Our last full day in Santa Cruz, and we decided to take it more slowly than the previous days. We went to the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum in the morning, wandered around the downtown area for lunch and early afternoon, then walked down to the Boardwalk for the late afternoon.

After spending the previous afternoon along the ocean, it was time to head inland towards Felton to go to the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park and the Roaring Camp Narrow-gauge Railroad.

After spending the morning in Saratoga and taking my mom to the airport, we drove down to Santa Cruz and walked around the water for the rest of the afternoon. It was a nice introduction to the city.

Melody and I are taking a quick trip to the Bay Area, in two parts. The first is in Santa Clara/San Jose where we met up with my mom for the first part so we could visit family and friends. After mom flew home, we started on the second part by driving down to Santa Cruz.

Melody and I took a quick day trip to Bainbridge Island last weekend. It was the first time I'd been there, and was a fun getaway.

Not only were we leaving Austin this day, we also left Texas. On the way to San Antonio, however, we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to spend a couple hours.

Our only full day in Austin was spent around downtown Austin. We saw the Texas State Capitol and the LBJ Library in the morning, the University of Texas at Austin in the afternoon, and met a friend of Celeste's for dinner

Another travel day for us. We started by going to the top of Enchanted Rock and ended with a short walk in downtown Austin.

It was time to explore beyond San Antonio, so we went to Johnson City and Stonewall to visit the LBJ National Historical Park, as well as the LBJ ranch. Afterwards, we spent the night in Fredericksburg, a town which has a definite German influence.

Friday was Mission day. Having already visited The Alamo, we headed south to see more, then the San Antonio Museum of Art in the afternoon

Having had such as busy Wednesday, we only had a couple main destinations for Thursday: the San Antonio Botanical Garden and the McNay Art Museum.

Neither Melody nor I have been to Texas, so this year we took the opportunity to visit her sister Celeste in San Antonio. Later in the week we plan on driving to Fredericksburg and Austin. Melody's mom Jean came along, too.

Our last full day in Portland, and the rain finally caught up with us. Fortunately it was more of a sprinkle than anything else.

Another day in Portland. After breakfast, we double-checked the latest weather forecasts and made rough plans for the day.

Melody and I decided to take part of the Presidents' Day long weekend and ride the train down to Portland for a few days. Because of lodging availability, we settled on leaving Sunday, returning Wednesday. We knew we'd have to work around things being closed either on Sunday or on the holiday, but figured there would be more than enough to do. We also had alternate plans if it ended up raining a lot.

Having spent our last night in Kelso, we decided to swing through Cape Disappointment State Park again to see some of the things we missed the first time through, after which we went home. 

After having spent several days going to state parks, we decided to try hiking in the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument since we've heard enough people say that the trails are still accessible. The weather was supposed to be nice, so we were hoping that we would get some good views of the mountain. This was also a longer hike, so we were thankful the forecast had no rain.

Another morning which started with a trip to the breakfast room followed by checking both the weather and if anyone knew what would be open or closed due to the government shutdown. We settled on a hike which was in a state park, bypassing federal parks and making use of our state park pass. 

With the government shutdown, there has been lots of conflicting information about what will be open and what will be closed. We decided to go with a trail which didn't require a pass, figuring it would be OK, so we packed up and headed up towards Mt. St. Helens to hike the Hummocks trail.