Shutting down the Wacky Chinablog

As someone pointed out to me the other day, the title of this blog is a little strange, since I'm not particularly wacky, or even Chinese really. And of course, there's the whole racial slur thing...to be honest, I'm not quite sure how I arrived at this nickname...maybe there was some scotch involved...

Now that I've moved out to the West Coast and have started trying to figure out the next part of my life (not a particularly easy process), it seems fitting to shut down this space and start anew. Contact me if you want to keep following me on my new blog.

Day 17: Arriving in San Francisco.....tribute

After a winding detour through the Pacific Coast Highway (much of it in the dark), we finally arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Today was easily the longest day of driving, but there was a lot of fun to be had doing random stuff along the way.

By the time we got to SF, it was 1am and super foggy so I could barely see 20 feet in front of the car as I was crossing the bridge.  That doesn't make for a very good picture, so this is just a tribute (ya gotta believe it...and I wish you were there) to the road trip's final destination.

Day 17: Hot guys at the bar

Stopped into Lost Coast brewery to quench our thirst.  We found a spot at the end of the bar and took advantage of happy hour. 

There were a lot of people at the bar so in order to keep track of which tab belonged to whom, the barmaid had to write a little description for each customer in the system and it shows up on the receipt.  I can't say I was surprised to see what her description of us was (the pic doesn't lie). 

(ok ok, I might have ASKED her to type that in, but still....I like to think she would have done it anyway). 

Day 17: Trees of Mystery

Gotta love those tourist traps! This one featured some unique tree formations but perhaps the best part was the massive Paul Bunyan statue that talks to you. The guy inside with the microphone sounds like he's having a great time carrying on conversations with passers-by. I'd like to try out that job for a day or so...

Day 17: Pacific Ocean

Seems somewhat symbolic to have reached the other coast, so it's worth a quick post here. As you can see, the weather is pretty crappy. Why am I moving here again?

Day 17: Final day

Last day of the road trip. Starting it off right with some huevos rancheros n

Day 16: Crater Lake

We managed to get here right before the clouds started coming in. There are some truly spectacular views here.

Day 16: Bend, OR

A strong recommendation brought us to Deschutes brewery in Bend. What a good decision. Although the snotty dude sitting next to me at the bar complained that this was the "Disneyland of brewpubs" (ie crowded and overpriced), I thought it had great food and great microbrews.

Mac and cheese was super (those big chunks you see are giant prawns) and of the twelve beers we tasted, our favorites were the Oktoberfest, Black Butte Porter, and King Screamer IPA. Someday I'm going to have to find my way back here.

Day 16: Random stuff

Spent last night in Portland, OR and caught up with an old friend over some beers at a nearby Scottish pub (and yes, haggis was consumed).

This morning we woke up early (relatively speaking) and started our journey to Crater Lake. Just outside of Bend, OR we took a small detour to visit the Peterson Rock Garden and Museum. Some dude built all these buildings out of small rocks nearly fifty years ago and all this stuff is still here today, even though it is in slight disrepair. It's actually really impressive, especially when you consider that he built it mostly by himself.

Day 15: Willapa Bay

Ok. So we took a 3 hour detour to go to South Bend,WA which is the self proclaimed Oyster Capital of the WORLD. This excited me enough to head there without doing much research/planning.

While the oysters were friggin' huge, not a ton of flavor and not particularly cheap despite us going to the diviest dive bar in town.

If only I had thought to take a pic of the seedy characters smoking out in front of the joint.

Day 15: Mt Rainier, WA

Full day of driving across Washington state today, starting in Pullman, WA. Instead of driving I-5, we took the scenic route through the Yakima Valley and Snoqualmie National Forest.

Below is a nice view of Mt Rainier--not the clearest day, but the new iPhone HDR helps salvage the pic.

Day 14: Good eatin'

Lots of neat little finds today. Firstly, a nice little homemade ice cream stand in Missoula. Secondly, a late lunch at the Smokehouse in Wallace, ID; though I'm still a little BBQ'd out from last month's adventure, I couldn't resist this place after seeing their smoker at work on the street out in front of the restaurant.

Lastly, some good microbrews in Moscow, ID at Coeur d'Alene brewing company. A nice Tuesday night special meant our pints were only $1.50 each!

Day 14: Random shit

After waking up and eating breakfast in Missoula, MT, we got onto I-90 and headed west. A stop in Wallace, ID yielded some interesting sights.

