northern california and oregon!!!

who knew oregon was so beautiful?! we didn't until today!!!
kelley and i drove 14 hours from san francisco to portland, oregon. the drive along highway 101 was so gorgeous that it didnt feel nearly as long. we stopped along the way at some beach spots and outlooks.
the redwood forest was also beautiful and fun to drive through. neither of us had seen trees so huge before!
right now, we're at the jupiter hotel in portland. tomorrow we are going to explore and ride bikes throughout portland!! hopefully there will be more photos of portland than we have of san francisco. we woke up at 6am to go to the golden gate bridge but it was so foggy that we couldn't even see it while we were driving over it. BUMMER!!!
tomorrow evening we're going to seattle, washington and staying with kelley's brother jay at his naval base! we will be there until sunday and i promise i will be posting a ton of photos in the next few days of both cities!!!!
miss you all. xoxo

kelley in oregon

kelley at the beeeeach

the water was really cold. here i am at the beach.

me in oregon

me in oregonnn

oregon

oregon

oregon

pacific ocean!

golden gate bridge from a far

boats off of fisherman's wharf

alcatraz
it was too expensive to go..... however i definitely want to next time!

Wild night in San Fran!

Yesterday was our first full day spent in San Francisco! We got up early, checked out the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art for a few hours to start our day. Emily's really into art so I sucked it up. She was so excited because there were 2 exhibits that happened to be 2 or her favorite photographers-- Richard Avedon and Robert Frank. (Emily's posting photos later). To my surprise, the museum wasn't that bad..
After that we went down to Fisherman's Wharf along the boardwalk and saw Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was way to busy for us so we walked 10 blocks or so back into the city and found a yummy pizza place for lunch. Then nap time.
Last night we decided to go our with our 3 roommates-- Fillippa and Cecille are Swedish and Laura's from Manchester, England. Definitely the most fun night I've had on this trip so far. Being that we're so lucky to be staying on a street with about 8 strip clubs, we took advantage :-) Honestly, it was slightly uncomfortable BUT I'm glad we went because Emily and I had never been to one. (Note to self:: lots and lots of married men go to strip clubs... gross..)
We didn't stay to long, but stayed up til 3:30 or so talking and meeting other people.
Not much sleep last night.. and no coffee today at breakfast..

Who knows what today brings! -- caffeine first..

perty perty perty!!!!

here are a few of the MANY photos from the grand canyon!!!!!

So the night before we left Flagstaff, we made the decision to skip Vegas and Las Angeles and drive 14 hours to San Francisco. Long, long, looooong day! We got up at 6 and went to the Grand Canyon for a few hours which was incredible! Definitely something to spend more the 2 hours on. Then Sannnnnn Frannnnnn! We made pretty good time and found our hostel directly downtown... beside a strip club and across from porn shop. Apparently the prostitution in the area "isn't that bad". HA! The hostel itself is HUGE and holds over 200 people. EVERYONE here is international and has awesome accents.

Past few days-- Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona!!

The Past few nights have gone by so fast! After our trip in Arkansas visiting Mark and his family, we headed toward Amarillo, Texas for the night.

A hundred miles or so into our drive we started to hear a loud rattling noise and when we pulled over realized a part of Emily’s car was falling off and rubbing against the tire. We’re not mechanics, so we just cut if off! So far we feel like we made a good decisionJ.

Our plan was to save a little bit of money and sleep in a Wal-Mart parking lot that night, but somehow we convinced each other that “we deserved” a night in a motel. I guess we’re not ready for car-sleeping just yet.

We both got a really good night sleep for a long drive to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We spent our day in the down-town area (which everyone calls Central) and had absolutely TERRIBLE Mexican food… very disappointing. In the evening we got to our Hostel, which was in Cedar Crest, in the Sandia Mountains right outside of Albuquerque. We realized we should’ve gone straight to the hostel, because there was SO much to do! Jim, the owner of the Hostel let us play with his donkeys for a while and offered free donkey rides. I was to lazy to get up at 6:30am and Emily was allergic, so we passed.

