Arizona

This was a quick state for us as we only two stops: Tucson and Phoenix.

We were expecting Tucson to be like Dayton, but it’s actually a pretty cool city. It has a big art scene so there were lots of cool little restaurants and coffee shops and well, lots of art everywhere!

Walking bridge - you enter the mouth...

And exit by the rattle!

The best part of Tucson was the discovery of the Sonoran hot dog!! Here’s wikipedia’s definition:
The Sonoran hot dog, found in Tucson, Metro Phoenix, and in neighboring Sonora, Mexico, is a hot dog grilled in a processor or on a griddle, wrapped in Mesquite-smoked bacon, topped with freshly-chopped tomatoes, onions, shredded yellow or cotijo cheese, tomatillo salsa or red chili sauce, pinto beans, mayonnaise, ketchup and/or mustard, and served on bread.

Craig is enjoying his Sanoran hot dog and Mexican Coke

Lets get a close up of this deliciousness!

In Phoenix, Craig was pretty busy with shoots, so we didn’t have much time for sightseeing but we did hang with the Fullers and go on a hike.

Couldn't get in to the hockey game but had a good time anyway!

A desert hike - the cactuses are so cool!

Great view!

After Phoenix we decided to head back to Denver for a month. We are exhausted and need a break. It’s hard work living on the open road! Plus, Craig is completely swamped with work so he needs some time to catch up on all his projects. So we’ve been back in Denver a week now and Craig is cranking through work while I, Sara, am trying to get motivated to do our taxes and get my resume ready! It’s great to be back in Denver but looking forward to getting back on the road!

 

California

Well, as usual, we’re way behind on the posts. Here’s our photos from the big CA!

Our first stop in CA was Mt. Shasta. It was too cold and snowy for hiking but we stopped for a shoot for one of Craig’s clients. It’s a very small mountain/ski town so this is our only photo:

Mt. Shasta

Next we headed to the Redwoods National Parks:

Feels like were in Lord of the Rings!

The start to our 6 mile hike

Sara hugging a tree

While visiting the Redwoods we stayed near Crescent City. The Pacific Ocean is so much better than the Atlantic!

Lighthouse near Crescent City

The pacific ocean is so cool

After the Redwoods, we headed to San Francisco and hung out with some good friends who showed us the city:

San Francisco

One of our fav’s from sightseeing was the Alcatraz tour!

Alcatraz

Craig is very excited about the tour

Sara following the audio tour

Cell in Alcatraz...super small!

Looks like the movies

I, Sara, had a day to myself when Craig had to go back to Seattle for 24 hours. I went on a hike close to the ocean and then to Golden Gate Park. It was a great day!

Hike near San Francisco

Japanese Tea Garden

A really cool bridge in the tea garden

Next we headed to Yosemite. A snow storm had just moved through when we arrived and many of the roads were closed. So we were limited but we did make it in the park and went on a small hike. It’s beautiful and definately a place we’ll be going back to one day~

Yosemite in the snow

Half dome...snow cleared out later in the day

On a snowy hike

After Yosemite, we headed to LA where we flew to Cincy for the Holidays. It was nice to relax and hang with our families!

After the holidays we headed back to LA. Unfortunately, we didn’t take a single photo while we were there. I, Sara, was unimpressed with the city. I was expecting New York City on the west coast and LA is nothing like it. It’s one giant suburb and it takes forever to get anywhere in the city. The only touristy thing we did was go to Hollywood and it’s a dump! Of course we did have lots of little things go wrong like all our sleeping options fell through(including camping) and we started have car troubles and some other things. So maybe we’ll have to give LA another shot sometime! We really enjoyed the weather and all the boardwalks next to the beach. That was definitely a redeeming quality!

Next we moved onto San Diego. If we ever moved to CA this is the city we would chose! The weather and beaches were great and it feels less crowded. We had a great tour guide, a friend of Craigs, who let us stay with him and showed us some of the sights!

Our friend is the shadow...it's a group photo!

Craig being a rebel and drinking a beer on the beach

Great sunset in San Diego

This ends our time in California. It was great hanging with our friends, seeing some sights and meeting some amazing people that you’ll see in the near future on Recycle Your Faith. We can’t wait to go back again!

 

Stuck in Seattle

We’ve had quite the challenge keeping up with the blog! It’s more difficult than we originally thought so we’re going to be less optimistic and try to post once per state.

