Northern California - March 2007

In March of 2007 we went on a tour of Northern California. We first flew in to San Francisco and stayed the night with my cousin Jessica and her husband Troy. We hadn't seen them since our wedding and it was so fun to visit with them. We spent the next day touring around downtown San Francisco. We took the public transportation to downtown, getting off at Union Square. I don’t remember what the significance of the place was, but it is basically this big plaza area, surrounded by a lot of high end stores (Macys, Saks, Neiman-Marcus, Tiffany’s, etc.) and hotels. to Fisherman’s Wharf. We first went to Pier 39, Ghiradelli Square, and China Town. More Chinese people live in Chinatown than anywhere else in the world except China. It was pretty fun. It reminded me of London, a lot of little shops lining the main street.

After San Francisco we headed into my mission (the California Santa Rosa mission - the BEST mission.) We stopped in Santa Rosa (my last area) and had dinner with one of the ladies I had taught there who had been baptised, Laurie Gavagan. It was so good to see her and I really enjoyed spending that time with her - and the food was great too.

After dinner we started heading up toward Eureka (my first area) and the Redwoods. It is a long drive so we stopped in Ukiah and spent the night then drove the rest of the way in the morning. Before heading in to Eureka, though, we went through Avenue of the Giants, on of the Redwood Forests up there. It is amazing! I went hiking there one p-day (preperation day) as a missionary and loved it. The trees can get incredibly tall (hence "Giants"), I think the tallest was 367 feet. We did several hikes but were slightly hindered because Ryan tore a ligament in his ankle the weekend before our trip playing basketball and so had to wear a boot.

We headed to Eureka then and stayed with my friends Ethan and Dani Flores. Ethan is the only person I taught on my mission that was found through tracting and was baptised. Dani is also a convert but didn't move to Eureka until after I was transfered out of the area. They are awesome. We had fun hanging out with them that night, playing games and catching up. The next day they had to work, so we headed on up to the Redwood National Forest on our own. As a missionary I had gone to Fern Canyon, which is gorgeous. Several movies have been filmed there including Jurrasic Park and the Ewok scene of Star Wars. I absolutely loved it and wanted to take Ryan there. But when we got up there we found out it was closed because of all teh rain that they had gotten there were too many landslides. (It was kind of funny though because I had alwasy told Ryan about how the weather was always overcast there - almost always in the 60s and just cold and grey and often rainy. The 3 days we were there were perfectly sunny and in the low 70s. It was so nice. And because we were there in March there were hardly any other people there so we almost never saw people on our hikes - it was perfect, totally ideal, except some roads were closed and we couldn't get to Fern Canyon which we had really wanted to do.) So we were pretty bumbed but we ended up going on some pretty cool other hikes and on this one that was somewhat similar to Fern Canyon and really I think just as pretty, but different.

After we were done hiking Ethan and Dani were also done working so we met them at Trinidad Beach (one of the beaches that I had gone to a lot as a missionary - I used to just sit on the beach and write letters - lucky missionary, huh.) Ryan and I had fun exploring the tide pools (something I hadn't done as a missionary) and we foudn tons of different colored star fish, which was pretty fun. We went to dinner and then enjoyed and evening of just haning out. It was good to spend time with them.

The next day we headed back south towards Middletown, my second area (I only had 3 areas) but on the way we stopped at Avenue of the Giants again and did some final hiking before leaving the beautiful area. It is just so incredibly beautiful, but not the easiest location to get to. But if you ever get the opportuinity to go we would highly recommend it. It is so peaceful to be amongst those big trees, and then you have the ferns down low - and if you go in March you ahve the place to yourself pretty much and it is amazing. You can really feel God there and are amazed by the magnitude of his creations.




Well once we tore ourselves away from the trees we made it to Middletown and to the home of Mike and Julie Wilson. Julie and their children were already members when I first arrived in Middletown as a missionary but Mike was not. Some people called him a "dry Mormon". He had been to church several times but had never gotten around to getting baptized. I was the lucky missionary that was able to teach him the discussions and commit him to baptism. They are awesome! They fed us dinner and let us stay with them and we had a great time visiting with them. They are just a great couple and I love them a lot. The next day was Sunday and so we went to church at the Middletown ward and it was so fun to see so many people that I loved so much. The ward had changed a lot, but there were still a lot of familiar faces. (When I was a missionary I got super sick for several months, and this was while I was in Middletown. I would have to stay in the homes of members many times while my companions - I was in a threesome - went out and worked. Because of this I got extra close to the members in this ward. I ended up having to go home from Middletown for awhile, and then I went back to Santa Rosa, which was my last area.)


After church we headed back to San Francisco so we could spend some more time with my cousin Jessica. We spent our time walking around Golden Gate park which was just a few blocks form her apartment. It was gorgeous and we really enjoyed just walking around and seeing everything and visiting. Jessica is just one of those people that you are always happy to be around because she is always happy and complimentary and makes you feel good about yourself. She is very smart and beautiful and I wish I lived closer to her so I could see her more often but it was really fun to spend that time with her. And we appreciated her being our tour guide of the park.

After awhile it was time for us to catch our flights so we had to say goodbye and head home. We had such a great time in California it was hard to leave, but all good things must come to an end.