Airstream Dreams

What’s Next?

dolsenfam — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:36:43 +0000

We made it to Yakima and are settling into our new life here. Being that there are so many more places we want to visit and so many people we want to visit them with, we’re keeping the Airstream. It’ll be parked in a warehouse here in Yakima, and when the snow melts, we’ll start taking weekend trips in the area. So let us know if you want to make some Airstream dreams of your own….

The Rest of the trip

dolsenfam — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:36:12 +0000

Feeling that we’d had our fix on wine-tasting in Paso, we sped through the Napa area and agreed to come back for a separate trip soon. Our final photo finish is taken in the Redwood Forest on The Avenue of the Giants. Those trees are really mind-blowingly huge and even our trailer looked tiny in comparison. After the Redwoods, we scooted through cold and rainy Oregon and arrived in Yakima ahead of schedule, a week before Thanksgiving. We are really psyched to be here and hope you’ll come visit us.

San Francisco

dolsenfam — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:13:29 +0000

I wish we had more pictures to offer from San Francisco, because we enjoyed 3 beautiful sunny days there. We stayed at The Petersons’ pad in Pacific Heights, while the trailer rested on flat ground in Sausalito. We had a great time reuniting with friends and enjoying all that amazing city has to offer. Did we mention that Bradford had entered a moustache contest?

Carmel-by-the-Sea

dolsenfam — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:02:24 +0000

Carmel is one of our favorite places in the world, and we were lucky enough to meet Kristen’s folks there to coincide with a business gig her dad was participating in. The dogs were in major need of some space and yard and fortunately that’s just what we got at The Athons’ house in Carmel. What a treat.

Big Sur

dolsenfam — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:52:55 +0000

Big Sur is not actually a town, but more the name of the National Forest that runs roughly from Cambria to Carmel. It is an amazing place to relax and get away from it all. It’s probably not the most ideal place to be when you’re trying to buy and sell a house, but we made it work. We spent most of our time recreating (One day we ”accidentally” went on a 13 mile run in Andrew Molera State Park), taking the dogs to the beach and just reading and relaxing in the Redwoods.

The drive to Big Sur

dolsenfam — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:26:34 +0000

This one deserves its own post. We were warned not to take our 31′ trailer along the windiest stretch of the PCH, but we decided it would be worth it to give it a try. Wow are we glad we did. We drove up the whole coast and Kristen took roughly 200 photos of the breathtaking views. Here are a few of our favorites.

Paso Robles, CA

dolsenfam — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:11:50 +0000

We tired of the chatchky shops on the coast and headed inland for Paso Robles, Central Coast wine country. We had a really fun day of wine tasting where we were allowed to bring our dogs into all the wineries. The vineyards were gorgeous with all the fall colors.

Central Coast of California

dolsenfam — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:00:44 +0000

Our trip to Santa Barbara was cut short due to each of us flying to Yakima to look at and subsequently purchase a house. So, even though we spent our 4th Anniversary apart, we now had a place to live when we arrived in Yakima. Kristen flew into Santa Barbara on October 30th and we celebrated our anniversary by grilling tri-tip over the campfire and finally drinking that magnum of wine that our Seattle friends gave us at an ENGAGEMENT party 5 years ago. It was a great anniverary celebration and what we saw of Santa Barbara was great, although a little Hollywood for our liking. We’re adding Santa Barbara to our list of places we wish we’d seen more of.

From SB, we drove up the coast and stayed in a couple little beach towns–Pismo Beach and Morro Bay. Probably wouldn’t visit either of them again, but they did have amazing sunsets.

Marvelous Malibu

dolsenfam — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:47:23 +0000

After Kristen returned from Sharman’s wedding in Texas and Brady drove up from a weekend in San Diego, we reunited in Malibu. The Malibu Beach RV Park is truly the Mac-daddy of all RV parks. It’s situated on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean with just the Pacific Coast Highway in between. We tried our luck at surfing, cooked tons of fresh seafood, hiked, biked, ran on the beach (usually at high tide, naturally) and just soaked up the warm California sunshine. This was Kristen’s favorite stop as well as our longest stint in any one place.

Vegas, baby!

dolsenfam — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:36:54 +0000

Somewhere outside of Flagstaff, AZ, we pulled a U-turn and found ourselves headed in the direction of Las Vegas–weird. We found out that The Four Seasons was practically giving away rooms and it was the only hotel on the strip that allowed dogs AND The Mandalay Bay (which is connected) could accomodate all 60+ feet of our set-up. So Vegas it was.

Wish we had a picture of the Airstream on the strip, but we might have punched ourselves in the face had we attempted that. We enjoyed a couple days by the pool, some great meals, and tons of odd looks from strangers wondering, “Who the heck brings their dogs to Vegas?!”