Alanna had a leadership course held
in a facility in Sonoma CA and we agreed to drive down with her and take a few extra
days on the journey back. We had a great time! While Alanna was in her course,
Ray and I visited San Francisco. Have you ever been there? We saw and enjoyed
the main sites like Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Fisherman’s Wharf,
but the main appeal of the city for us was the different neighbourhoods and the
eccentricities of each. We saw some fabulous “painted” steps, took a ride up
California Street in a cable car, watched hundreds of sea lions lounging on
docks at the wharf, walked around China Town, had pizza at Calzone’s in the
heart of North Beach, and walked for miles through the Golden Gate Park and the
endless beach close to the bridge.
On our way back to Sonoma up the Northern
California coastline we managed a hike in Muir Woods among the magnificent
redwoods, a visit to an air museum in Santa Rosa which featured military planes
since 1960 including the F-15
Eagle which was the first plane to arrive overhead the twin towers on Sept 11,
2001, an
overnight stay in Bodega Bay in a hotel I nicknamed “tinseltown” because of all
the outdoor Christmas lights, and a trip to Pt. Reyes and a 300+ step descent
and ascent to and from the lighthouse. 
Then we picked up Alanna and did a
massive drive up the coasts of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington, visiting
sites like Cape Foulweather (so named by Captain Cook!) Cape Disappointment,
and Eureka where the first two-man prototype of the chain saw was successfully
tested in 1905, then over to Interstate 5 and straight back to Squamish. 
Beautiful, beautiful, coastline. Very under-rated and well worth visiting – out of season!! We had an exciting second last day dodging torrential rain, road closures, land slides, fog, gale force winds, hail, and finally snow, but we made it safely to our destination in Astoria, Oregon. On our drive home from Astoria the next day we narrowly avoided landslides and a tornado but experienced more flooding than I have ever seen in my life. So, all in all, an exciting trip! Oh, and we also picked up a couple of young people who had run out of gas on the most deserted part of the highway and were able to guide them through their decision making and take them to the nearest gas station 12 miles away who promised to see them safely back to their car.
For more pictures see: https://flic.kr/s/aHskqdSjKq
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