We just finished up Oregon and Washington and they were fantastic! Here’s a little summary of the last few weeks:

Portland was our first stop in Oregon and we absolutely loved it! This city has a great community vibe plus lots of great food and tons to do in the outdoors.

Here’s some photos from the waterfall hike we went on close to the city:

Hike near Portland

Exploring!

The leaf is as big as my head!

Craig being thoughtful

Waterfalls are cool

After Portland, we stopped at Mount St. Helens on our way to Seattle.

I may look pretty but i'm a deadly volcano:>

Seattle was a cool city but it rained almost the entire time we were there!

Cool fountain

Lots of neat sculptures

View of the Space Needle

The Fremont Troll

At the end of our two weeks in Seattle we were suppose to head to Vancouver Island. Unfortunately, Canada rejected us! Their reasoning: we had too much luggage and Craig’s video equipment so they were afraid we would work and hide out in Canada. Craig thinks the real reason we couldn’t in was because my nose ring makes me look like a shady character… Whatever the reason, we were totally bummed and forced to head back to Seattle.

The following day in Seattle as we were out n about, we were hit by a uninsured driver!

Our poor car

Doesn’t look like much but there was a lot of damage underneath which caused us to stay in Seattle an extra week! Two of those days we rented a car and headed to Forks, WA to Olympic National Park.

The water was so clear

Mossy trees

Sara under a tree

We saw wildlife

The trees are gigantic

Salmon, we think...whatever they are they were cool fishes

We headed to La Push at sunset:

La Push and sunset

Rocky beaches are the coolest

We happened to stay at the “Cullen’s House” while in Forks. So for all those Twilight fans here’s a photo. It looks nothing like the movies because they didn’t shoot any footage in Forks. In fact, the author never even visited the town until after she wrote the second book. However, the town has designated houses for the characters, in fact, they have a whole tour. Oh and 4 of the Cullens did visit Forks which they have photos of in the “Cullen’s House”.

After Forks, we headed down the coast to Cannon Beach.

Oregon Coast

We discovered Fort Columbia(i think) along the way:

It's a really cool fort because everything was open so we could explore

We're playing in the fort

They stored the gun ammo down here

Have no idea the name of this type of gun:>

After Cannon Beach(we arrived after dark so no photos i’m afraid), we headed back to Seattle to get our car and it looked great!! So we headed to Eugene to spend a couple days with Craig’s good friend, Jason and yesterday we arrived in Mt. Shasta, CA!

Next stops: Redwoods National Park, San Francisco and then fly out of LA to Cincy to be home for the holidays, woohoo! If anyone’s up for hanging in Cincy we’ll be there from the 24th – Jan 4th.

 

Photos from the last few weeks

We’re into week 5 of our trip already!! Time has flown by but here’s some photos from the past few weeks:

Arches National Park

Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park Part 2

Hiking down the Grand Canyon

Sara and Craig in the Grand Canyon

The garden in the Belaggio

Zion National Park - The Narrows

Craig in Bryce National Park

Bryce National Park aka Dr. Seussland

Bryce National Park

Salt Flats

Walla Walla Washington Sara's favorite city

All the national parks were amazing! Craig’s been busy interviewing lots of interesting people for his website and I’ve been busy being his groupie! Hopefully, now that were in civilization again we’ll do a better job of posting new photos and interesting stories.

We’re currently in Portland and we’ll be here thru Thursday.

Next stop….Seattle.

 

America the B.E.A.utiful Day 2 (Craig is rolling his eyes)

Greetings from Arches National Park, Utah,

We left Denver yesterday and drove 363 miles to Moab, Utah which is close to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park (not to be confused with Candyland). This first week we are taking it easy and visiting some national parks to do some hiking. Later this week we’ll hit Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon before ending up in Las Vegas early next week. We are staying in downtown Moab at the cheapest campground around that has a shower.

On the surface the campground seems great being in a wooded area with a swimming pool and free wifi. Almost nobody is in the remote area we chose and we quickly discovered why…it’s right behind the La Quinta Inn. The hotel mocks our choosing length over comfort on the trip with it’s bright parking lot lights and loud guests. However, we’re currently using their wifi to write this blog so it all works out!

More to come in the following days.

Check out the link at the top of this page that says “Road Trip Schedule” to see where we’re going to be and when! We’ll try to update this page as we go along.

Our Campsite (good view)

Our Campsite (bad view)

us at one of the arches

it's very quiet here