Memorial Day weekend is thought by many to be the unofficial start of summer, and if the weather cooperates common celebrations include hitting the beach or hosting a barbeque. Three friends and I took a different approach to the long weekend, however, by embarking on a road trip that took us from Seattle to Los Angeles over the course of two weeks.
Some noteworthy stops along the way included:
- Seattle’s Pike Place, known to many as the home of the original Starbucks and site of the famous public market
- The Gorge in George, WA for the Sasquatch Festival, which is definitely the most beautiful concert venue I’ve ever been to
- Portland, OR, where we fell in love with the Ace Hotel (which became our home away from home) and took a side trip to Astoria where The Goonies was filmed 25 years ago
- Traversing the Redwood Forest, where we almost took off a side mirror in our attempt to take a Chevy Tahoe through the famous drive-through tree
- Wine tasting in Sonoma Valley, complete with a picnic lunch
- San Francisco, where we successfully fit a week’s worth of activity into two days thanks to our dedicated host/tour guide, Brant
- Monterey, Carmel and Big Sur along Route 1, which featured breathtaking scenery for miles
- Los Angeles, where we managed to visit Hollywood, Venice Beach, Santa Monica and Hermosa Beach when not sitting in traffic
We also used our trip as an exercise in social media by group tweeting along the way (check out our feed at http://www.twitter.com/thebrodyjenner - our account name is a long story!). Our friends and families were able to view photos and read trip commentary instantaneously while we created a digital journal that we can return to for years to come.
We came to a realization during our trip that eventually became our unofficial motto: it wasn’t a vacation, it was an adventure.
Kaitlin