Wallace started as a mining town (likely for silver), and any good mining town had brothels to keep their miners happy. The Oasis Bordello museum used to be the site of such a place (and by "used to be" I mean as far back as....1988). It's a cool looking place though--decorated much like an old saloon.

Day 13: Glacier National Park

Late start to the morning, so we didn't get to the park until nearly 5pm. That left us with only about 3-4 hours of daylight to see the park. The major drive through the park is the "Going to the Sun Highway" which has some great views.

(the brown path on the right hand side of the picture is the highway we traveled on)

On our drive out of the park, we got pulled over for speeding (first time all trip!).  Fortunately, the park ranger let us off with a warning, so we're still ticket-free!

Day 11: Big Sandy, MT

Spent most of today driving in Montana. Stopped off in Helena for a bowl of chili and a huckleberry milkshake (yeah I know they don't exactly pair well), and I saw a weird drawing on the sidewalk. Seems like a Wizard of Oz reference, but no idea why it was there.


After some GPS mishaps that had me stuck on a dirt road for half an hour, I finally made it to Big Sandy. Tomorrow: the road trip gets put on hold so I can watch Pats-bengals.

Day 10: On to Montana

Remember when the sub commander in The Hunt for Red October gets shot and his last words are "I would have liked to have seen Montana..."? I vowed to never end up like that guy.

Mission accomplished.

Day 10: Yellowstone, WY

A few other random pictures from around the park. The geothermal properties of this area create some really funky looking pools that strange, colorful bacteria can grow in.

Day 10: Yellowstone Geysers

Another crappy morning with gray clouds and misty rain. Oh, and a high of 45 degrees.

As everyone knows, the biggest attraction here is Old Faithful. This is reinforced by the fact that the Old Faithful Village is the only place I can get cell service and/or Wi-Fi. Since it erupts every 90 minutes, it is certainly a convenient attraction for most tourists.

BUT, if you want to see an impressive, yet less cooperative geyser, I would suggest the Grand Geyser, located a 5-minute walk away. It only erupts every 8-10 hours, but is significantly less predictable. As we walked by today, the prediction was for the geyser to erupt between 7:45am and 10:45am (the current time was 11am). Several people had been waiting there for about 2 hours. We hung around for another half hour before deciding to walk further down the path and check out some other stuff. Not 5 minutes later, we turned around and saw the eruption:

Fortunately, the eruption lasts for nearly 10 minutes, so we had enough time to go back and experience it up close. Pictures CANNOT do it justice, but here is my attempt to do so:

Day 9: Yellowstone Canyon

Although the weather had been extremely cooperative up to this point, today was the inevitable cloudy, overcast, rainy day. Not great for pictures, but since my dad says a good photographer should be able to shoot in any light, we gave it a shot anyway.

(Liberal use of Picasa's touch-up features helps too)

Yellowstone Canyon is pretty impressive, what with the sulfur-colored walls and all. We also got a chance to take a few "moderately strenuous" hikes to get some views of the falls. In one case, this hike consisted of ~300 stairs (yay!). Compounding that was the realization that the elevation is about 6000 ft, which made me feel REALLY out of shape. On the plus side, this time of year the park is filled with mostly retirees, so by comparison I felt like a marathon runner.

Day 9: Mud Volcanoes (Yellowstone,WY)

(Due to lack of Internets in the Yellowstone area, Some of these posts are a little tardy)

So if you've been to Yellowstone National Park, you have probably seen the signs warning tourists to not approach the bison, as they can be "unpredictable." But they don't really tell you what to do if the bison approach YOU, nor do they have any suggestions for when the bison herd decides to, oh...wander into the middle of traffic!

The photos here are taken at the entrance to the mud volcanoes--I took them from the safety of my car. No zoom lens--these guys got pretty close!

Day 7: Jackson Lodge

Great dinner at the Mural Room. I figured that as long as I was in the Great Plains area, I may as well try some elk. It was pretty tasty, but the cheese polenta that came with it was fantastic!

Day 7-8: Grand Teton National Park

Gorgeous day for taking pictures. I basically spent the day driving around the park, scoping out scenery, and playing with my camera. I'm still trying to figure out the photography basics, and spending several hours trying things out has really helped my understanding of what all the buttons on this camera are for.

Here are a few of my choice pics--more to follow...