California Dreamin'

It's been a few days since we have updated because we've been pretty busy. Since last we wrote we've gone to Phoenix all the up to the redwoods in northern California.

In Phoenix we had an awesome restful day with our friends Brent and Kelly (i?). We drank beer (for the children) played a fun dice game called Right Left Center and lost badly. Kelly made some excellent pork BBQ and put out an excellent spread. We slept that night in their RV on an extremely comfortable bed that was supplemented with a memory foam pillow top. We're going to have to get a camping version of that!

From Phoenix we headed out to Joshua Tree national forest. It's a neat place but the Colorado and Mojave deserts are much more foreboding than the Chihuahan and the Sonoran deserts. There seems to be much less scrub in the latter two making it seem more desolate. It was also extremely hot in Joshua Tree. Temperatures peaked at 114 degrees that day. One of the neater features in Joshua Tree was an oasis. The National Park Service had the actual shady area and spring blocked off to the point where you couldn't enjoy the shade or even really see the spring but life's reaction to available water in the desert is a neat thing to see even if you can't enjoy it yourself.

After visiting Joshua tree we spent some time with our friend Alex in the lovely city of San Francisco. We celebrated the completion of college and his project manager certification at a local resteraunt named catch on the first day and the second we took a drive through Napa doing what people do when they drive through Napa. Actually, we only stopped at 3 vineyards which all had delicious wine. Wine tasting on the west coast though is much more expensive than on the East Coast. A tasting per person there is 15 dollars. Back in NY or even around MD or PA it ranged from 2 - 5 dollars a person. Coincidentally, during the wine tasting we met a woman from Mandy's hometown of Pottstown, PA during the wine tour. It's a small world...

Leaving San Francisco we headed up the coast to Redwood National Forest. This has been some of our favorite scenery yet. We drove up both US 101 and Avenue of the Giants. I may have seen these enormous trees as a child but I certainly don't remember it. It's almost impossible to come up with words to properly describe the trees. The words spectacular and awesome don't quite cut it. We camped near the forest and managed to have, amazingly, our first campfire of the trip.

Today, we're scheduled to visit my uncle David and continue our trip up to Seattle. You'll hear again from us soon!