California Road Trip 2008!

So the first part of this trip was to go to the ALMS Sports car championships in Monterey, The other half was to go drop off the guys Monday morning at San Jose Airport to get them home, and I was going to go up to San Fransisco to pick up Amber so we could check out San Fransisco, Monterey, and drive up Highway 1 the coast of California.

So here was the 8 Day Route: Google Maps Link

The Garmin logged about 62 hours in the car, And with all the misc trips to the track and such it was just over 2800 miles when I returned to Seattle. Needless to say the next time I do Highway One, it's going to be in a nice sports car. It was the longest windiest but, most georgous 500 miles of my life.

Full Image Gallery here: http://airpoppoff.com/Extravaganzas/California%20Road%20Trip%202008/

GPS Image Locations here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Airpoppoff/CaliforniaRoadTrip2008/photo#map


As I waited for Amber to get to SFO, I traveled around the bay, Looking for things to do. Got some lunch and went across the San Mateo-Hayward bridge. It's like 8 miles long. Defintely the biggest bridge I've driven on.


And stopped by Treasure Island, An old abandoned Navy base.



I picked bambs up, then went and checked in at the resort, then we went down to the golden gate park.


A look at Alcatraz from it.





The next day we took a ferry to Alcatraz, probably one of the most interesting places I've been to. Definitely suggest it to anyone going there.

A view inside the Cell Block


Grenade scars on the concrete from "The Battle of Alcatraz"


Solitary Confinement Cells, 24 hour lockdown, not much natural light.


Allen West's Cell that he escaped from, along making a fake head. You can see the hole in the back of the wall they made.


The Lighthouse and view to San Fransisco


Me and Bambs and both Bridges into San Fransisco




After San Fran, we went back down to Monterey to see the sunset.


The next day, we headed north on Highway one from Monterey. This is a tad north of Santa Cruz.


Across the Golden Gate


At some lookout point over where highway one hits the coast, It was absolutely gorgeous, You could see for MILES.



We stopped to have lunch in Stinson Beach and went North of Bodega Bay stopped at a beach for bambs to do some cartwheels.


North of a small town called Jenner, We stopped along some cliffs to take more pics.


We saw probably the most longest lasting sunset I've ever seen in my life. This I took just North of Stewarts Point. Then we kept driving.


We saw a sign for a lighthouse almost 30 minutes later, and the sun was still setting, So we drove out to it to take some more pics.


We stayed the night in a podunk town of Fort Bragg, CA and set out the next morning to head to the redwood forest.


Then we found some tree you can drive through. I had to back the 4runner in though, it wont fit with the Thule on top :)


Then Bambs found a real Tree, House.



Then we saw the biggest tree. (22 foot wide)



Until next time... Needless to say by the end of the trip I was sick of trees and sharp turns.