Kayaking ROCKS!!!!!

OK, Kirstin here - I have to start this post off as I am now HOOKED on kayaking!!!!! We have kayaked for a total of 10 hours over the last two days at Hyatt Lake and it is just fun fun fun!!!

Both days we packed a cooler with food and drink and headed out for the day. Yes, Big Dude, we sunscreened and hydrated well both days ;-)

It is just beyond cool to wander around the shoreline watching fish jump, floating next to families of ducks and geese, and just enjoying the no outside interruptions life of floating around a lake all day!!! Here's a bunch of pics of the gorgeous lake and our days there!

We named this spot "Kirstin and Terri Cove" - quite sure no one had named it before ;-) Had a great picnic with Sheryl Crow providing awesome music!!!!! (Which we have a cool video of and will upload when blogger participates!)

Tuesday - July 27, 2010

Shopping Day!!!! There has to be a shopping day on vacation - did you really think we'd forget? Plus, we're in the middle of frickin' nowhere with very few provisions - we neeeeeed stuff! We made the drive down into Medford and hit the mall where we were both quite successful. :-D

Then for the really necessary part of the shopping trip - Safeway. Kirstin really wanted to make Salmon for dinner so we picked up groceries and headed back up the mountain. And after such hard work, it seemed necessary to have a little drink before dinner. (Thanks for the gift from Costa Rica Joe - it was yummy! :-)

And of course, with chef Kirstin on the job, dinner was wonderful.

Kirstin typing again now...

After dinner (and the video search that had been going on for days), we decided to watch a movie that Terri has been trying to get me to watch every vacation we've been on...Zoolander!! We found it at the mall and Terri was oh so happy! I'm not a Ben Stiller fan, but must admit this movie was funnier than hell!!! I wouldn't quite give it the "phenomenal" rating that the random stranger in Safeway did, but it was damned funny :-) We have been trying out some fashion ideas for Mugatu's next Derelicte line while kayaking...can't show you pics though as it is so compelling that it would be like a premature showing of Zoolander's Magnum - it would just shock the world!!

After the movie, we hung out in the wonderful hot tub for a bit - stars everywhere on a perfect cool mountain night!! Having the hot tub is just another star to add to the Hyatt Lake Resort :-)

Off to sleep, for Wednesday, the plan was kayaking...and oh boy did we kayak!! But you must be patient and wait for the next blog post...this was all about shopping and Zoolander ;-)

Monday - July 26th, 2010: The Prequel

How the heck did we forget about Weed???? California that is... That's right, when we left the Redding area headed towards Ashland, we noticed a town called Weed on our way. Many people during our travels have mentioned how wonderful Weed is and that we must stop in Weed if we wind up in the area. We are not really sure what the fascination is, but we stopped to see what the big deal was.

We proceeded very safely into Weed as we did not know what to expect. Not to worry, it was full of harmless hippies and weary travelers. We went to the Weed store and found out that everybody loves Weed. We took some pictures, but there really isn't anything to do there so we just don't understand what the big deal about is.

Monday - July 26, 2010

Last night we started pondering the idea of lakes in southern Oregon so again headed to the giver of wifi and coffee - Starbucks. After much searching and calling we found a cute little place called the Hyatt Lake Resort. The website wasn't much to look at, but we called and they had cabins available - so hey, why not give it a shot?

We hit the road heading South on I-5 towards Ashland and then began the meandering drive up the mountain to Hyatt Lake. I will admit that as this windy drive up into the mountains continued on, we became a little nervous. You know those horror movies where they take a bunch of teenagers up into the mountains for a camping trip and then some axe murderer turns out to be camping in the vicinity and spends the rest of the movie chopping up teenagers? Well, that's kind of what it felt like on this drive.




I am happy to report however that our trepidation was unwarranted and Hyatt Lake Resort turned out to be a little slice of heaven in the middle of nowhere.











Here is our lovely cabin.



And the inside:




After getting checked in and settled, Steve the maintenance guy came over to make sure our hot tub was in perfect working order. Oh, did I forget to mention the hot tub?

To add to the perfection, Steve had a cute little doggie named Zoe who we both fell in love with.



This place is just incredible!!! The lake is a mere couple hundred yards from our deck, and they have a perfect launch for the kayaks!! Everyone here has treated us like old friends even though we have never been here before. Great pizza parlor and restaurant too!!!! We had pizza the first evening, then pretty much collapsed - 5 hours of driving in 100+ degrees does that to you ;-) ...off to bed - this place is great - small but due to efficiency of design, actually has two bedrooms - the second being a loft with a very low ceiling - that makes me think of "Being John Malkovich" whenever I crawl my 5'10" frame through the room....maybe that's why I've been having odd dreams this week!

Tomorrow....the mall!!! Yes, the mall. We must have balance in these vacations people!! Terri needs SHOES!!!!

Sunday - July 25, 2010

Starbucks here we come! Our room at Bridge Bay was lacking a coffee maker so we headed off to the comfortable familiarity of Starbucks for coffee, breakfast and wifi. We perused the lakes in the area via google maps and decided that WhiskeyTown Lake looked like it had a friendly kayak launch site. We stopped at the visitor center for directions to the best spot from the local ranger dude and purchased some very handy straw hats to help prevent spontaneous combustion while out on the lake in 105 degrees.

NOTE: Again I'd like to mention that there would be glorious pictures of our day out on the lake had Kirstin not forgot to bring the download cable. Rest assured that as the days move forward we finally got smart and started taking some cell phone pics as well.

