Epic Highway 101 Road Trip Part 6

Wednesday morning, the kids and I packed up and began the journey home. Since I was tired and we were kind of done with vacation, we opted to drive up I-5 (the MUCH faster, but more boring route). We did all the hard driving on the first day and spent the night in Eugene. I haven't mentioned this before, but we did this whole trip without iPads so the kids needed to be entertained somehow for all these hours. We bought a subscription to Audible and started with the first Harry Potter book. The kids loved it so much we bought the second book. They were still pretty hooked, so we bought the third book. We made it through almost half of the 3rd book by the time we got home. It was a great distraction for all of us while we drove, and Jim Dale (reader) is an absolute gift to the world. The audiobooks are phenomenal. I was so glad that Austin and to a slightly lesser degree Christian caught the Harry Potter bug. Nathan sort of tolerated them, but listening to them was a bit of a challenge to his sensitive soul. I think it was good for him, though, and we had good talks through them to keep him calm.
Eugene was ...interesting... We stayed at another Hotwire special (okay, all of our hotels on this trip were Hotwire surprises) and ended up at the weirdest hotel I've ever stayed at (also kind of fancy). I guess it's a new chain that is popping up around college campuses. Turns out there's one here at UW too. The hotel is decked out in local college memorabilia and the rooms feel like you've been trapped in a frat boy's bedroom. The wallpaper in the bathroom made me laugh out loud.

After we got settled in, we took a walk to find some dinner. We ended up at a crazy pizza-by-the-slice place which would have been perfect except that they literally blasted death metal. There weren't a lot of other options, though, so we tolerated it as best we could. Then, we noticed a Voodoo Donuts across the street, so decided to go check them out (so much hype!). We bought a dozen so we could try a bunch of flavors. Turns out Voodoo Donuts aren't that great. Really greasy. I would not recommend.

Thursday morning, we headed north again and made it to Portland a bit before lunch. Nathan was really invested in checking out Portland, so we spent a couple of hours walking around. We walked through Powell Books, had some really good Italian food for lunch (after a lot of road food and donuts, I felt like a legit meal). Then, since we were in Portland where there are weird things to try, we checked out a little shop that sold edible cookie dough by the scoop. I don't recommend that either. Portland was charming, though, and everyone was glad we checked it out.
We made it home to Seattle around 6pm. Whew!
And now for the funny pictures of sleeping kids, because that's always a highlight of these trips.

Also happy to report that the second antibiotic worked, and aside from the annoyance of having to stop every 4 hours to give Christian another pill, we were able to move on with our trip and he was able to have a great time.

Epic Highway 101 Road Trip Part 5

And now we come to the real purpose of our visit to San Francisco/Berkeley. A few months ago during a visit with one of Nathan's doctors, he mentioned that we were considering taking this road trip and that he wanted to check out Berkeley when we were there. Why? Because several elements in the Periodic Table were discovered at Berkeley and he wanted to see where that was. The doctor was charmed by this and encouraged me to reach out to Berkeley's chemistry department and see if anyone could give him a tour. This hadn't occurred to me - I figured we'd just go stand in front of the chemistry building and call it a day - but I thought it was a great idea. I went home and did some research and tracked down a couple of possibly-viable email addresses and sent an email not entirely expecting a response. It took a while (like a month or so) but I actually did get a response! They were absolutely willing to give him a tour, just needed to know our dates so they could figure out who would be around since it was summertime. So as the trip got nearer, we were able to schedule an actual appointment for him to take a little tour of the chemistry department at Berkeley!
The morning of (Tuesday), we had a couple hours to kill, so we took the kids to the Adventure Playground which was near our hotel. The premise of this playground was that kids get to literally build it. They could check out hammers, saws, paint, paintbrushes, and earn nails by doing some clean-up of the area. Industrious Austin immediately set to work building a ladder. Nathan tried his hand at sawing. Everybody enjoyed painting. By the time we had to go, Austin had indeed constructed a small ladder! The kids were sad to leave. It felt like 1970s childhood.

