At the end of June Ryan and I took a trip up the Pacific Coast to visit our friends Aaron and Jaime, as well as my brother Matt, and saw a lot of cool things!
Our first stop was Los Angeles. We wa
nted to go to the temple but we got lost trying a different way and ended up getting Subway and meeting up with my brother, Tyler, at Santa Monica Pier. After eating we walked down the pier and saw a sail boat on the horizon and a trapeze artist school. Then we headed to Northridge to have frozen yogurt with Sarah, Belle and Karen.
After the frozen yogurt and a great time catching up, we headed to Santa Maria to sleep for the night. You might think us crazy but we camped out in the bed of our truck at one of the Mormon churches there. When we got back on the road we found out that our friends we were heading to visit had mistaken when we'd be there so we tried to stall a bit by going to Hearst Castle off of the Pacific Coast Highway. When we got to the castle we were dissapointed to find that tours up to the castle were kinda pricey so we headed on our way again.
We decided to stop at a look out on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We took some pictures and when we got back to our truck a couple had parked next to us and asked where we were from. After telling them they said that the had recognized the license plate frame from the town they grew up in and that's why they asked about where we lived.
We made it to Monterey a little early. Later in the evening we got to go to the beach which was a two minute walk from our friends house. The next day Aaron and Jaime took us to the Fishermans Warf and Cannery Row on a cool shuttle for free. We saw some Sea Lions and Otters and a great spray paint artist on the street. On Sunday, we went to church and got to help out in the nursery. After church we went to Carmel Beach to search for a memorial for Ryan's second cousin that his uncle had told us about but we couldn't find one. We also walked around the village by the beach. They had the cutest cottages!
On Monday, the Fourth of July, we went on a hike at Point Lobos State Park. It is a really pretty forest area on the coast that has a bunch of coves you can hike to. One in particular used to be a place where whalers brought Whales after killing them. It was pretty cool to see the whale bones they had kept there and read about the history of whalers. The park also had these really trippy trees that grew in all kinds of different directions. Unfortunately, we contracted Poison Oak from this outing but thankfully it didn't present itself until after we had arrived home. After our hike, we went to a party put on by the apartment manager and watched fireworks on tv since the city of Monterey doesn't set them off.
On Tuesday, we drove two hours to Berkeley where my brother Matt is going to school. He showed us a wicked cool place to take pictures of the bay and then showed us around his campus and a little bit of the area right around the university. He had class in the early afternoon so while he was there we drove over a town to Berkley to Oakland where there is a temple. We got to do some work inside and then headed back to Matt's house to meet up with him after his class. We had some delectable Chinese cuisine before saying good by and heading back to Monterey.
Wednesday was long and hot as we drove seven hours to get home. We took a different route home so we didn't have the nice cool air of the ocean. We lost our spare tire on the five which wasn't fun. To cool off a bit we stopped at Charlie Browns in Little Rock for a shake and a smoothie. Also, as we cruised home Ryan let me try out driving stick shift and it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be.
It was a really great trip and was really enjoyable to see some family and friends while seeing some of the sights in California.
