It doesn't Always Rain in Seattle

I haven't seen my cousin Storm in too long and these last couple of days with her have been great. She totally made us feel welcome in her home. Even her three cats put up with Maggie invading their space.

Let me tell you it is great fun going to all these different places and figuring out where to go and what to see, but there is nothing like seeing a city through the eyes of a local. They know all the cool places to go, how to get there and more importantly where to park. I think, as a tourist, most of the day spent going places is wasted on finding a place to park. When you travel with locals, you get to sit back and relax knowing you are being taken somewhere great.

We did so many things it is hard to mention them all. One of my favorites was going to Seattle and seeing the famous Pike Place Market. It is in all the movies where you see the guys throwing fish, which is neat, but the best part of the market is all the snacky food you can get. We got chocolate covered cherries, bags of candy, hazelnuts, cheese, and of course coffee. I also bought a silver bracelet that has "Happiness is a Choice" etched in it. It is a really nice reminder for me to, not sweat the small stuff. The ironic thing is that the woman had to bend it pretty hard to keep it from slipping off my rather small wrist and now I can't take it off. So happiness is still a choice, but taking off the bracelet is not, I am stuck with it. But I like it so whatever... We really enjoyed talking to all the different vendors. Most of these vendors are farmers and independent people that are so passionate about what they are selling.

The next day we went to another country...the Greene's second time in Canada. We drove around Vancouver and went to the Granville Island Public Market, where we ate more snacky goodness and drank more coffee. We also drove through the famous Stanley Park.

I must make mention of the food in Washington. We have eaten in some of the best restaurants and had some of the freshest food of the trip so far. My new favorite fish is Sockeye Salmon. Yummy!!! The coffee here is also great and not just at Starbucks. There are hundreds of little mom and pop coffee places. I must also mention that even thought this has been an extremely cold April for the upper west coast, we had two beautiful sunny days here. Debunking the myth that it is always raining in Seattle.

Thanks again to Stormy, Rainy and Dan for showing us such a good time!

Click here to see all our photos from Seattle and Click here to see all our photos from Vancouver

We Are Officially Homeless

Well, we made it to Oregon in one piece. Driving through the snow was pretty scary, but we watched the weather and drove slow. We found a great website called trip check, which shows you pictures of the highway. We could see that the snow was melting and the highway was clear.

This picture on the left is a view out our window on the drive through the Siskiyou Mountain Pass.

After our stressful drive we packed up the Coach and left it with the mechanic and are now officially homeless. It was such a rush to get here we hadn't planned where we were going to go next. Originally we thought we were going to go camping during this time, but because it has been such a cold spring and in the rush, forgot to pack most of our gear, we needed to stay somewhere with a heater. So I researched Bed and Breakfasts in Oregon and found a cute B & B on the Oregon coast that allows dogs. It is pretty hard to find a nice place that is affordable and lets you have pets.

I don't know why, but we are not big B&B'ers and have only stayed in one other B&B. After the hot tub, homemade breakfasts and freshly baked cookies (and I'm not talking slice n' bake), we sure are fans now. The name of the Guest House is Pana-Sea-Ah and it is great. Not only is it on the beach, it is in Depoe Bay and close to Newport and Lincoln City. So there is plenty of stuff to do and places to eat. Mostly we walked on the beach with Maggie (she absolutely loved it) and relaxed. Our host Mary was great and really made us feel welcome. I would definitely recommend it. http://www.panaseah.com/

Next stop is Bellingham, WA to see my cousin Storm.

When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth

We are staying in Chowcilla, CA which is just an hour away from Yosemite National Park. We went hiking in Yosemite yesterday and there was snow on the ground. I don't know if you read that..SNOW. We were just in Indio where it was 97 degrees and now we are hiking in the snow, crazy! Anyway, the park is huge and we only had enough time to see a small part of it but what we saw was fantastic. The part of the park that we hiked through was called Mariposa Grove and had some of the oldest Sequoia trees in the US. One of the trees we saw was named the Grizzly Giant, a 2,700 year old tree that is 209 feet high and 100 feet around at the base. Look closely at the picture to the right, at the very bottom you can see me standing with my arms in the air. I look like a speck compared to the Grizzly Giant. It was pretty amazing to see these huge trees that are among some of the oldest known organisms on earth and think that dinosaurs roamed through forests like these. It figuratively and literally makes you feel very small as a species.

Our next stop is Junction City, Oregon where we are dropping off the Coach for some service. We spoke to a couple from Oregon who left the park and came back the same day. We jokingly asked them what happened and they said that a snow storm was moving into the Oregon area and they didn't want to drive through it because they didn't have their snow tires with them. I'll let that sink in for a moment... These "locals" didn't want to drive through an area that we "tourists" were supposed to drive through the next day. Great!

If you haven't noticed I am kind of a winter wimp. Give me Hurricane any day (knock on wood), but driving the Big Rig through snow is not my idea of a fun time. We've decided to drive to Redding, CA and watch the weather. If it looks okay we will move on to Oregon. Yikes, I'm scared. :(

Click here to see all our photos from Yosemite National Park

In God's Country (U2, The Joshua Tree album)

We left Arizona and headed for Indio, California. Let me tell you I usually do a ton of research before booking a spot at an RV park. There are several resources I use that rate each park including Woodalls, Trailer Life directory, and several books. The best book we have found is called Big Rigs. You can also go to each parks website and they usually have pictures. Unfortunately, most of the time what you see on the website and what you see at the actual park are usually two different things. However, in the case of the Outdoor Resort in Indio, it was even better than their website. The park was fancy! I thought Palm Beach Gardens was manicured, boy was I mistaken. The resort (I can't really call it a park) was foo foo, with paved streets and manicured lawns, a big pool, a fountain at the entrance and million dollar coaches in many of the sites. We were only able to stay there because I found a buy one night, get the next night free coupon. I felt like the Clampets' driving into Beverly Hills. Despite the stigma, everyone was super friendly there.


