We're alive! Don't worry!

Sorry for the blog hiatus for the last 2 or so weeks.  Don't worry folks, we're still alive.  We've done a lot of traveling from the Los Angeles area all the way up to Seattle.  We've visited friends from college, John and Jackie Miller right outside San Francisco and picked up my brother, Brian, to tour the city.   We also picked up Nate's sisters Renee and Kirsten and cousin Lauren to drive out to Yosemite National Park where we met with most of Nate's extended family for cousin Bryan's wedding.  Then we met my Dad and Beth in Sacramento, CA and have spent the last week driving through Oregon to visit Craig and Megan Hammond (my high school youth leaders) and their kids in Salem, OR, and then on to Seattle to visit our college friend Cesar.  So that's what you've missed.  Now we'll try to get into the details a few days at a time:

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The main house of Hearst Castle

It's been a few crazy weeks with little to no internet access - hence the lack of blog posts - lots of camping, visiting great people and taking tons of pictures.  We obviously haven't been able to keep up and it's been a bit overwhelming trying to keep track of all the pictures, but hopefully we'll have some time here in Seattle to catch up a bit.

On Thursday July 7th (wow that seems like forever ago now!), we packed up and said goodbye to the Greg Schroeder family and headed up the Cali coast!  We stopped at Hearst Castle on our first day out of LA, and camped near there, less than a mile from the ocean.  For those who aren't from Central California, Hearst Castle is William Randolph Hearst's estate, which he spent his entire life constructing and reconstructing with random old building pieces he picked up in Europe.  As he was filthy rich, it's a pretty amazing property, with multiple buildings, indoor and outdoor pools ordained in gold leaf, and marble statues everywhere.  Apparently movie stars used to come up to his estate for weeks at a time and enjoy the views and his personal zoo on the property.  Unfortunately, due to California budget cuts, the Hearst Castle State Park has shortened all of the tours, so we only saw a few of the glamorous rooms of the main house.  However, we were still blown away by all of the European architectural pieces covering the interior of the building.

The Indoor Pool - Gold Leaf Everywhere

The Dining Hall - The Great Hall of Hogwarts anyone???

We left the castle, then headed to the San Simeon Campground, watched the sunset, and called it a night.  

Sunset in San Simeon

On Friday July 8th we continued North along Highway 1 and happened across wild Elephant Seals resting on the shore.  An hour flew by as we watched them fight, listened to them bark and and laughed at them as they crawl around like giant worms.  

These pics don't do them justice, but elephant seals on land = five-thousand pound worms

Unfortunately, the marine layer was very heavy along the coast, so our views weren't nearly as spectacular as we had hoped.  However, we were able to see some of the cliffs as the clouds cleared. 

We stopped in Carmel, a larger, ritzier version of South Haven, Michigan, for brunch and then headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the afternoon.  We loved watching and touching the sting rays, seeing the sea horses, jelly fish, and sea turtles.  The aquarium also has a living kelp forest with simulated waves in one of it's giant tanks, which is pretty awesome to see.

For our Champaign friends - There was even a penguin named Pingu!!  Sorry Tim, but we were unable to capture a good picture because it was moving so fast :(

Kelp Forest!!

We finally made it up to Dublin, CA by dinner time to spend the evening catching up with our great friends from college, John and Jackie Miller.  Stay tuned for our San Francisco/Dublin adventures.