After the playground, we went back to the hotel to dust everybody off, then we drove over to Berkeley. We met up with a very nice professor whose primary work was on radioactive particles. He showed us a vial full of uranium and even gave Nathan a marble with a tiny bit of uranium inside of it to take home. He had lots of other swag for Nathan too which was incredibly kind.
We got to see a lab and what some of the equipment looks like (Nathan even got to keep the Berkeley eye protector glasses), then he took us to the basement to see the NMR machines (like an MRI, but for the purposes of scientific research) including an old one that had been cut open to see what was inside of it. Then he showed us a lecture hall where he teaches. Finally, he showed us the building where plutonium was discovered during WWII (in the picture below, Nathan is standing in front of it, pointing up to the room where it happened).

After our tour, we found the bookstore (because I love a college campus bookstore, and wanted to get Nathan a Berkeley shirt and frankly, whatever else he wanted). Then we had some lunch nearby - it turns out this is a much cooler part of Berkeley than where we were staying. After that, we walked back through campus to our car. I have to say, the Berkeley campus isn't what I'd call pretty. It's not really all that interesting even. It's more about the allure of such a prestigious school that grabbed me when we walked through it. The reality of Berkeley (as we realized similarly with the Air Force Academy last summer) is that the acceptance rate is only about 17%. Also, they have the number one chemistry department IN THE WORLD. I guess if nothing else, it's cool we got to tour it.
Nathan said it was the best day of his year, and he was so stoked about going there and fulfilling that dream of his to see Berkeley. He really wants to go there, for now, so we had to have a chat about what that means, but I do love big dreams.

{{After visiting a couple different college campuses last summer, Nathan and I made a goal to visit at least one new college campus every summer. I think it's really important for my kids to get a feel for what college campuses are like, what happens there, and just generally what it feels like to be on them. When I was a kid, I was immersed in this culture quite a bit because my mom taught at a university and I spent lots of my days off of school with her. I wandered around that campus alone at a pretty young age even. Those experiences gave me an appreciation for and excitement of that time of life. I wish we would have had time to visit Stanford on this trip too, but frankly, by this point, I was kind of ready to go home. }}
When we were done with Berkeley, we took Jason to the airport to fly home. He had to be back by Wednesday to do real work in the real world.
We finished off our day checking out another neighborhood of Berkeley a little more in the hills. We had ice cream and looked in a few shops. Then we went back to Cesar Chavez park right next to our hotel and watched the sunset over the Bay. It was a picturesque spot.

Epic Highway 101 Road Trip Part 4

Jason was able to join us on our second day in the Bay Area. We decided to head north a bit and see the Golden Gate Recreational Area which is on the East side of the bridge. It's where a lot of the postcard views of the Golden Gate bridge are. It was a spectacular drive and we enjoyed getting out of the car and taking in the view from lots of different vantage points. The fog was hovering in just the right places.

Afterwards, we drove across the bridge (because we had to!) and then found the Painted Ladies.

After that, we headed to Golden Gate Park, which is ENORMOUS. We walked around there quite a bit, had sticker shock at the Academy of Science (YIKES!).

(This was the only picture I took at the Golden Gate Park. I'm not sure why. It was a beautiful spot! Gotta love Nancy Pelosi, though.)
Then we went to Chinatown for dinner and to go to the fortune cookie factory. It was another great day with only like 5 miles of walking instead of 12.

 The parking spaces in the garage we parked at had fortunes instead of numbers. We loved this.

He's not tired or anything. Haha! He absolutely insists on keeping up with everyone at all times.