While in Indio we went to Joshua Tree National Park. I don't know if you have ever seen a Joshuah Tree, but they are super neat to see up close. They are part of the Yucca family of plants and grow in all sorts of strange directions. E very tree is a little different. When you see a bunch of them together they look like trees that should be in Seuss Landing at Universal Orlando. I think we got a little tree picture happy, but I was in a great mood after making it to the gas station without running out of gas. Oh, did I forget to mention that we forgot to get gas before heading out to the park. We only realized it after seeing the "next facilities 50 miles" sign. But have no fear, we coasted most of the way downhill and made it just fine. It's always an adventure with the Greenes'.

Click here to see all our photos from Joshua Tree National Park

Thanksgiving Is Not The Only Time To Give Thanks

When we are driving the Coach through all these different towns we see some absolutely gorgeous views and sights. We have seen beautiful mountain vistas and desert landscapes that seem to stretch for miles. It has been such an amazing trip so far, but some of the things you also see on the drive, are poverty stricken areas, dilapidated homes and abandoned towns. When we drove through New Orleans on the earlier part of our journey, we saw people still living in tents and rusted trailers almost three years after Hurricane Katrina. When we see some of these living conditions it makes us so thankful for all that we have. Sometimes you need to get out of your comfort zone to realize what is important. Because this is our journal I wanted to take the liberty to share what we are thankful for. We are so thankful for each other, our family and friends that have been so supportive of our journey, a roof over our heads and the means to take this trip...and on, and on and on...

I would love to get comments from you and read what things you are thankful for.

Burning Up in Sedona

The temperature differences in the desert are amazing. If you looked at our pictures from the Grand Canyon you can see we were all bundled up because it was freezing out. At night we had to unhook the water line from the coach because of freezing temperatures. So we thought when we headed to Sedona the next day, it would be just as cold. Think again, we had to stop at a store and buy some touristy Sedona t-shirts, because we were sweating like crazy.

Sedona was beautiful. We absolutely loved it. We only had a couple of hours so we hit most of the scenic picture spots. We went to this beautiful chapel that was up in the mountains and looked like it was built right out of the rocks.

The mountains/rocks of Sedona had this rich redish-orange coloring. It was different from the Grand Canyon but just as beautiful. I could probably spend a month in Arizona alone, but unfortunately we need to move on. California here we come!

Click here to see all our photos from Sedona

The Grand Canyon

We made it to Williams, AZ which is just an hour outside the Grand Canyon. All I can say about the Grand Canyon is, wow it is beyond words. Probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It really does make you realize how small you are when you look out into this enormous natural wonder. We took about a million pictures (see link below), but they can't even possibly capture the beauty of the canyon.

We stayed on the rim of the canyon, hiking and sight seeing most of the day. When we were on our way to a lookout point we saw a couple of cars pulled over, so we slowed down. I looked through the trees and saw this deer-like animal. I thought it was a moose at first. Scott got out to take a picture. It turns out there were two Elk, a male and female, just munching on some grass. Very cool.

Can I just take a side bar and mention how out of shape I am? We walked on paved paths along the rim of the Grand Canyon and I don't know if it was the altitude or what, but you would have thought I was 90 years old (no offense to all the in shape 90-year-olds'). By the end of the day my back and neck hurt, gee whiz. I'm going to need to get back in shape if we are going to be doing all this outdoorsy stuff again. Anyway, tomorrow we go to Sedona to look at the red rocks. I can't wait.

Click here to see all our photos from The Grand Canyon

Albuquerque Blows Us Away

Initially I was going to title this blog, "The Elusive Tumbleweed". Let me tell you those things are pretty hard to take a picture of, from a moving vehicle. This is how much of a city girl I am. On our drive out of Amarillo, TX towards Albuquerque I kept seeing these small dried stick bushes rolling or "tumbling" down the road. I asked Scott, "Is that a tumbleweed"? I had Scott watching as I pointed the camera at the road trying to get a picture of this thing. They are not as soft as I thought they would be and I thought that they were pretty cool to see, until they kept "tumbling" into the side of the coach. It is hard to avoid a moving abject when you don't know which way it is going to come at you. What a tourist.

By late morning the wind started to pick up pretty significantly. Then the wind, dust and tumbleweeds became almost scary. I found out that we were in the middle of some sort of storm with sustained winds of 20 miles per hour and gusts up to 60 miles per hour. Not fun. We had a little technical difficulty with the slide out awning, so we decided to pull into the Flying J (For those non 'Big Riggers' out there a Flying J is a trucker gas station) to wait it out. We got back on the road, but decided to take it slow. It was a pretty long day, but we finally made it to Albuquerque. Tomorrow we leave for the Grand Canyon. By the way I checked the weather and it is 27 degrees there. Oh no!

***Retraction from The Greene Journey Blog***

We at the Greene Journey must make a retraction to the prior blog entry. The song "On The Road Again" was sung by Willie Nelson not Kenny Rogers. We apologize for any confusion which this may have caused and meant no harm to the Willie Nelson company. Please accept our admittance of wrong doing. However, we at The Greene Journey do feel that the joke is still funny.

Thank you and keep reading.

Sincerely,

Editor in Chief

Kelly Greene