10.18.13 : ruby beach.

The last day of my trip was a bittersweet one to say the least. It's impossible for me to adequately put into words the emotional changes I went through over the course of the time it took me to make my way from San Diego up to Vancouver. In between the legs of my journey, I left San Diego for good, saying goodbye to the almost four years of friendships and memories I'd made there. I can't think of a better way to have ended it than with the trip I unexpectedly embarked on up the coast.

Every day behind the wheel helped to grow my confidence in myself and being alone on such an ambitiously unplanned journey. For every moment of loneliness I felt, I had at least twenty more moments of intense happiness and gratefulness at my surroundings and the ability to be witness to the ever-changing scenery around me.

I've got one more special blog post coming from my last moments on the beach. For now, here are the last photos from my journey up the coast.

10.17.13 : back down the washington coast.

I had to give myself the goal of completing my "up the coast" blog posts before the year's end because of my recent slacking tendencies. In my defense, my life is just about as busy and exhausting as I've ever known it to be right now, so the last thing I want to do when I come home from a long day of work is sit in front of my computer screen and edit photos. Alas, it's my day off and I've found myself with copious amounts of laundry needing to be done, so I'm forcing myself to edit while I finish that task.

We're picking up in Washington on day nine of my second half of the coastal trip. It was my second to last day and a very full one at that. I left the cozy town of North Bend to head west and back to the coast. Taking a ferry across seemed like my best option, and I caught one just north of Seattle. Again, I kept up with my tradition of stopping for anything that looked even a little bit interesting, which put me very behind schedule and found me getting into my camp destination just before the sun disappeared.

cadillac ranch 2.

I already posted the Cadillac Ranch photo from when Kevin and I braved the blizzard at the crack of dawn, but I never posted one from the day before, when we went and enjoyed it on a mild sunny day. I know the most iconic photos of Cadillac Ranch show the whole spread in a typically wide shot, so as always, I wanted to attempt a more unique angle. One of the things I loved about the area was all the used and empty spray paint cans strewn about, so I wanted to try and get a shot including those. This is what I came up with…