West Cost - Part 2

After the first entry of our vacation in the west coast (click on the link if you missed it), it is time to describe the highlights we found driving thought the Oregon and Washington states. Having had only 10 days overall, it is impossible to visit all spots that these states had to offer. However this didn't discourage us, and we tried to take the best out of it. The pictures talk for themselves, the beauty of the coasts, the nature and wildness surrounding the cities in these states are unarguably beautiful. If you also are lucky with the weather, as we were, you can't really ask for more.

 First Station - Oregon West Coast

Leaving the Redwood National Park behind us, we drove the Highway 101 North, our journey was going to pass along the coast until reaching a small town called Florence. On our way, we were very close to the coast, which made the drive enjoyable, leaving us the opportunity to stop every few miles to take pictures. We saw whales from the distance, unfortunately it was difficult to take pictures of them.

Not only the beaches were magnificent, also the weather was quite warm, at least to enjoy the views. But, as you can see, there were not many people actually on the beach, so maybe the water was too cold after all.

The Oregon beaches frequently have many rock formations near the shore. The geological origin of these natural features seems to be the lava coming from volcanoes emanating from the Grand Rode Mountains 10 to 17 million years ago. Arguable the biggest formation is the Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, unfortunately we didn't have time to visit it. Some of these formations were joined to the coastline, but erosion separated them apart from it.

One thing to notice is the micro climates that form along the coast. In matter of minutes, it can pass from sunny and warm to covered by clouds and windy, you can almost see the cloud approaching.

 Near Florence we spent some time around the dunes. They are not very big, but they go along for miles. We (I must say especially the boys of the family) wanted to rent quads to drive around, but we came too late for that day, and wanted to leave it for the next day. Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance, since from the moment we had dinner it started raining, it rained through the night and morning. By the time we wanted to leave we realized we were not going to drive any quads, so we headed directly to the next station.

Second Station: Portland

For our 2-night stay in Portland, we had rented a house boat north of the city, in the Hayden Island. It was great; not only to have a house instead of a hotel, which gives much more opportunity for a group to be together, but this location was great to enjoy the river and the sunlight

The glass doors to the outside gave a sense of brightness and space.

We even had the chance to have a BBQ while watching the boats come and go ;)

The bad part of the house is that it was so cool that we focused more on enjoying the house than on exploring the city of Portland... We were just one morning in the downtown area, and could see some nice buildings just walking around.

The state of Portland is known by the high amount of breweries, in fact, with 53+ breweries, it has more than any other city on earth. Knowing this, we had big chances of finding good beer. And we did! Precisely that weekend the Oregon Brewers Festival took place. That was definitely going to be our place for lunch ;)

There was good live music, nice varied food from different places, and although the beer may have not been the best one, it did made us happy, which is the whole purpose :)

One of the things Americans like of the summer, is that they can drive their old beauties. There are many car concentrations, which brings joy to the owners and all the others that would like to own them. On our way out of Portland, we accidentally took a wrong turn, and suddenly were in the middle of a Buick Car concentration. We took this as a sign of the destiny, and made this visit as part of our itinerary.

 Third Station: Boeing Museum

On our way to Seattle, we would have wanted to visit many places like Cannon Beach, the Columbia Gorge, or the Mounts St. Helen and Rainier, but time was our enemy, and these places really needed one day on their own... So we decided to visit the Boeing Museum instead, which is located near the SeaTac Airport. It is very impressive, both the size and structure and the content.

They have a good collection of aircrafts, from the very first ones to the high-tech and state of the art.

One of the most impressive parts is the World War I and II. They show the main planes used for both, along with interesting information regarding both conflicts. 

Fourth Station: Seattle

Our visit of Seattle started in the Pike Place Market. It is one of the most visited places in Seattle, and especially famous is the fish market, where they pass on the fish throwing them among the fishmongers.

You can see them in action in the picture above. Andres almost got the fish on his camera taking the photo.

Just walking around the market makes an enjoyable time.

Later on that day we went up to the Sky View Observatory, in the Columbia Center, the highest skyscraper in Seattle. It costs 12$ per person to get in, but the views of the city are worth it.

We even had the chance to see Mt. Rainier from the distance, it was cloudy all around it, but its beauty is still noticeable.

We finished our daily visit in the Seattle Center, where the famous Space Needle is located. We spent an or two hour in the gardens, there was some shows going on, and many people seemed to be happy to enjoy such a nice day outside. 

And that is the end of our short but busy vacation on the west coast. Unluckily we left out many places, but on the other side this made it possible to enjoy the time with the family along with exploring new territories. I hope you enjoyed the story and the pictures, and if you keep reading us we will surely come up with many more places that are still out there :)

Thanks for reading, 

Lita & Andres 

West Coast - Part 1

A couple of weeks ago we did a road trip along the US west coast. It was only 10 days, but the experience, the vast landscaping and the perfect weather made it completely fulfilling. Also, we had part of the family who flew over to San Francisco, where we met to enjoy our holidays together. Since we are further away than normal, it was great to be able to join a family vacation with a visit of an unknown part of the country.

The first part of the road trip was in California. My parents and brother had been in San Francisco for a couple of days before we arrived, which was great because when we met they had already accustomed to the local time. They picked us up at the airport, and from there we drove directly to our first station. 

First Station - Yosemite National Park

We spent two days near the National Park (it was before the big fires they unfortunately suffered just days after we left). We had rented a house, which was a great options for 2 nights, that way we could cook breakfast and dinner, spend some time together in the common areas and rest after the day-time activities. The house was almost an hour away from the park, and it was in a suburb close to a lake. There we could see some wild animals just meters away from us.

