What seems like eons ago but is only five weeks, I arrived in Santa Monica after a ten day road trip wandering over large parts of Utah, Arizona and California. Details here:
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/566357-road-trip-calgary-santa-monica-2.html
The plan was to spend a couple of weeks in Santa Monica, visiting my daughter and playing with my granddaughter, before taking a leisurely drive up the west coast, seeing the sights and visiting friends in Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver, Whitefish and Lethbridge, before returning home.
However, "best laid plans" and all that. I had a call from a colleague asking me to go to Saigon and help him out on a project. So I've just returned, terminally jet-lagged,from a three-week trip to Vietnam. I had been in touch with Jon, my old school friend and TAP, in Edmonds WA. He told me that he was going on vacation on the 13th, so I changed my plans. I decided to take a straight run up I-5 to McMinnville, where we would meet and go to the Evergreen Museum. Then if the weather was good, we would go to Mt. St. Helens and then on up to Edmonds.
I returned from Saigon on Wednesday night, one day later than originally planned, so my schedule was compressed. On Thursday, I had the brakes serviced on my car and spent some more time with my granddaughter. I planned to leave on Friday morning, take a couple of short "photo detours", before heading up I-5. According to Google maps, it's a 945 mile, 14 hour trip, so my plan was to stop overnight in Redding (just a mere jaunt at 545 miles) and then leave early on Saturday morning, to meet Jon at "a big pile of spruce".
Before I give the blow by blow account, I need to describe some of the interesting stuff I saw in and around Los Angeles. So bear with me, while I start "Photobucketing".