Thursday, August 4, 2011

Joshua Tree Road Trip #7


Day 9, 10, & 11
Santa Clarita to Ashland
Ashland to Portland 
Portland to Seattle

We started off day 9 in Santa Clarita and after the tire blow out the day before i decided it would be best to get new tires all around. While the truck was being worked over we wandered around a little bit. We found a Goodwill which happened to be the worst Goodwill ever, everything was expensive and nothing was good. Then we made our way down to the Walmart to hang out for a bit before going to In-N-Out for lunch. After lunch the truck was ready so we started making the long haul northwards. We didn't really have any plan on where to stop for the night we just were hoping to get as far north as we could to make the trip the next day to Portland as short as we could. 

After Santa Clarita we made our way through German, or Gorman, Garman, Gmrman or something

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Then through the Hungry Valley, which didn't seem all that hungry

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We then made our way through iconic California which consists of power lines, oil derricks, and half burnt landscapes.
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And lots of trucks

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It was strange seeing my College nickname up on a sign

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Then there were all the power lines stretching off into the horizon
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Then all the rows and rows of farmland

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Then more power lines

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Then forgotten places

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It was a long long drive this day but we managed to keep ourselves entertained with music and podcasts

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At one point I got so hungry I ate a tree

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It was somewhat good and bad to see this sign, only 628 miles to Portland, only

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I started to get a little stir crazy behind the wheel

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But then I got serious and said "Lets do this"
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But then night came upon us 

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We stopped off for gas one last time for the night and checked to see if we had hit any bugs going through all the farm land, I guess we hit a few

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As it started getting darker I gave Carmel the camera set up to take some fun pictures playing with the car lights

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We made it all the way to Ashland before I said enough. We found a small cheap little place to crash for the night. 

The next morning we headed out on a much shorter drive for the day

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Portland here we come

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We needed some coffee

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This is what most of the drive looked like

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We passed some cool cars

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We then got into Portland a little after noon and first thing we went to go check out John's sculpture at the Portland Art Museum which looked amazing. We then ventured out around town looking for a place to grab lunch. We settled on the Descutes brewery which was amazing.

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We then explored Portland a little more

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We settled in for the night hoping to wake up early enough to get to voodoo doughnut before a huge line formed

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We got to Voodoo around 40 minutes before they were suppose to open so we just hung out around the door for awhile taking in the sights. 

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Security was pretty tight

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Then we kept waiting and waiting for them to open, by now a long line had started to form behind us

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Then the time they were suppose to open passed and we were just waiting not knowing when they would open.

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It was sad

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I got bored so I played around with Carmel's necklace for awhile

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I started to get a little impatient, I wanted my doughnut!

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Finally they opened!

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Everything was better

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Mission accomplished!

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After voodoo we headed to Powells to look at some more books

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I found some interesting reading material

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We then said goodbye to Portland and started making our way back up home to Seattle

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Finally we had made it back to Washington

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and of course it started raining

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Finally we had made it

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It was an amazing road trip with many adventures. This trip was filled with destinations, it was a good mix of driving and staying places to explore. It definitely gave us a good idea of places we wanted to explore more. We mostly kept to our scheduled but of course a few things changed but all in all we got to go, do and see pretty much everything we wanted. This was definitely my favorite road trip so far.

Here is a recap of the trip. 
Day 1 and 2 
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5 and 6
 Day 7
Day 8
Day 9, 10 and 11
Santa Clarita to Ashland to Portland to Home

1 comment:

  1. Seriously...all that build up and still no photos of the damn donuts?! I like all the photos. It kinda makes me feel like I got to have a trip this summer.

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