The next day we entered the park around 10 AM. It was a hot and sunny day, and contrary to what i had thought, the park didn't offer much shadow. The day started in the Yosemite Valley, where we did some small walks to get closer to the falls and the huge rock formations.

The pleasant part of the park is that you can go from one place to the next on a public bus, then you can find your way to the nature. Also, there is many bike paths, beaches, camping places, so it gives a lot of possibilities. It was hard to spend there just one day...

 After lunch, we drove out of the valley and up towards the glacier point, where the views of the same valley we had been were spectacular. Andres pictures speak for themselves.

The big rock formation in the center is called the Half Dome, taking its name from its shape. It can be hiked up with a permit, and last year, when we were planning out trip in October 2013, it was one of our goals. Unfortunately due to the government shutdown we could not do it. And this year we also left it go, maybe it is time to accept that it is not going to happen...

Second Station - Santa Rosa and the California Coast Highway

The next highlight in our journey was the Redwood National Park. However, it was very far to make it in one day, so we decided to spend one night in Santa Rosa, a small town located near the Sonoma Valley. Our intention was to visit a vineyard and do some wine tasting, however, we came on a Saturday, and all the vineyards were over full. In the end, we had lunch in a BBQ place having a good wine, close to many vineyards but not in one... Sometimes the plans need to be changed slightly, however, the result was just as good. Santa Rosa was a small town that we shortly visited and where we stayed the night, not a lot to say about it.

The day after that we entered the Highway 1, that goes along the coast across the state, on our way north towards the Redwood National Park. The views from the car were astonishing.

The cached  a beach full with seals. A boat nearby was approaching them, and although we weren't very close we could enjoy the spectacle of them trying to reach the water as soon as possible.

Later on we  parked the car and followed a path that led to a beautiful cliff.

We spent some time in this beautiful beach, some of us even took a siesta, but nobody bathed in the Pacific Ocean, the water was very cold.

Third Station - Redwood National Park

This excursion was the best one of the trip by unanimity. Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, and they live thousands of years.

When you enter the park you find yourself embedded in an eternal fog. This humidity is indeed what the redwoods need, along with constant climatic conditions throughout the year.

Some of these trees have been hit by lightnings, as the picture above. However many of them manage to survive and grow around the holes left in their trunks.

Here beautiful pictures of the landscape.

Our lunch was at a picnic place next to a huge of these trees.

We say these elks just across the street.

We spent the afternoon in the Fern Canyon, a place where some parts of the movie Jurassic Park had been recorder. You really felt like you were in the Jurassic era.

Although we just saw a small portion of the state, California impressed us with how much it has to offer. In the next entry you'll read about our experience through the Oregon coast, Portland and our last station in Seattle, it will come soon!

Thanks for reading,

Lita & Andres

Great Lakes Beauty

Hi everyone! We have disappeared for a while, leaving the blog abandoned for a month, I feel bad for that and am determined not to do it again. We have been on vacation visiting different places in the US, whose descriptions will soon be described in the next entries. But before that, I want to publish this entry, which was almost finished before our journey, but it finally kept hanging there and never got out. I hope you can enjoy it at last, along with the new updates to come.

Let's start talking about what we did during the Independence Day weekend. Normally, we would have flown somewhere to visit new cities, and extent our list of places we've been. However, this time we decided to take a different approach, and stay in Michigan instead. We thought that, after all, we could not live in a state that we did not visit in our stay here, and after all, there is a lot to see and enjoy in the Great Lakes area.

I will start with an introduction: the Great Lakes are enormous masses of interconnected freshwater, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water. They are located in Canada and the United States, and their names are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. As you can see in the picture below, the state of Michigan is surrounded by the lakes Huron and Michigan.

Looking at the lake from the shore, it is really difficult to realize that it is not the sea, because you don't see the end, it has waves, and there are really beautiful beaches.

These beautiful pictures are from a picture contest organized by the Pure Michigan, you can see more pictures in the link.

Some may say that winter is sad, cold and ugly. In fact, I am glad that this awful winter finally came to an end. However, there is also some beauty present in the pictures from the frozen lakes, and this winter they really pulled it off.

If you like these amazing pictures, you can see them and more in this link


The lakes are very enjoyable because of the beauty and the freedom they give to practice sports like the offer. In fact, our main reason to stay in Michigan for the long weekend was the kite surfing course that we took on the 3rd and 4th of July in Muskegon, at the Lake Michigan. This was Andres' birthday present, he had been looking for it for a long time, and the experience was totally worth it.

Our 2-day course started with good wind. We rapidly took the kites and started practicing its control on the beach, not yet in the water. This is a fun, but skill-demanding sport, I am sure you know what I am talking about if you ever tried it. We sure want to pursue with the sport, and get some practice, now that we live surrounded by lakes, when will we have a better chance!

I had done windsurf in the past, and thought this could somehow be similar. In a way it might be, but certainly the previous experience with windsurf does not help to control the kite, which has a specific logic that needs to be learned.  And in my opinion, kite surfing is harder to learn than windsurfing. Just for fun, I searched for a comparison of both sport, and the practice time you need to learn it. You can see in the graph that kite surfing is hard at first, but after a couple of weeks the learning curve surpasses the one from windsurfing. I guess we are not there yet :)

As said before, we will update soon with our vacation experience in the west coast, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to describe a bit the things that you can do in Michigan, which are plenty and awesome.

Thanks for reading

Lita & Andres