We woke up at 4 AM, finished packing, hopped in the car and started our longest drive. 10 hours, 800 miles. To be honest, they flew by. We passed the time with audiobooks, and real books, talking, and staring out at the sea of trees that is Northern California and Southern Oregon. I cried when we crossed the California border, and again when we crossed the Carquinas Bridge into the bay, and then again when we pulled into our driveway.
This trip was hard. 9 days of travel with no rest days, 3000 miles. We saw a lot of things, but ultimately feel like we did the trip completely wrong. We should have picked out exactly what activities we wanted to do, things we wanted to see, and spent more than a day at each place. We also should have made the loop smaller, and made each hop less far apart, all the driving was terrible.
Also, why the fuck did we pick fire season and worse still, tourist season to do this?!
But we did enjoy some places immensely. St. George in southern Utah is stunning, and Portland was like home away from home. The Museum of Clean was definitely my favorite museum, though exploring Powell's was a quasi-religious experience.
All in all, I'm so glad to be home. After that trip, I need a staycation.
Here's my favorite photo from the whole trip. Look how happy we look at Cathedral Park!
Also, bonus panorama image of Zion.