Road Trip 2021 Day 9 (232 miles)

This is my last post about our 2021 road trip! We drove from Oakland to Southern Oregon, stopping at the Oregon Vortex. It’s a mysterious spot in southern Oregon, a lot like Confusion Hill in California.

And we spent the night in a cool historic hotel in Southern Oregon. It was probably haunted.

And the next day we drove home (407 miles if you were wondering)! I hope you enjoyed this trip report. Until next time!

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Road Trip 2021 Day 8 (251 miles)

By day 8 we are finally back in a climate that agrees with us! We spent most of our day in Yosemite. The one-way roads in the valley forced us to spend even more time, because I remember having to backtrack a few times. This first photo is just inside Yosemite’s eastern entrance, at Olmsted Point.

Yosemite is beautiful, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to leave Kira out of most of the photos.

Sorry that photo isn’t very beautiful, but I saw bears!

And since we entered the park through a less-popular entrance, we grabbed our sign photo on the way out!

We’re getting closer and closer to home, but rather than getting on I-5 today, we ventured a little further and caught a baseball game in Oakland tonight!

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Road Trip 2021 day 7 (333 miles)

The recommended route to get us from Vegas to Yosemite was through Death Valley. I thought it would be awesome; sister thought it would be too hot. I lost. First we picked up doughnuts!

We stopped at the funniest rest stop ever (can’t find the photo, but will be sure to update if I do), and saw a donkey at a gas station.

Lunch was yummy yummy BBQ in Big Pine, CA. We slept in Mammoth Lakes, and dinner had an alpine theme.

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Road Trip 2021 Day 6 (326 miles)

We left the Cameron Trading Post and entered the Grand Canyon National Park at the easternmost entrance.

First stop (after the sign) was Desert View Watchtower

And we explored around the South Rim Visitors Center!

I’ve been to the Grand Canyon three times now, but it was my sister’s first visit. She left disappointed, because smog from recent wildfires made the canyon look quite flat.

Leaving the canyon, we headed toward Vegas. I wanted to stay on the strip, but sister was afraid of covid, so we ended up in Henderson, NV. We stopped for lunch in Kingman, AZ at Culvers, one of my favorite fast food stops that we don’t have in Washington.

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Road Trip 2021 Day 5 (379 miles)

I’m back! Writing about a vacation that’s almost two years old now. I’ve tried to find inspiration to continue writing about this vacation, but it’s been hard to find. Honestly, it’s because the vacation got pretty unpleasant. We drove too much, sister and I didn’t always agree, and the desert climate and elevation got to be a bit much for these Seattleites. But I got some nice photos, so I want to share them.

We left Monticello, UT and headed to Mesa Verde National Park.

Then it was onto the Four Corners Monument, where you have the opportunity to be in four states at once!

Then a long, long drive through a remote area, including Monument Valley.

Our hotel for the night was the Cameron Trading Post, which I can recommend highly. It is super-close to the eastern entrance of Grand Canyon NP, and it has a nice gift shop and restaurant.

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Road Trip 2021 Day 2 (361 miles)

I woke up in Boise and had a nice tourist moment on the way to breakfast.

My sister opted for hotel breakfast rather than my walk across the parking lot to Cracker Barrel. And since she missed this photo op, she picked another one in Idaho, somewhere in Twin Falls. We still aren’t sure which falls are the Twin Falls, but we stopped at Shoshone Falls.

Our next stop is really nerdy. I wanted to stop at the Golden Spike National Historic Park at Promontory Point, Utah. It’s where the transcontinental railroad was completed.

And weren’t we lucky that the reenactment ceremony started as soon as we arrived, and that we caught the last reenactment of the season?

Um, maybe we weren’t that lucky. The reenactment was pretty boring, much as I imagine it would have been in 1869. I voted not to watch the whole thing, and beat the crowds back into the museum.

Are you wondering why Kira chose this outfit today? It’s the Maplelea Paleontologist Set, and after a yummy lunch (Polynesian plate lunch from Mo’ Bettahs), we found dinosaurs in Ogden, UT!

At Ogden’s George S Eccles Dinosaur Park, there are acres of dinosaur replicas, as well as a natural history museum. Fun and educational.

I took lots and lots of photos of the dinosaurs, but I think I’ll stop here. We spent the night in Salt Lake City. Sister skipped dinner, and I had food attempting to be Belgian (it failed). Comfortable beds at the Sheraton, but our room was impossibly noisy.

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Road Trip 2021 Day 1 (494 miles)

Another summer coping with covid = another road trip with my sister! If you want more stuff to read, here are the posts from last summer’s road trip. Just like last year, the journey started with a little plane ride. But while I brought along GOTY 2020 Joss last year, this year I brought GOTY 2021 Kira!

Kira says Ciao! before we leave home

all packed and ready

aboard the plane

flying past our house…

…and into Seattle

And those are the only photos I have of Kira on this first day. In fact, I don’t have many pictures from the first day at all. We drove all the way from Seattle to Boise, which would be almost eight hours without stopping. We made a couple stops: first in North Bend, WA for groceries, second in Yakima, WA for lunch at Sonic (and also McDonalds because the bathroom at Sonic was closed), third in Hermiston, OR for gas, and finally in Boise.

In Boise we got dinner (steak from a takeout container!), ate it at a picnic table around the corner from the Capitol building, and strolled down the Freak Alley Gallery. We spent the night at a pretty lame hotel near the freeway.

The road trip will continue in my next post!

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