Epic Highway 101 Road Trip Part 3

On Sunday, Jason needed to write a brief (which actually should be called a long if you ask me - lawyer-wife joke, sorry) all day so he needed us to basically leave him alone. So, we found a cute donut shop for breakfast (a theme to our trip because, well, donuts are cheap), then Jason drove us to the BART station so we could take the train into San Francisco and sight-see. A word here about BART vs driving into the city: I had been told that traffic would be awful and parking would be ridiculously expensive so it was better to BART. I took this advice. I very much wish I had not. The BART stations are positioned for commuting, not touring, so they are not really very convenient to where any of the tourist points are (basically BART runs sort of through the middle of the peninsula that is San Francisco, and the touristy stuff is mostly on the outer perimeter). Also, parking isn't any more expensive than it is in Seattle, so would I have groaned at spending $25-$30 for parking? Yes. Would I have been scandalized by it? No. As it was, I spent $40 for round trip BART tickets for all of us. The bigger problem here is that after we got off the BART, we had to walk literally MILES to get anywhere, and I'm not exaggerating. It's a really good thing my kids are enthusiastic troopers when it comes to sight-seeing or they would most definitely have killed me. The spoiler for this little rant of mine is that we ended up walking 12 miles that day. Why? Because everything was so far from BART stations and I didn't feel confident enough to just hop on a random bus. Also because I am an ambitious tourist. At the time, I wasn't sure if we were going to make it back into the city so I wanted to make sure I showed the kids as much as we could possibly fit into a day. It also turned out that we were loving the city so much we all just kept wanting to see more. 

Okay, rant over. Here's how our Sunday tour of the city went. We got off in the business district near the old Embarcadero (on the east side of the perimeter of the city). We walked along the waterfront through the Wharf, walked through the Ghiradelli Chocolate complex (a really cute redevelopment, by the way), and then we walked up over a big hill and into the Marina District. We walked along the waterfront for a couple of miles on a nice walking/biking trail with a view of the bay on one side and these beautiful houses on the other side (given SF's real estate prices, I couldn't help but wonder who lives in all those gorgeous VERY expensive houses). My goal was the Palace of Fine Arts, which frankly was the ONE thing that was a non-negotiable for me when going to SF. It did NOT disappoint, even though by the time we got there, we had already walked 7 miles. 

After we enjoyed that beautiful spot, we walked back across the street and the kids played at a very tiny beach that looked over at the Golden Gate bridge while I sat and rested my feet. 

Once the kids had enough playing, we had some difficult decisions to make. We were now 7 miles from the train station. We could either call Jason to rescue us (I don't like being rescued or admitting defeat). We could try to figure out the bus lines. OR we could be crazy and walk to Lombard Street. If we did that, it was possible we could get back to the station (or another one) in fewer miles because we'd be going straight through the city as opposed to around the edge like we had on the way to where we were. The kids chose the last. I completely underestimated the enormous hill that we'd have to walk all the way to the top of to get to Lombard Street. We did it, though. Then we walked down the other side. Then we kept walking. We stopped for crepes in the business district. We stopped to look up at the Transamerica Building, which had been our sort of guidepost letting us know when we'd be close to the train station. Then we hauled our bodies (and I gave Christian a piggyback ride) six more blocks and made it back to the train. Austin pronounced it the BEST DAY EVER. Christian was so tired, we couldn't find a seat on the train, so I ended up sitting on the floor of the train and holding him in my lap across the bay. It was such a good day. It is days like these that make me love taking these trips with my kids.

 Houses in the Marina District.

 The Palace of Fine Arts is just as spectacular as I had hoped. SO BEAUTIFUL.

 Bottom of Lombard Street. Our favorite thing were the salty police officers directing traffic and insulting pretty much every single car that drove by.

 Still smiling after that big day!

And a final word about HOW my children walked 12 miles (because we don't do strollers). Austin is an enthusiastic walker so if he's bought into the adventure, he is all in, and there is no complaining or needing to motivate. He loves to challenge his body and see how far it will go, and he's really proud of being in shape enough to keep up with whatever my own crazy ambitions are. I'd sort of like to take Austin to Europe because I think he could keep up with my insane need to see EVERYTHING. This is so interesting to me, given that he is autistic and overwhelmed in so many situations, but for some reason not on vacations. He LOVES to see new things as much as I do.
Nathan gets most of the credit here for our success. He literally talked Christian through 12 miles and 8 hours. He kept both of them (and Austin floated in and out) in imaginary games and worlds and distracted Christian so much that neither of them had any idea how far they had walked. Not a clue. It was genuinely remarkable. No complaints, just along for the ride, but mostly in his own little world. Bless Nathan's imagination, Christian's good humor (he was, after all, recovering from a bladder infection), and Austin's sense of adventure. I love traveling with my kids so much - and I mean that for real. Here's a photo of Nathan talking them through part of our walk:

