After our mad dash through Oregon we spent a day exploring Redwoods National Park in Northern California. I remember going there when I was little and I wondered if the trees would look as huge to me as they did when I was 10. They did! We stayed in the campground that was spread out through the old growth forest, it was a beautiful place to spend the night.

The old growth forests trees were HUGE!

We found ourselves staring up into the trees as we hiked.

Seeing how small Sam looked next to the roots helps with the scale of the trees.

HUGE root.

In the morning large elk were eating the grass in the fog, it looked magical. Great place to drink your morning coffee.

After our morning hike we decided to do the long drive down the 101 freeway to San Francisco where we were going to see my friend Maria’s beautiful new baby girl before we headed up to XP headquarters. And of course on our way we had to stop at our favorite brewery and stock up on some Pliny the Elder for Marc, the owner of XP camper (well, and maybe for us also).

If you are ever near Santa Rosa, stop by the Russian River Brewing Company and order a pizza and a pint of Pliny the Elder. YUM!

After our lunch stop we drove into San Francisco. When I saw the Golden Gate bridge, I got this strange feeling like we were going home and the trip was over, I got suddenly depressed. It was difficult driving back into such familiar space after months on the road exploring so many new places. It was also weird to drive into the city and not have our home or our cats to go back to. Instead we slept in our camper outside of our friends Lisa and Clay’s house. I am glad they have such cool neighbors. After just two days we needed to move on and it was good. I felt like it was too soon to be back. I was just unwinding the ties from our old life and seeing all my friends again made all the pain of leaving the first time come back. Leaving the people you love is the hardest part of taking a long trip like ours, but we are also really lucky to have such great people in our lives.

Home again….

After our sad goodbyes (for the second time in SF), we headed up to Grass Valley to XP headquarters to get some tweaks on our camper before going into Mexico.

Getting new brakes installed, Marc’s team can help you do almost everything!

On to Utah to visit our kitties and spend a final week with Sam’s awesome family and make our Dodge theft proof.