The Hodges: 2 countries, 9 states, 16 days, 5009 miles, and a couple on a road trip

West Coast Extravaganza continuing on.............

We spent the whole next day in Seattle with Corey and Sarah, visiting Pike's Place Market, the space needle, taking an underground tour of the city, and strolling the busy streets of the city.

The next day we took off on our journey south, taking the Seattle ferry over to the Olympic Penninsula, traveling along the Pacific coast of Washington. We traveled through Port Angeles and Forks (for all of you "Twilight" fans....that was for Sarah!) and down through Olympic National Park.

We continued south along the coastline along the Oregon coast and down through the redwoods into California. Then we headed over to Yosemite National Park for a day of hiking and breathtaking views.

Then we headed over to San Francisco! We rode trolley cars, visited Alcatraz, walked the fisherman's wharf and Chinatown, and rode down Lombard Street, and had a blast!!! We stayed in the Palace Hotel (thanks to "Daddy Dick"), which was a super nice place in downtown San Fran.

After we sadly took Corey and Sarah to the airport, we headed on to Los Angeles! We stayed with Josh and Bekah Spurgeon (Josh and Chris were good college friends and in bible study together). We had a ton of fun with them, touring the Hollywood hills (which is practically in their back yard), walking with the "stars" in Hollywood, siting minor celebrities, appearing on the Jimmy Kimmell show (front row I might ad!), walking Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills, and making lots of u-turns (thanks to Josh). It was so great and encouraging to get to spend some time with them.

After 2 nights in L.A. we ventured on to Bakersfield, CA to visit the Kingsbury's, who just recently moved back to Bakersfied from Pinedale (they went to our church in Pinedale). We had a bask dinner (some European thing special in Bakersfield).......here is what our meal consisted of in courses, all you can eat, bread and salsa, cabbage soup, salad, steemed vegetables, french fries, ravioli, cow tongue (yes that is correct....it isn't very good, I must say), and our main course of New York Strip. It was quite an interesting experience, but we loved it!! After dinner we went to Dewar's for ice cream......only the best peppermint ice milk (made with milk not cream) in the world!!!!!!! After an exhausting run with Suzie the next morning and a quick trip to Trader Joe's, we headed on to Zion National Park in Utah.

We had a long day's drive through Las Vegas, Nevada, and Arizona up into Utah. We arrived into Zion/ Springdale being darker than expected. Every campsite around and in the park was full and so was every hotel. Chris had a secret camping spot picked out which we couldn't find in the dark on our own. We finally asked this one hotel if they new of anywhere we could stay/park and sleep and they told us about this place past town, called I think it was "Widows Point", a campsite in sand on the side of the road. This ended up being the place we were looking for in the beginning!

The next day we quickly hiked some in Zion and then headed up to Salt Lake City. We had planned on going to the Brad Paisley concert there and staying with Drew Thum, but we decidedto head on back to Pinedale later that night since Chris had so much to get ready for on Sunday for hunting camp. After a good Chick-fil-A meal, yes that's right!, we drove on back up to Pinedale.

We got Chris and the horses all ready to go on Sunday and he took off into the mountains on Monday to go hunting for elk. They go hunting all day and then return to camp at night to eat some grub and sleep! I am packing up the house (well up to this point I have been packing up our landlords junk to put in her garage since the next renters don't want any of her furniture or linens/decor....we just had all of her junk stuffed into several closets) and getting things ready to move back to NC!!! Our moms come in on Monday and we are headed east on Wednesday morning!