West Coast, Desert & Grand Canyon

We left home on the 14th of Feb. in our Dodge Lodge. We drove down the West Coast of Washington, Oregon and California and then drove across California and up to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We were gone three weeks.
We visited friends on the way. Dan and Irene took us up to Hurricane Ridge and other places. I have some really good icicle photos from there. Del and Marianne took us up Mount Angel to the Abbey, to see the water falls (spectacular) in the Silver Falls State Park, and to see a few of the covered bridges. We ran out of light and time. It was good to see Candi and Gary happy and ever so busy.
After visiting we set off down the coast.. a very white knuckles drive, with a stop at the derigible museum, Tillamook Air Museum (blimps (more good photos). I have some seascape photos and some Oregon dunes shots. Spectacular scenery. We went through the Avenue of the Giants which is a redwood forest. We navigated through San Francisco and over the San Rafael bridge with traffic stopped on a five lane freeway, just before the bridge. I have a few desert shots from the drive across California and up to the Grand Canyon. It rained all day on our drive to Williams, Arizona, through some country that would have made excellent desert photos, except it was raining. Some one at a campsite told me they needed the rain as they were having fires in the area. From Williams (new all cement campsite with trains, traffic, and horribly high prices) we drove up to the Grand Canyon the next day with a beatifull, sunny day. They were having unseasonably warm weather, so there was no snow and ice. More spectacular scenery.
As we had been on the road for awhile we decided to head for home directly up the I-5. There was a very tense few hours going over the Siskiyou Summit (elevation 3000 feet) near Ashland, Oregon, when we followed the de-icing truck for some miles. We made it home safely the next day. Pat knows the roads and by-passes for most of the cities on the I-5, but he was driving long days to get us back home. Not many photo opportunities in those last 4 days. Home on the 6th of March.
It was a wonderfull trip. No need to ever drive the Coast highway, again. At least not all at once!