Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
The day centered around a couple of hikes through groves connected with a long trail. For all the distance, we ended hiking at about the same time as the day before.
This was the first day that everyone on the Redwood/Lassen trip were together. We hiked in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, which itself is part of Redwood National Park. We did a couple of hikes among the redwoods, and had a bit of excitement both going to the trails and after the hikes.
We continued working our way south along the Oregon Coast. We saw sea lions, sand dunes, and a lot of sea stacks. After that, we made it into California and met up with a lot of other group members who took the direct route rather than the meandering down the coast that we did.
Melody and I started off on a road trip down to California, which will last three weeks. The first half of the trip will be with the hiking group, spending a couple of nights in Oregon, then going to two National Parks in California: Redwood and Lassen Volcanic. For the first day, we met a few people in Astoria, OR, to explore the city during the afternoon.
People often have father figures in addition to their actual fathers, and I was fortunate enough to have one in Al Evans, who passed away in mid-May. It’s been many years since I had seen him, but his influence on me never faded.
Melody’s brother and his wife are both professional musicians, so it makes sense that their kids are, too. Their son, Kenny, is studying music at Western Washington University in Bellingham, and we were able to go to his Junior Recital last weekend. We decided to make a mini-trip out of it and spent the night.
After leaving Death Valley National Park, we drove to Las Vegas for a few nights. We spent a lot of time in Valley of Fire State Park and shared many meals with family, having a great time throughout.
My cousins gather in Las Vegas every now and then, and this time it worked out for us to join them. We flew down several days early so we could spend some time in Death Valley National Park.
Since orchestra performances were scheduled in Spokane for Melody's nephew and niece, we decided to make a trip of it. We stopped by Yakima to spend some time with her mom, too. We also did a bit of snowshoeing in each direction.
We spent a few nights in Mt. Rainier National Park with a hiking group. We did some snowshoeing and even got lucky on one day to get a great view of Mt. Rainier.
It was time for our annual trip to Southern California to join my family in making mochi for the New Year. Because Kellen, Brady, Tynor, and Mallory joined us, we also stayed to celebrate New Year's Day with my family. In between the two, we packed in a lot of activity.
A bank that was built early in the 1910s is soon to open as a climbing gym. Melody and I got to take a look inside after structural renovations were done, and again as the climbing gym was close to opening.
We had a free morning before our flight so we went to the Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts. We then began the long journey back home. Also, some reflections on the trip and Vietnam in general.
Our tour may have ended, but we were busy on our last full day in Vietnam. We did a Hanoi highlights tour where we saw several sites and had lunch. After that, we spent some time at a café before grabbing dinner.
After our night on Halong Bay, we went back to Hanoi with a couple of stops to explore a farm and embroidery. We then went to a water puppet show, followed by dinner before everyone said goodbye to each other.
We spent most of the day on a boat in Ha Long Bay, where we walked through Surprise Cave, went to a beach, and stayed overnight on the boat.
Using the roosters as an alarm clock, we got up early enough to do a morning hike from our homestay to a lake. We caught a boat to get lunch, then another boat to join our bus, which took us back to Hanoi.
We spent most of the day near Da Bac, having lunch and dinner at our homestay, with a hike between the meals. After dinner, we were treated to some members of the village singing and dancing.
After our overnight train arrived in Hanoi at an early hour, we went to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the grounds around it. We then walked through the Old Quarter, including watching a train go right in front of our café table. For dinner, we did another food tour.
