Post Pacific Coast Road Trip Work Explosion

If I were to sum up the road trip my friend Amber and I took up the Pacific Coast Highway, it would probably crash blogger. I have over 1200 pictures and probably over 12,000 memories and picking favorites? Next to impossible.

To reiterate some things I said in a blog post before we left, which are now even more powerful and true to me: if you have a bucket list, or even one thing you have always wanted to do, do it. Just do it. Don't worry about all the money you could be saving, don't worry about things back home, don't worry about any worries you may be harboring. Tell yourself that you will deal with them when you get home. And when you are doing that one thing you always wanted to do, when you are actually in that one city you always wanted to visit or taking that one trip you always wanted to take, you will realize how small your worries are in the grand scheme of things. Life is about doing, not worrying.

That being said, I would like to share some photos of my favorite places. Well... a few of them anyway. There are maybe a hundred favorite places bookmarked in my head. Among them, Big Sur stands out:

The views were breathtaking. I've never seen the Pacific before and could not believe the beautiful blue green/turquoise water. Also the sound of crashing waves, the breeze, the open views... it was unreal and 1000x more gorgeous than I could have ever expected.

Being a professional wino, I also enjoyed our day visiting wineries in Sonoma. We were also lucky enough to be there during the Sonoma County Harvest fair, which (if you buy tasting tickets) has a huge airplane hangar type thing where pretty much every winery in Somona County has a booth set up and tastings are FREE. AND there were a billion restaurants that had booths set up with free food. It was most likely a 10,000 calorie night. Oh well. Needless to say, wine country was a big hit.

The last place I will share in this post was probably my favorite. Back in August when we were planning out this whole crazy adventure, my friend Amber was checking out things to do in Oregon and said, "They have a hiking trail called the Hobbit Trail!" I was instantly drawn to it and knew we would have to at least try to find it (a lot of the reviews said it was hard to find). Well... we found it. And it looked like a place straight out of Lord of the Rings. And it is going to get its own blog post this week, because anyone driving near it on 101 has to go. Here are a few preliminary photos:

I am putting together a post of the route we took, the places we stopped, maybe give motel recommendations... because this trip is totally doable, for anyone. It will seem overwhelming at first, but don't try to plan it all out. Just get in the car and go. Until then, peace and love and hope all is well :)

Pacific Coast Road Trip 2013

Wow, what a whirlwind the month of September has been. I spent the first couple of weeks finishing a few freelance projects, creating some new work for my shop, and began a huge shop facelift as well. Then I spent a week in the Outer Banks with friends, then missed a flight to a beautiful wedding I was invited to (but made it to the reception), then spent this past week playing catch-up on all the orders I got while on vacation. I also learned the hard way, after a couple of shipping issues, that I'm not going to try to keep my shop open while I am out of town for extended periods of time. It was waaaay too tricky.

So now here it is September 30 (and my twin brothers' 28th birthday!!), and in a few hours I am going to hop on a flight to Chicago, spend the night with my friend Amber, then bright and early tomorrow we are going to catch a flight to LA. Driving up Highway 1 along the Pacific Coast has been on my bucket list for a very long time. I feel like a lot of people have a bucket list, but they just kind of keep it and never really do anything that's on it. They wait for the perfect time, or for when they have the perfect amount of money, or they say they will do it next year. Is it financially responsible for me to take two vacations within two weeks of one another? Not exactly. Would it be a more responsible idea for me to stay home and work on my shop and prepare for the (hopefully crazy) holiday rush? Absolutely. But thoughts like this are what keep peoples' bucket lists untouched and just wishful ideas. There are a million quotes floating around out there about how we only have this moment and the time is now and so on... but they are so true. Go do something crazy. Now. Today. Do something that some people are absolutely going to judge you for. And do not let it bother you one bit.

I cannot wait for these next few days... collecting inspiration, taking pictures, having great conversation, seeing parts of the country I've never seen before... I cannot believe we are doing this!!! If you follow me on Instagram (@Jenndalyn, or instagram.com/jenndalyn), I am going to be taking a million photos of this journey. Here is our route, although we have no solid plan. Which is awesome.

We must be crazy. It's a lot of driving. And I cannot wait to get started.