Day 4 Yellowstone National Park

We wake up to the sound of rain on the roof of our tent - good thing we put the rain cover on! Fortunately it only lasts a few minutes. After a short talk with the ranger where he tells us that there's a bear that's been hanging around our campsite for the last week, we head out to the Yellowstone General Store for some breakfast. Unfortunately we arrive after breakfast is over so we get lunch instead. We somehow manage to time it exactly right and walk up to Old Faithful a minute or two before it um.... shoots? blows? erupts? geyses? Anyway, we see it happen - pretty exciting - and then we head out to the trail that our server from the night before suggested, the mystic falls trail. The trail starts just past the midway geyser basin where we see some really pretty turquoise and deep blue sulphur pools. Before setting out on the trail we read the bear warning sign which advises "stand your ground if a bear charges most are false charges" - very comforting. It also suggest playing dead if a bear attacks - so basically you're just screwed. Undaunted we head up the trail which winds up a mountain to where you get a really great view of the park and the falls below. Afterwards we have worked up quite a sweat and decide to head over to firehole river where you can swim in a certain section. The water is surprisingly warm although the area is pretty crowded - perhaps the two are related? We have a nice leisurely swim and then head out of the park to the town of West Yellowstone for some groceries to prepare our meal for the evening. As we have absolutely no cooking utensils our options are limited - we decide on sausage and a bell pepper to cook over the campfire as well as a can of soup with a pull-top that we can cook in the can. The sky keeps threatening to rain so before starting our campfire we ask the ranger if he thinks it will rain. His response "It hasn't rained nothing to spit at in a looong time, we drier now than we were in the fire of 99" Okay then. It sprinkles a little bit but we cook our meal without too much problem - it's surprisingly good for something cooked with absolutely no utensils. Right after we finish up the thunder starts, the sky crackles every now and then with a flash of lightning. The rangers come by and let us know that there's a bear at the other end of the campsite and that if we see it we should let them know. Ten minutes go by and the storm seems to be getting closer, sleeping in he car is looking like a better and better option. More rangers drive by - the bear is now between two tents at the end of the road. We head down in the car to see if we can see anything. No luck, but it starts to rain and the lightning is getting closer, it sounds like it's right on top of us. Maybe we'll just hang out in the car for a bit. We cruise around the park for a little while in the car until the storm passes. A few minutes go by and the rain stops, we get back to our campsite and as Marc steps out of the car our neighbor asks "Deed you ear zer ees a bear een ze campground" Ahhh a Frenchie.

Day 3, drive to Yellowstone, WY

We aim to leave at 6am from the Reed's house but end up sticking around until 7am. On recommendation we hit up the Sisters Coffee Company for some lattes. While my loyalties will always lie with Blue Bottle - this coffee was pretty damn tasty! We take the 20 East, the historical Oregon trail for the majority of the 15 hours of driving we do today. As it turns out everywhere we drive there seems to be road work going on. We cross all of Oregon and Idaho, on our way to Yellowstone National Park. As it turns out Marc has made reservations at the Old Faithful Inn restaurant for 9:30 that night. Aiming to get there with a little bit of daylight in order to set up our tent before dinner, we fail. Fortunately, after cruising through the entrance of Yellowstone and through the park at a cautious but eager 65 mph we bypass Madison, our campground, and manage to make it to Old Faithful Inn just after 9:30. The Old Faithful Inn is a pretty majestic place, a huge log cabin style hotel with cool lighting. We head on in to the restaurant, where someone immediately complements Marc on his Amoeba shirt. Our server, though very friendly seems to be a bit of a tool who can't recommend a wine and tells us that the salad comes pre-made from another company (mmm fresh!). I order a zinfandel with my elk medallions and marc the pinot gris with his trout. The result? I have come to learn that elk is delicious - tastes like steak but super tender, but my wine is really warm. The trout was so-so. Though our server was unable to suggest a wine he was able to suggest a hike and a place to go swimming in Yellowstone - we'll see how that goes! A little worried about finding our campsite and setting up our tent in the dark we head back towards Madison. After a couple of wrong turns we find the entrance and are greeted by an envelope taped to the ranger's station with our name on it - inside we find a carefully marked map and warnings about being attacked by bears and gored by bison. With help of our map, we have no trouble finding the campsite and set up our tent without a hitch.

