Forks, Washington

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After Silverton we headed for the coast again to a place called Tillamook. There was an air museum here which was inside a massive hangar that was used for WW2 airships. Supposedly one of the largest wooden buildings in the world. It was a pretty impressive sight and was really good inside with loads of aircraft from WW2 to modern jets. http://www.tillamookair.com/ We stayed one night at a park in Tillamook.

Before we left Tillamook we took the RV to a garage to get the oil topped up, tyres and transmission fluid checked etc. Then we headed north out of Oregon and into Washington state. We were aiming to stay at the RV park owned by the guy who leased us the RV. This was at a place called Grayland, halfway up the Washington coast. The weather finally changed and we have sunny clear skies rather than endless clouds like our whole time in Oregon.

Today we left Grayland, stopped off in Aberdeen to get some lunch, use the wifi and see the Hangover again (yep, its that good!). After this we were back on the road to Forks. This is a town on the west side of the Olympic national park which we will visit tomorrow. The park is quite big so we can only visit a few highlights. Tomorrow will be the Hoh Rain forest which is one of the few temperate rain forests in the world. We'll be moving to the North side of the park in a couple of days and then on to Seattle.

Silverton, Oregon.

So we're in Silverton. It's just outside Salem in northern Oregon.

We went to see The Hangover at the cinema yesterday, it was brilliant. Hilariously funny and outrageously insane. It has the funniest ending credits I've ever seen.

Today is William Cory's birthday! 23 years old. Congratulations to him! Think we're heading to some mall to do some shopping and get some food.

Not much else to report, RV park is good, weather is so-so. Driving up to Portland tomorrow. Oh yeah! We got tickets to see Greenday and Coldplay in July! Closely followed by Blink 182 in August. Going to be a crazy few weeks!

Go watch The Hangover!

Crater Lake - Sutherlin

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After Eureka we stayed at an RV park a little further north, near redwood national park. It was on the bank of a river at a town called Klamath. The nightly rate was cheap so we stayed for 3 nights, making use of the pool table in their rec room....

We left Klamath and headed north towards our next state which is Oregon. We couldnt make the drive to Crater Lake in one day so we stayed a couple of hours away. This is where we headed today. Its been warm all day but there has always been rain on the horizon.

There was still a lot of snow either side of the road up to the lake, and at the visitor centre it was really deep. The views were fantastic even though the weather wasnt great. We took some pictures and then headed out the north side of the park.

The drive was another couple of hours to our next stop at a town called Sutherlin. The storm caught up with us for this drive and we had heavy rain for the majority of the journey. It had stopped by the time we arrived so we got set up and had a bbq. The RV park has a big prjection screen in the corner like a drive-in movie, you just tune your car radio to get the audio. Most of the rv sites have a view on the screen too. It would be interesting to see it in action but they arent showing anything until saturday.

We'll stay here a couple of nights and then were heading up to Salem.

Alcatraz/Eureka

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We didnt get to see Alcatraz on our first day because it was fully booked. So we just checked out some places around the city like the cable cars, chinatown, and fishermans wharf. There were loads of street entertainers here doing the usual stuff, but the best one was simple; a guy just holding a bush to hide behind and making people jump as they walked by..including me. He had loads of spectators on the opposite pavement too.

We had Alacatraz booked for our last day. It was foggy over the bay as it had been every other day, and on the island it was really windy. A free audio tour was included which had former guards and inmates telling stories to guide you through which was very interesting. It was a surprise to see how small the cells were and how narrow the corridors are. The audio tour didnt point out all the specific cells that people like Al Capone occupied which I thought it would, but it definitely wasnt a disappointment. Heres a picture of Geo in "The hole", one of the isolation cells.

Yesterday we left San Francisco and headed for Eureka which was a 5 hour 250 mile drive. Its a town on the coast not far from the Northern border of California with Oregon. The weather was sunny all the way until we got to the town where we have more fog. Its pretty cold out so were hoping it will improve again as we head inland. Were visiting a brewery for lunch today and going to the cinema, then going to an rv park near redwood national park.

San Francisco

Not really much to report on this update. We travelled up to Saratoga, which is just outside San Francisco. We had a few days there just to recharge the batteries after Yosemite. Saratoga was a lovely little town, pretty much the first place we've come across where we thought "Yeah, it would be awesome to live here" It's very picturesque. We watched Terminator Salvation here; meh. Definitely not as good as T2.



We're in a RV Park in San Francisco at the moment, we're heading to Alcatraz tomorrow and into SF proper.

Wednesday is Champions League Final day! Cory is almost as excited as me!! We're watching it in a sports bar at about 11AM US time! We may partake in a few ales - Remember, don't pace yourself.

Yosemite

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We arrived at the rv park just outside yosemite on Sunday. We havn't been able to access any wifi until now which explains why the blog hasn't been updated for a while. We also have no phone signal at all in the area.. On monday we drove down to the valley for the first time. We stopped along the way through to take in the sights and took a short walk to Bridalveil Falls which were in full flow. We could feel the spray from far off, but when we got closer, the path was like a small river and the spray was more like a heavy rainstorm. We had no campsite reserved so had to go on a waiting list. Luckily there were 12 spaces available and we were 11th in the list. Just as we were parking up at the site we had a pretty heavy hailstorm which we got on video. Eventually it cleared up and we had another BBQ.

The next day we hiked to Mirror Lake which was a couple of miles from our site. After lunch we visited Yosemite Falls, which are the tallest in North America and in the top 10 or so in the world. We didnt get as close as the other falls but they looked the most impressive due to the incredible height. We had no campsite booked for that day either, so we decided we would head back to our previous park outside Yosemite to make use of the electric hookups, laundry, showers etc.

Yesterday we got up early for a change to use the coin-op laundry in the village near our rv park, Greeley Hill. While we waited we went for breakfast in a small cafe. It was a really local place with stuffed deer heads and such on the walls, but the food was very good.

With the laundry finished we headed back into the valley. We had two nights reserved here so just parked up and got the bikes out then headed to the yosemite village to check out the Ansel Adams gallery and Yosemite Lodge.

Today we drove to Mariposa grove where we saw some more big trees. Some have tunnels cut in them or are completely hollow so you can see right out of the top. There were even some deer right next to the path which didn't seem at all scared of all the people taking pictures.

Afterwards we took the drive to Glacier point which has a perfect panoramic view of the valley.

We have a 4 hour drive tomorrow to San Francisco but before we go we are going to the waterfall again to get a soaking.

Sequoia National Park

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We drove from Morro Bay to Sequoia which took 3 or 4 hours. The road into the park was incredible. It climbed 5000 feet from the park entrance to our campsite in the centre. We could only drive 15-20mph as the roads were constantly twisting with a hairpin every half a mile. As we got higher the scenery changed and we were amongst the giant sequoias, having to drive through gaps in the trees where the road has to split into two levels.

The drive was a challenge but I actually really enjoyed it.

Eventually we got to the campsite only to find that all the RV spaces were closed. After asking other people parked in RVs, we found out that we could park in the main car park for free. The campsite was in a great setting with mountains and rivers surrounding it. There was even some snow/ice still on the ground around the trees. There were warnings of bears in the area. We didnt see any, but we did see a deer close to where we parked the RV.

Next morning we packed up and went to see the General Sherman tree. It was more impressive than I imagined. Photos dont really do it justice.

We got back to the RV and made our way back down the twisty road and out of the park to an RV park near Tulare.