The Ride Home

We finally started the journey home.  While we enjoyed the beautiful drive, we were definitley on a mission to just get home!  I slept a lot of the way! So did Daisy.

We camped overnight in Utah and were blessed with the MOST beautiful sunset of the whole trip.  The sky seemed to be on fire with a blazing spirit.  We enjoyed this for about an hour, overwhelmed with how luck we are to be able to take such amazing trips together as a family.  We know we have a really special situation, where we can spend 5 weeks on the road in a pop up, seeing far off places, and spending lots of time together as a family.  This night we were reminded about what a humbling experience our trip was, and how much we look forward to more to come!

After the beautiful sky, we had a heavy thunderstorm.  It was a great time to just sit in the pop up, eat dinner and play some games (and have a beer if you weren't pregnant or 2 years old!).

We braided my hair for the final drive home.  I wanted to look pretty when we pulled into the drive!

Daddy's last "take down" - bitter sweet.

Our welcome home sign!

And our welcome home scenery - this is why we love Colorado as much as we love the places we visited.

The ride home was fun and not without it's own adventures...

Last stop (Before heading home)...Malibu and Hermosa Beach!

We finally made it to Malibu for Maile and Justin's wedding.  Mommy and daddy used to live upstairs from Maile and Justin.  It was a beautiful wedding and a really fun time.  We stayed in a beautiful Malibu hotel and got to get all dressed up.

The next day we went to Hermosa Beach, where mommy and daddy lived, and where they got engaged.  I got to hang out at the beach that they used to spend a lot of time at!  I loved the ocean.

After a long day on the beach, some sushi and mochi, we headed back up the hill to the car.  I thought it would be fun to do some dancing to "spanish lullaby", one of my summer favorites.

The video below is me dancing with my shadow, singing Spanish Lullaby at the top of my lungs.  I had a great time, I think mommy and daddy were just ready to go!



Super Fun in San Fran!

We met back up with Kendra and Ben (yes, for the third time on this trip) in San Francisco.  We did a ton of fund things there...and these pictures hardly do justice!  We went to a really neat market and saw fresh fungus....

 Lots of cheeses....

And then we went to "naked beach" with Ben for the day.  Ben and I have a lot in common...

 
The beach was not far from their house and really beautiful.  The rumor is that there are always naked kids running around here...I got the urge!

Here is just one of many bridges we saw.

We took a ferry from Ben's side of the bay to the city side.

We left the ferry to explore the piers, and to eat great food!

When we got back to Kendra's house, she taught me how to make snails dissolve - a little salt and a lot of mischief!

This is the view from Ben and Kendra's house!

And this was our pop up spot while in the city...the side of the road!  We didn't sleep in it, just parked it there and had our first time to sleep in a bedroom on the whole trip!

Needless to say, I was exhausted!

Enjoying our "indoor" bed (and warm hot baths!)



Northern California - Sacramento River

We drove from Big Sur to the Sacramento River to meet up with Ben and Kendra.  The drive was really pretty - Olivia found a great potty spot.  She took her time enjoying the view!

We ended up at a beautiful camping spot in a meadow on the river.  There was a bit of a noisy train (pretty common along the rivers), but so worth it.

Daddy went fishing in the early morning, so Olivia and mommy hung out around the campground.  This bridge was a huge hit. 

Somehow I managed to ride my bike around in Ben's truck.  This is where I learned to turn!

I took over the pop up with baby time!

The river was low, but in a beautiful setting with snow capped mountains in the distance...

We went to the lake and watched the boats go by, and went swimming of course!

Here is our pop up in the meadow!

Big Sur Day 2

The next day we found an even better campsite right on the cliffs overlooking the ocean.  It was really amazing.  The whole shoreline is green, steep, and full of blueness everywhere (sky, ocean)...

Here is the view from our second campsite - just breathtaking.

We did some hiking, with me on Daddy's back!

And we also watched the surfers for a while, with a picnic on the beach.  Daisy loved running around!

We caught beautiful sunsets throughout our whole trip, these were some of the best.  If you've never been to Big Sur, you should go!

Big Sur Day 1

We got to Big Sur in California, with no idea how beautiful it was.  We were in for a huge treat.  Big Sur is like New Zealand in the way it looks, its isolation, and all the beautiful adventures it has to offer.  The first night, we made dinner right on the beach in front of a strong wave break. We had a quiet spot with no one else there.  It was magical!

We didn't expect it to be so crowded so didn't book a campsite. That was a problem until we found this awesome little curve in the road way above the cliffs that was quiet and free (on national forest land).  This is where it was on the map...

Olivia spent the first night studying about bugs!