That night, we went down the road to a little café and listened to two older men singing old Frank Sinatra songs and play the piano and harmonica. It was a really nice way to end our bad day.

The next morning we woke up early and drove to the top of the Sandia Mountain. On the way there was a place called Tinker Town, were a man had converted an entire plot of land into his own collection of hand-carved wood and art. It was amazing.. pictures definitely don’t do this place justice. The top of the mountain was incredible to. We took a hike along the crest, and we could see EVERYTHING! It was like we were floating. The only bad part was that we were attacked by flying ants.

Before we left Albuquerque, Emily had to have “diner food, diner food, eggs, breakfast, dinerdinerdiner!” Thus, we found Lindy’s Diner. It was really cool and a bunch of famous people had eaten there.

Then, a 6 hour drive to Flagstaff, Arizona. Half-way there or so we stopped at a gas station where we met a guy named Curtis. He had started his own non-profit organization and traveled around the world collecting donations and giving them to needy people. Just talking to him for 20 minutes was inspiring for both of us. We finished off our drive in good spirits and found our hostel.. which was SO cool! It’s called Du Beau Motel and Hostel and privately run. There were a ton, ton, ton of people here to talk to from all over the world!

nc, tn, and ak.

hey its em. kelley and i are sitting in fort smith, arkansas!! we are staying at my good friend mark karsten's house with his family. Kathy, Buzz, and Josh are the sweetest people!! we both are really happy to be here with them!

since monday, kelley and i have gone through north carolina, tennessee, and arkansas! we stopped in ashville, nc, knoxville, tn, nashville, tn, memphis, tn, little rock, ak, and fort smith, ak.

when kelley and i got to memphis, we found our hostel which was really cute and then decided to go downtown. we ended up having car troubles and dealing with not so nice people, but luckily we met some kids at dinner and ended up going out with all their friends later that night. the nightlife is way more wild in memphis compared to what kel and i are used to!

yesterday, we left memphis and went to little rock, ak. it was really pretty. we rode our bikes throughout downtown and the river market district. we both fell in love with that area. we ended up having lunch on a bridge over the arkansas river. it was beautiful!!!

we made it here to fort smith, ak last night. mark has been showing us around and we have been hanging with the karsten's all day. we are about to go on a bike ride with josh (mark's younger brother.) they are such nice and cute people and have been so sweet to us! we're going to be staying another night here and then heading out to oklahoma city and amarillo, tx tomorrow!!

here are some photos from our trip so far!!!

knoxville, tn

nashville, tn

nashville, tn

nashville, tn




nashville, tn





downtown memphis, tn






friends we made in memphis!






these were the nice guys we met at friday's. we all went
out for a drink at a bar on beale street which is downtown memphis.
we ended up meeting more of their friends and also a
few other groups of kids who were also traveling.
it was a fun night!





leaving memphis and entering arkansas







little rock, ak





little rock, ak and the river!

And we're OFF!!

Being two 21 year old girls in college, Emily and I decided we needed a break! There's no better way to get away then to hop in a car and drive across the US for a month. Neither of us have ever done much traveling, so this entire experience is new and extremely exciting for us.

We both decided to bring our bikes to ride around in different cities, so before we left we had to get a bike rack, which was already assembled, and somehow took us almost a half hour to figure out how to put on her car! We realized we had it on backwards... oops.

Finally we left Greensboro, NC at 2 or so (right after Kelley slammed the car trunk on herself) and headed to Knoxville, TN for the night.

About two hours down the road, it started raining and we noticed we couldn't see our bikes in the rear-view mirror. We STILL had the bike rack on wrong and our bikes were dragging along I-40! I don't recommend getting out in the pouring rain to fix ANYTHING. Luckily, we figured it out and got to take a nice rain shower.

We stopped in Asheville, NC to walk around and get coffee. It was absolutely beautiful!! Everything about the city blew us away.

Once we got to Knoxville, we sat outside of a Mellow Mushroom pizza place and drank a congratulatory beer.

** Thank you so, so much Dana and Trent for letting us stay at your AMAZING house! (You're lucky emily didn't steal your dog..)

Miles traveled:: 293