The Road to Portland

We left Ventura, CA on June 25th and headed off to San Fransisco to party it up for Pride. On the way there we stopped at an avocado, tomato and coconut stand and made some purchases. Mom, I finally got to put that hatchet you bought me to good use.

That's me chopping a coconut.

Upon arriving in San Fransisco we were immediately faced with major parking problems. One of the biggest parking problems being that it is incredibly uncomfortable to sleep in the car at the angle of San Fransisco hills - it's pretty much like standing up. I woke up one morning more or less in the fetal position beneath the steering wheel; another morning I woke up with my knees locked out straight. It was not our most comfortable sleeping situation, I have to say.  But San Fransisco is a beautiful city and has a lot to offer, so it made up for it's lack of parking.

The 26th was Dyke March in Dolores Park which was a BLAST. It's the largest gathering of dykes in the world, I'm told and even I was shocked at how enormous the crowd was. We met a bunch of cool people, heard live music, participated in the march, danced... had ourselves a big ol' party, very fun.

 Dyke March in Dolores Park

Dyke March after party

The next day was Pride but it paled in comparison to the day before so we took it easy. The following day, on our way out of San Fran (we would've stayed longer but the parking was killing us) we checked out the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bride was amazing. Cloudy, windy, beautiful and HUGE. It's hard to pick just a few photos from that because we have so many good ones.

After San Fran we ended up staying one night in Eureka with a really cool guy named Nick who we found via couchsurfing.  We got to take showers and hang out and ate tomato soup with grilled cheese and watched Speedy Gonzales. The next morning we were off to the Redwood National Park. On the way we picked up a hitchhiker named Erin who was heading back to Portland from Santa Barbara. She was from upstate NY originally which was funny. She wasn't with us for long, but she was a fun addition. The Redwood National Park can speak for itself.

After the park we headed to Crater Lake to go camping. 

 

The lake was too expensive though, so we found another equally beautiful campground and stayed for two nights. We cooked hot dogs, veggie dogs, eggs, s'mores and pop corn over the fire and spent a lot of time wrapped up in sleeping bags reading. It was a beautiful area - I feel like I say that so often though it loses it's punch, but it really was.

After a couple days we started moving towards Portland, stopping in Eugene, OR and spending an afternoon and evening at the Farmer's Market.

Now we've arrived in Portland, OR and within 48 hours of being here have found a cheap apartment in which we'll be staying for the next month. We intend on hanging around Portland and working here for a couple months so I think this will be our last blog for awhile. Thanks for reading, stay tuned for the next leg of the adventure!