March 2022: Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and California

After three years of Covid isolation, Patti and I finally put together a road trip vacation down to Sedona, Arizona, where Patti had scored hotel reservations for four days, just before peak season rates started to set in.  We begain by driving down to spend the night in Lakeview, Oregon, at the California border.  (After straightening out the GPS on Patti's phone, which had been telling us to get off the freeway at every exit.  It was accidently set to "Avoid Freeways".  "Scarlet" (which is what we called her) performed admirably thereafter.)

After three days of driving (and our next night in Tonapah, Nevada) we arrived at Sedona, which was pretty much as advertised, fairly crowded in town with spectacular scenery.  We did our hiking at sunrise and sunset, which made for beautiful views and sparse crowds.  The weather was great; lucky for us as it had snowed before we arrived and rain was forecast as we left.  We spent four days at our hotel.

Our original plan was to head back north through Utah, but its forecast was for snow and bad weather, so we headed west into California.  We made a quick drive through Joshua Tree National Park and the next day a stop at Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve.  We were too early to see many poppies, and it was up across the state to the northern coast.  After a night in Arcata, we headed up the coast with a stop at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, one of my favorite places.

We ended up at Carol's and Kate's and Ger's in Neskowin for a long-last family get-together, including a walk on the beach with super hound Zola.

Here are a few photos from the trip that I've converted to black and white.

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           Driving to Arizona           Sedona           Joshua Tree           Redwoods          Neskowin           Black and White