Amy Scott's Thoughts

I’m back from my amazing California road trip! It was an awesome 5 days completely packed with full from morning to night! I’m super tired, but it was totally worth it! There is something so exciting about going to new places and seeing things that I’ve heard about in books. I love expanding my map of the world and getting to add another chapter to my journey. This chapter would be entitled The Town & Country California Road Trip of 2012. It’s a long title, I know, but it fits! Since I could write forever, I’ll try to be selective and just share the highlights!

Golden Gate Bridge at Night

Day One – We drove all the way into San Francisco. We got into our hotel in Berkeley around 6:00pm (we left home around 6:00am that morning). After getting our stuff settled, we took off with two goals – find food and explore where Jeremy grew up. We had dinner at a California classic, In-N-Out, and went off to explore the Pittsburg, Concord and Walnut Creek areas. Jeremy showed me his childhood home and the places he remembered as a kid. It was cool to see another piece of Jeremy’s personal history. We ended up in Walnut Creek, where we had Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Yum! I assumed that at this point we would head back to the hotel because it had been a long day, but on a whim we decided to just head into the city. Why not? I got to see the city for the first time at dusk and into the night. Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge at night and seeing the city lights was the highlight of my day and made all the driving worth that moment.

Hanging down by the Wharf!

Day Two – Because parking in the city can be expensive we took BART into the city. It was an amazingly quiet ride. What did people do before headphones and iphones? Oh my! Once we got in the heart of the city, we took the cable car through town down to Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square. We got free chocolate at Ghirardelli (twice actually), we walked down to Pier 39 and had Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for lunch. That was a first for both Jeremy and I. One of my favorite highlights of the Wharf was Boudin Bakery. They make the yummiest sourdough bread and it gets better than that! They make it into shapes – like turtles, crocodiles and teddy bears. They also have bread baskets on a track that goes around the top of the store. Bread is always moving over head. I got a mini turtle loaf and lemon bar there. Those goodies were the food highlight of the trip! We walked around downtown and saw Chinatown. We took the cable car to the Embarcadero Center and saw the world’s largest lollipop thanks to See’s Candy. Once we wondered downtown, we headed back to BART and back to our car. We headed back into the city to see a few more sights from the vehicle – like the Painted Ladies (the row houses you see at the intro to Full House). We ended up the beach to finish the evening off.

Yoda Fountain!

Day Three – Jeremy had to drive Lombard Street – the world’s most crooked road. It was crazy and a lot of fun! We made our way up to Coit Tower for amazing views of the city! We had one last San Francisco adventure in us, so we took off to the Presidio to find LucasFilms. The Presidio is a beautiful park that used to be a military base. LucasFilms has made the park its headquarters. The actual buildings are not open to the public, but we did find the Yoda Fountain and took of pictures through the windows of their lobby. It was very cool! After our adventure to find Yoda, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge one last time and took off for our camping expedition. The second half of our trip was all country, not city. It was a fun shift. We got into our camp site with just enough time to set up shop and make dinner. We had seen some huge redwoods on our way in and we were super excited to explore Humboldt State Park the next day.

The Redwoods!

Day Four – This day could be defined as looking for the next bigger and better tree. Jeremy was on a mission to find the biggest redwoods possible! It was crazy! We saw trees with names like Giant Tree and Tall Tree. Creative, huh? They were all beautiful and I was in awe as we drove and walked through grove after grove. It was weird to not be at church on Sunday, but I have to admit that driving through the redwoods listening to worship felt like church (it honestly felt more like church than church in a building). It was a fabulously free day full of exploration and wonder. Jeremy and I got back to the campsite before dinner so decided to take a hike. It turned out to be a lot more dramatic that we anticipated… let’s just say we ran into some big dogs and got off the beaten trail. It’s certainly a memory I won’t forget. We got back to the campsite and made our famous camping pizza pockets for dinner. We started to pack up our stuff when it got dark so we could leave as early as possible the next day.

On the way home!

Day Five – This morning started at 5:15am… ugh… early! We got the campsite packed up and we were on the road a little after 6:ooam. Jeremy had a few more stops on our way home through the redwoods. We saw a couple more cool trees (Big Tree and Corkscrew Tree). We drove up the coast and saw once again new territory on the ride home. We got to Jeremy’s parent’s house around 5:00pm and picked up our little dog and headed home after a little conversation. We purchased for them a redwood tree as a thank you for watching Toby. A little piece of the forest to share. Now that we’re home – I’ve been unpacking, doing laundry, and showering. It felt awesome to shower after two days of camping! My hair still smells like smoke even though I washed it twice! My souvenir of the trip while it lasts. It’s good to be home, but I’m so glad we went on this adventure. It was so much fun to spend the time with Jeremy and really let the rest of the world just fade away. It was great to be us – husband and wife – without other titles. Just us. It was perfect.

Summer 2010 took us to South Dakota. Summer 2011 took us to Kansas. Summer 2012 took us to California. I wonder where summer 2013 will take us? Rumor has it – Yellowstone! I can’t wait! There is more world to explore! I’m ready!