The water was wonderful and we parked the kayak in several different coves throughout the day and enjoyed swimming in the lake - the water was perfect and helped keep us cool. I would like to assure Big Carl that we hydrated and reapplied sunscreen frequently. :-D

(Kirstin stepping in again ;-)
I just have to tell everyone what an incredible thing this kayaking stuff is!!! Hadn't ever really done it too much, and within minutes, I was hooked! The ability to cruise along the edges and see everything under and near the water is sooo cool!!! The kayak also allowed us to get out wherever the banks were reasonably smooth and it was just awesome to have the freedom and feeling of being close to the water!!! I want a kayak now!

After kayaking we headed out in search of dinner that didn't involve the hind-end of a whale. Once getting out of the back roads from the lake, Kirstin asked her handy-dandy i-thingy where we should go to dinner. It suggested a Tapas restaurant which conveniently happened to be 500 yards from the parking lot in which we were sitting. So we drove around the corner to Tapas downtown in Redding, California. It was amazing and such a welcome change after the Whale's Butthole the night before. Here is a picture of our lovely dinner.






And then, as if the wonderful dinner wasn't enough - this is the site we were greeted by as we returned to our hotel room for the evening.


That was about it for the day. We returned to our room, took showers and relaxed for the evening by watching a really cool show about this circular building in Dubai and pondering where to go next.

Nighty night.

Saturday - July 24, 2010

Saturday morning we awoke to warmth and sunshine as well as an amazing breakfast prepared by Heidi's mom. We ate in the sunshine on the back deck by the pool. Bacon, blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, orange juice.... in other words - the most perfect breakfast. After such a perfect breakfast what else could we do - we had to go for a swim in the perfect backyard pool.


Here is Kirstin cuddling with Daisy the adorable doggie. We enjoyed a nice relaxing morning at the Bielanski's, packed up our stuff and hit the road at about 1:00 p.m. We headed south toward the Shasta Lake area with the top down and temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. It was wonderful. :-)

Kirstin here again...
After many hours of driving, we arrived in the Shasta National Recreation area! We'd have a bunch of pictures to show you, but as Terri mentioned earlier, I'm a dumbass and forgot the download cable for the camera, so you will get to see that trip in photos later...and we have some great ones!!! Can't wait for you all to see the pics that Terri got of the Leaving Oregon and Welcome to California signs - she is a master of photography while in motion ;-)

Now we faced our next challenge of sorts...given that we were hearing that people book a year in advance for places around Shasta, this was a tiny bit of a concern. Of course, the seats in the car recline all the way, so we would have worked it out somehow! The first four places we stopped at had no vacancies...then we pulled over and started calling places! Heidi had mentioned Bridge Bay earlier, and when we called them they had a two person room with a lakeview available!!! WOOT WOOT!! By then, we were hot, tired, beyond hungry and getting just a snitch loopy from all day in a convertible in 105degree heat!

Got settled, turned AC on full in the room and headed to The Tail of the Whale (the restaurant), for dinner...as we were starved, this was an exciting moment for us. We decided to splurge and ordered steak (rare for me, extra rare for Terri), and coconut shrimp. Worst. Decision. Ever.

It quickly became clear to us that no one in the place knew how to cook, nor owned a cooking thermometer. Both steaks were medium well, and neither of us have found the appropriate words other than yuck for the lameass excuse for coconut shrimp that we were presented with!!!

Friday - July 23, 2010

Well, it's now Monday, and we are back in Oregon, but for a brief moment, we shall pretend it is Friday and we have just left Portland - gotta keep things in order you know ;-)

So...Steve from Crown Auto Rental showed up around 1 with the convertible, and we were off!!


We had already decided that South was the way to go as the temps were near 100 in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Down I5 we went, basking in the beautiful Orb of Vacation Happiness (aka Sunshine ;-)

Somewhere around Cottage Grove, I remembered that our friend Heidi had taken off from the Bay Area around the same time we left Portland headed to her parent's house near Medford. We called her, and sure enough, we were going to hit Medford around the same time. A plan was soon hatched as Terri and Heidi have "known" each other for several years, but have never met. There's a whole Zombie Princess story in there, but in the interest of space, we'll just let everyone know that Heidi is now known simply as the Princess and has finally shed the walking dead title ;-)

The Bielanski's (Heidi's parents), were kind enough to invite us to their place for the evening, and we immediately took them up on the offer!! They have a beautiful place in Eagle Point and welcomed us with open arms.

This is the backyard.
Uh yeah, we'll stay.

Seriously, The Bielanski's are two of the nicest, funniest, kindest people we have ever met!!! We hung by their beautiful pool with their darling dog Daisy and their darling daughter ;-) A bit later in the evening, the parents called us to a cocktail party at a nearby house, so we went and munched and socialized for a bit- then went back and hung by the pool drinking wine (with more nummy munchies that Heidi's Mom put together at 10:30pm for us - see the kindness?!) til late as it was still quite warm and gorgeous out by the pool!!

Here is the former Zombie Princess sitting by the lovely pool in her parent's backyard


Note from Terri: We have more pictures from this stay on the camera, but unfortunately Kirstin forgot the camera cable (oh yeah, I went there). We will add more pictures when we get back.

Less than one week and we are outta here!!!

Car is rented, Terri and Kirstin are more than ready for a break!!! Now to decide which direction to head...weather is looking pretty good in NorCal - Shasta Lake area...hmmmmmmmmmm.

This time next week we will be...somewhere!!!! Stay tuned!