The Honeymoon Is Over

We got home on Thursday night so the honeymoon has actually been over for several days now, but I was so exhausted from all of the traveling that it has taken me all of three days to write this post. Despite being a lot of driving (somewhere in the ballpark of 3500 miles), I would say that we had a pretty good wedding and honeymoon. I think that both Rosey and I would agree that walking on the beaches of the Oregon coast was the highlight of the trip.

So, why home so early? Well, I think that these pictures will explain everything...


This is me packing up camp at Yosemite in the snow.


And this is us driving out of Yosemite through the very treacherous Tioga Pass Road. We learned when we reached the east entrance of the park that they had actually closed the road in the other direction and were not letting anyone else travel into the park on that road.

We had originally planned on hitting Crater Lake National Park in Oregon and then coming down to the redwoods in California. But, we decided to prolong our drive down the coast a little further and go to the redwoods first before heading inland to Crater Lake. So, we stayed a night in Crescent City, California and spent a day poking around in the Redwoods.

Because of the damage to our lens we weren't able to get very many pictures in the redwoods. We snapped a couple of photos with our smaller digital camera, but it's just so difficult to get a photo in the shadows of big trees. The lighting is all wrong.

Rosey and I had a pretty good 4 mile hike through the Redwoods, but I have to say that the highlight for me was riding my bike from Crescent City into Redwood National Park on the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway. It was a spectacular ride through big trees and lush ferns. I was surprised to discover that just because you are proximate to the ocean does not mean that your elevation cannot quickly rise above sea level. The first couple of miles out of Crescent City I climbed a 'hill' that peaked above 1000 feet.

Before leaving our motel in Crescent City, I checked the weather and discovered that Crater Lake was supposed to be blanketed with snow over the next couple of days. In other words, it didn't sound like a whole lot of fun to hike, bike or camp in Crater Lake... especially if you're pregnant :)

So, we altered our course and pointed our car eastward in the direction of the nearest Olive Garden restaurant... Redding, California. Ok, so we were headed that way anyway, but we figured if we had to stay somewhere, we might as well get a good meal. We were on our way to Yosemite National Park and Redding was as good a place as any to stay for the night.

While in Redding, we stopped by a camera store and bought a new lens for our camera. It was much more pricey that I had expected, but we couldn't exactly go on a trip to Yosemite National Park without a good camera now could we?

It turns out that we could have. Not only was Yosemite overcast and gray, but they had been performing controlled burns in the park for the last couple of days so it was smokey on top of it. Here is an example of one of the astounding pictures that we got with our expensive new lens.


At least we got some good squirrel photos.


While at Yosemite, we managed to get in a hike in the Mariposa grove of giant Sequoias. Now those are some huge trees. This is also where I believe that we got the only photo from the whole trip of both Rosey and I (with the exception of our wedding photos on the beach).


We were planning on doing more in Yosemite, but if you read the beginning of this post then you already know how that turned out.

So, it's good to be home now. We've basically spent the last couple of days lounging around the house and unwinding from all the traveling. Unfortunately, tomorrow, the honeymoon really is over... we both have to go back to work :(