Day 2 Sisters, Oregon

After a slow start - 10 hours of driving the day before had us pretty beat - we finally got moving and had a late brunch at the Black Butte Lodge. A pretty log-cabin style restaurant overlooking a man-made lake - they seem to be the thing in Sisters, everyone has one. Took the car into Les Schwab tires where they fixed us up for free! The Reeds took us to their hotel, the ponderosa village Best Western where we checked out their brand new suites, really fancy rooms with in room jacuzzi's and pretty awesome looking showers, and I was given a stuffed llama named Tori Amos. Later in the day, Marc and I went up to Suttle lake for a swim and a walk around the area. The water was not icy cold and there were a bunch of cute duckies and various drunkards with their kids swimming.

Day 1 of the Grand Voyage: Cross-country San Francisco to Boston

Marc and I manage to leave Los Altos with no fights and a well packed car - with room to spare even! Marc's French flag draped across the backseat and my senegalese one waving in the AC vent up front. We set out on the road at about 7am for about 9 hours of driving to Sisters, Oregon. I slept for probably the first two hours while Marc drove. Not a whole lot of excitement on the first half of this trip. We stopped and ate lunch in a town called Dunsmuir at the river cafe. The first of many burgers to come. Passed through Shasta which was really pretty but we didn't have time to stop and look around. Upon crossing the Oregon border Marc gets a $242 speeding ticket. Woo! off to a good start. As we get off the freeway and are arriving at our destination of Sisters we hear a thumping - we get out of the car to discover a giant screw in our tire. Awesome - fortunately we're a block away from a tire repair shop, and within spitting distance of marc's family's house. We arrive at the home of the Reed's and are greeted with tasty gin and tonic's (Marc has family that drinks!) and step outside to greet the llamas. Afterwards we head down to the nearest restaurant for some fish tacos and Twilight beer - from the Deschutes Brewery in Bend. While I don't have the refined beer palate that Dave does, I would say it rated tasty!

LA beach towns

Day 2 in LA was all about checking out the beach towns.
Venice - The canals are still fun to walk through, eventhough there are even more giant monstrosities along the banks. Abbott Kinney Blvd has a huge number of expensive maternity stores, wellness centers, and furniture stores, so it's lost more of it's funkyness. Stroh's Deli is still there, so we grabbed lunch. I had an exotic fried chicken and black forest ham sandwich. Yummy!
Santa Monica - We made a brief foray down Main Street. It has a few new buildings with a few new stores, but nothing worth mentioning. We stopped at the Library Ale House for an adult beverage, and it was good. We then hopped on The Big Blue Bus and got out of there.
Redondo Beach - We never spent much time down here before, but we cruised down the PCH to meet a bunch of pregnant people for dinner. It was fun, but all those pregnant peeps are scary.
Hermosa Beach - We ended the night with a walk around the pier. The pier itself has been renovated recently, so it's pleasant. The party joints around the pier were rockin' but we're too old for that stuff.

Return to LA

First fun trip back to SoCal since the move. It just took my experience at LAx to remind me why I was eager to escape. Flight time to LA: 55 minutes. Time from landing to car rental: 90 minutes. Such a freakin' waste.
So far the old hood is pretty much the same. Some things are cleaned up a bit. The parking lot at the Venice pier is getting a new restroom. Yippee!
Hinano's still makes one of the best burgers in the world, and it's still as divey as ever.
I drove by our old apartment and house and both are still standing.
We also checked out the new hip downtown Culver City. Ford's Filling Station proved to have excellent California cuisine, good service, and a more subtle LA crowd. There was even a small selection of craft beer on tap which included Firestone Double Barrel and a very Sierra-ish Ford's Pale Ale. After dinner we stopped by Vinum Populus to play with their cool wine dispensing apparatus. Plug your card in, push a button, out comes your wine, and then drink and repeat. Fun!
That was day 1, more to come later.

First test of email post

This is just a first test of a post sent through email. If it works,
it'll be cool.