Epic Highway 101 Road Trip Part 2

On Friday, we explored Eureka. There wasn't actually that much to do there, but we checked out a nature preserve, had probably the best Indian food buffet we've ever had (who knew??), and let the kids have their fill of actually playing IN the ocean. The other side of the Humboldt Bay is a tiny peninsula called Samoa and on the western side of that, there is a legit ocean beach right next to … a saw mill. Eureka is not exactly trying to be touristy.
After the beach, we took the sandy kids back to the hotel to get cleaned up, rested awhile, then headed out to a cute little farmers' market/street fair. Jason was in heaven when he found a band of old hippies playing music. I left him there with Nathan and Christian while I took Austin to go get food and quiet because he was pretty much in vacation-overload mode. Later that night, Austin and I took a nice walk down the street to check out some really impressive Victorian architecture. That was something Eureka had in spades: evidence of the Gold Rush in lots of Victorian architecture.
In the end, Jason loved Eureka, but he loves quirky towns full of hippies, so that's not surprising.
Saturday morning, Christian was still in a lot of pain, so we took him first to Urgent Care then to the ER to get a culture and a different kind of medicine. The poor kid was a trooper, but he was really miserable. He spent the rest of our trip being moderately afraid to pee because of pain, then intensely relieved when it started to get better. He also had to take 4 pills a day for the rest of the trip, but the silver lining there was that he hated the first syrup-medicine so much he insisted on the grown-up swallowable pills and immediately figured out how to swallow them. What a champ!
Due to the need for this second doctor visit, we got a much later start on our drive to Berkeley (1pm!), but we did find an amazing donut shop in a hole in the wall that used to be a gas station. Aren't those always the best??

 Here we are at a nature preserve that was basically built on top of a dump. Haha!

 Behold the native Californian at the beach hiding from the sun.

 This old mansion is now a private club. I'm not sure who in Eureka joins a fancy-shmancy club like this, but there you go. So no, we did not get to tour it.

This house is across the street from the mansion above. It was built by the mansion's original owner as a wedding present for his son. It's now affectionately called The Pink Lady.
After we left Eureka, we headed through the Avenue of the Giants, which is the more well-known road through the Redwoods. Due to Christian feeling awful and our late departure from Eureka, we didn't do any more hiking. We did, however, drive through the super-touristy tree that you can drive through. We sort of figured we should do something silly like that. I hopped out of the car to take pictures while Jason drove it through the tree. And that was basically it.

On Saturday evening, just as the sun was setting, we arrived at our hotel in Berkeley.

Epic Highway 101 Road Trip! Part 1

For a very long time, Jason and I have been wanting to drive down Highway 101 to see the beach in Oregon, the Redwoods, and Jason has always wanted to visit Eureka since he found it on a map when he was about 12. I decided this was the year that we were going to do this, since Nathan also had a burning desire to see the UC Berkeley campus and specifically the Chemistry department. So, unlike our last couple of road trips, Jason joined us on most of this one which was a nice change of pace.
We left Wednesday the 7th and got as far as … Longview, WA before having to make a slight detour. Christian was complaining of painful urination and knowing we were about to leave civilization for a couple days, we thought we should find an urgent care clinic. After two hours, we got a prescription and got on the road again. We made a stop around dinnertime at the Tillamook cheese factory, because even though we were running way behind schedule, I wasn't going to abandon this particular stop. It was fun! We got to see cheddar cheese being packaged, buy cheese curds, and the kids ate ice cream even though it was actually really cold.

Afterwards, we drove all the way mostly along really beautiful coastline to Coos Bay for the night.

Thursday we drove through some pretty beautiful beach country, and made an unplanned stop at one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen: Battlerock Beach, Port Orford, OR. Such beautiful scenery. The kids were so excited to see the ocean that even though it was cool, overcast, and we had a long way to go, they got themselves totally soaked and sandy. I hope I see that beach again someday. Whew.

From there, we headed to the Redwoods. Those forests are so beautiful and the trees are impressively large. We stopped on the way and took a random hike where we got up close and personal with those enormous trees.

Then after more driving, we arrived in Eureka in time for dinner.

This is the little bay in Eureka. It was full of playful seals.