Whimsicals by Margot

"But I'm a pizzatarian so it's a frozen pizza pie"

Gotta love the clever whimsy of Regina Spektor!  But the pizza at Pizza A'Fetta was anything but frozen! This tiny little pizzeria in Cannon Beach actually was noted as one of the top 50 in the nation.  Though I thought it was ridiculously overpriced, the service was beyond compare, and the pizza was very yummy.  We had artichoke, red onion, and green pepper pizza, as well as breadsticks.  Mmmm!  Oregon has awesome food.  Another great place we ate was Burgerville.  Burgerville was fast food, but it was high end fast food, if such a thing exists.

I tried to get a picture of the steam rising off the pizza, but it just looked blurry.  How delicious does this look?

At Burgerville, we upgraded our fries to a side of fried asparagus.  Good stuff!

I got a spicy black bean burger with a chipotle mayo.  Wow.

For dessert, I ordered this milkshake with Ghiredelli chocolate and black cherries.  It was foodgasmic.

"In the deepest ocean.  The bottom of the sea... Weird fishes.  Weird fishes"

I could not go through a whole trip and not quote Radiohead, especially not after finding my way to Hug Point tide pools.  There were hundreds of starfish, clams, anemones, and various other weird sea creatures.  As much as I love taking pictures in aquariums, there is nothing quite like the real thing.  I even saw a crab, but of course, once he saw me, he would not come back out of his hiding spot so I could photograph him.  We had limited time at the tide pools because the tide was returning, not to mention it was a record cold day for Oregon.

"Goodbye, Goodbye, California.  Goodbye and I'll be moving on"

Jolie Holland expressed exactly was I was feeling by the time the bad moon rising caught us in the Redwood National Forest.  After nearly two weeks on the road, and approximately 5,000 miles, the water pump in our Jeep decided it was done.  With no reception, no idea what was wrong with the car, and 83 miles from the nearest shop, we were stuck on the side of the road.  Though we never saw their wings, two angels pulled over within five minutes of our catastrophe.  They were headed in the same direction we were, and offered to call a tow truck for us as soon as they had cell phone reception.  Maybe an hour later, the tow truck arrived, and gave us a one of a kind tour through Humboldt county.  Fortunately, we were fixed and on the road again by supper time.  We camped in the redwoods, got a nice hot shower for a couple of dollars, and were back on the road to Portland, Oregon.

Surprise!  Another rock I thought was cool!

This is not photoshopped.  I swear, this tree had fallen down, and where the bark was missing, was this amazing turquoise design.

When I'm dead and gone

My immortal home

Will hold me in its bosom 

Safe and cold

No more desiresWill light their fires

Or disturb my immaculate calm

And the birds of the air
And the beasts of the soil

And the fishes of the desperate seas

Will know who I am
And our substance will expand

As part of everything

As part of everything, my God

As part of everything

And the clouds will roll

And the wind will blow

And the beautiful birds will sing

Goodbye, goodbye, California

Goodbye to your waving trees

To you succulent wind

And all my friends

Fare thee well

GoodbyeSo be it

Amen

"We'll go through this thing together.  And on Heaven's golden shore we'll lay our heads"

San Francisco is the city of the Golden Gate Bridge.  We did not spend a lot of time in San Francisco, mostly because we needed to get to Portland to visit friends, and we were behind where we should have been on the schedule.  I am glad we went though.  We went to Johnny Rocket's for lunch, then road our bikes around part of the city.

We were behind a day due to our lazy day at the beach, so I scratched off the idea of seeing Pigeon Point Lighthouse along with a couple other things, and as we were heading to San Francisco, we were driving by this lighthouse, so I wanted to pull over and take a couple of pictures.  Turns out, it was Pigeon Point.  Imagine that!

Since John is such a movie buff, we had to walk around the grounds at Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco.  Outside the lobby was Yoda's fountain.

The following few are from the exploratorium nearby Industrial Light and Magic.  The place was enormous, and had very cool architecture.

My last vacation with my parents was to California during spring break while I was in college.  I had taken lots of pictures of Crooked Street and the Golden Gate Bridge, but I have none of them.  That was back in the film days, and I had to get my film developed so the x-ray machine at the airport wouldn't fog my film.  However, the lab destroyed my film.  I'd been waiting for the day I got to go back and retake all the photos I lost.

I love how the water changes to look of the sand!

Oh, look, more rocks!

This is one of my favorite pictures from our trip.

That's John about to get pummeled by a wave.

Every time the tide came in, it changed the shapes in the sand.

Here is an awesome example of the mineral filled rocks that take credit for the purple sand.

I thought this was cool because it shows the individual grains of sand and their many different colors.

We weren't at the beach at ideal picture taking time, light wise, but I didn't even care.  I originally thought we would only be here for an hour, two tops, while we ate our blueberry muffins and local coffee that we found at an adorable artist shop in Big Sur.  But, we stayed all day, just soaking it in.