West Coast Trip

In October we took a road trip to see family and friends, meet and share with people, and visit a partner church. All along the way, we tried to see as much of our beautiful country as we could. Our first stop was in Wyoming to see our friends Matt and Alyssa who live on a ranch. Then we drove to Seattle through Montana and Idaho. The 5 days we spent in Seattle with family and friends were so fun. We just love Seattle - it is such a fun city (and we love a lot of people who live there!) From Seattle, we drove West to the coast and Olympic National Park to hit up some natural hot springs and do some backpacking on the coast. It was so different than any backpacking we've done. We had to time it with the tide charts and we could hear the roar of the ocean while we slept(on a point that is the farthest West you can get on the continental U.S. Pretty cool.) After backpacking, we drove all the way down the coast on Hwy 101 and Hwy 1. Through Oregon, where we hit up the Tillamook Cheese Factory and some beautiful lighthouses, then into California and Redwoods National Forest. We camped in our tent every night we were on the road, which was so fun. Although we were quite surprised to find out how much it costs to pitch your tent in California! We spent a week in Brentwood, California, sharing in small groups and meeting people in the church there. This church is a real blessing to us and we are excited about partnering with them. One of the days we were there, we met up with our friends Jeremy and Kelly in SanFrancisco and had a very fun, but rainy trolley adventure. When we left there, we decided to drive the rest of the way down HWY 1 to Los Angeles. We saw miles and miles of beautiful coastline, seals, sea lions, some waterfalls, and we camped on Pismo Beach which was so fun. On the way back to Colorado, we went to Zion National Park. This park is absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous, and has some of the coolest hiking we've ever done. So, 5,000 miles later, we were back in Colorado. We had such a blast, and are so glad we got to spend time enjoying this beautiful country before we say goodbye to it in a couple months.