West Coast Part I -- The Roadtrip

Just got back from an awesome time on the west coast.  Ritz and I flew up to Seattle and then road-tripped down to San Francisco and back.  Pictures, as promised:

As you might imagine, any roadtrip is going to generate a lot of pictures of people driving.  In this case, it's going to generate tons and tons, because Ritz gets fidgety when she's not in the pilot's seat, and we didn't opt to pay for a second driver on the way down to San Fran.  So sit back and enjoy her handiwork.

No hands.

Uh-hyuck.

I think I'm singing?

I'm grumpy because we paid for a mid-sized sedan, but didn't get an auxiliary input OR cruise control.  Rip off.

Then Ritz got tired of photographing me and starting working on her modeling portfolio.

Wow, look at that hair.

Then she caught me off guard.  The paparazzi are everywhere...  You can never be too careful.

You know you're on the west coast when you stop for a bite to eat, and there's a Cannabis "pharmacy" right next door.  We got to see a significant fraction of all the shady people in Portland, Oregon, during lunch.

We finally reached our destination that evening -- a quaint camping site on the Oregon coast.  The only problem is that the drive was longer than I anticipated and it was dark by the time we got there.  We also forgot a flashlight.  And the cooking fuel that I bought didn't work.

Oh well, we just threw the ramyun right on our campfire.  After buying a flashlight.  Then we set up the tent.

Taa-Daa!  Ritz is pretty good for only camping once before in her entire life.

I was tired.  During the night, it poured, and Ritika started feeling sick, perhaps from the suspect food we consumed for dinner.  In the morning, we were still pretty beat, but managed to go exploring a bit.

The dunes in Oregon are gorgeous.

And they gave Ritika back her spunkiness.

Forest + Beach = Ahhhhhhh.

Time for round 2.  Another 400+ miles in a single day...sigh.

You don't get to see these in Champaign.  It's weird seeing big mounds of rock on the horizon.

We were making pretty good time until noon, when we spotted a conveniently located outlet mall.  And the shoes were 75% off!!!!!  We spent probably 2 hours there...

The plaza had a small Hawaiian restaurant.  Pretty chill.

Mmmmmm.  So many good choices.

Why drive when you could fantasize you're in Hawaii?

There's even flowers.

There's my flower.

Enough photos.  Down to business.  I got something like pineapple sweet chili pork ribs.  Who wouldn't?

After accessorizing at the mall, we finally got back to work.  More signs with weed on them.

And more mountains.

Rest stop photo.  I never knew I would appreciate standing so much.

Again, we reached our destination late at night, but we still had time to stop by the female heaven-on-earth: The original Ghirardelli's.  Chocolaty goodness.