Day 11, 12 and 13

The last 3 days have been spent driving from San Fran to Ft. Lewis, Washington. Once we started getting close, I found myself getting a little sad. I think this was for two reasons, one being the end of our incredible journey across this fabulous nation of ours, but also because I realized I was in this foreign, gray and dreary place to stay, not just to visit. I am sure I will be very happy once I get settled in, but it makes being away from family and friends real to me.

Northern California with the coastal redwoods and ocean and then Oregon was breathtaking. The journey through the Redwoods was spiritual. It was as if it put me in touch with my Native American ancestors. It gave me some feeling of how/why they may have worshipped the earth and nature. Being surrounded by that beauty and entire sensory experience, I was aware of something so much greater than myself. For me, that is God.The grandeur is something that can never be captured in a picture because it impacts all of your senses, bombards them. In the middle of the forests, the trees cover you in a canopy, the light just barely filtering through the branches. The air smells of damp earth and is so clean. The air is damp and a gentle mist constantly falls. There is a deep silence...and the burls feel like velvet, they are so soft. It is something I cannot properly describe in words

The drive up the coast was beautiful as well. Hwy 101 curved back and forth between the forest/mountains and the wild Pacific Ocean. You would be riding through deep trees when suddenly the view would open up and you would be driving along a cliff above the raging ocean. The waves were huge. We stopped in one place to take pictures of a lighthouse on a cliff and when we looked down the cliff to the ocean below, there were hundreds of sea lions on the rocks. They were so unexpected and you could here their barking and growling faintly over the crashing waves. I have also determined that people in Oregon are the nicest people i have ever met. They were so sweet, giving us ideas for which routes to take and even giving us weather updates. The people at the hotel this morning even made the kids cups of snacks to go for the road. Small I know, but still such a kind gesture. Oregon also completely changed my mind about Best Western Hotels as I spent the past two nights in two of the nicest Best Westerns I have ever seen.
A funny thing happened on this trip. On our first or second day of our trip, I got a small chip and resulting crack in my windshield. It was at the very bottom of my windshield on the driver's side and probably 7 inches long when we first noticed it. It took us a while because it was too low to be visible from inside the car. With each stop, it got a little bigger and by the time we stopped last night it was a little over half way across the window. By the end of the day today, it has almost completely made it across the windshield.I expect that by morning, it will be completely across. I guess for a lot of people, it would be a major bummer to have a cracked windshield and I have to admit I was a little bummed when it first happened, but now I have a strange kinship with my crack. I look at the twists and turns it makes across my windshield and it is much like the twisting journey we took across the country. I look at each change in direction and known what city we were in when it happened. I think it only fitting that the crack finish it's journey as we complete ours, or at least this leg of it. A new part of our journey begins tomorrow...

I apologize for all my spelling and grammar mistakes. Typing on the iPad is torture. Can't wait to find my laptop cord. I love you and miss you all.