-laden. Like Robert Redford does, I chose the good side to photograph:

 Onward to Carmageddon!