You could travel the world, but nothing comes close to the golden coast.

WOW, it's been such a busy week! There's a little less than a month left in my internship, and even less days of work just because of all the presentations I have to do/attend! I've been trying to wrap everything up at work as well as packing up things at my apartment (early I know, but the sooner I start, the less I'll have to worry about later!) I realized I'm going to have to package A LOT of things up and ship them home, mostly because of souvenirs from vacations and whatnot :p

Speaking of which, here are some of my pictures from my trip to Crater Lake, OR and San Francisco, CA! I took over 500 photos between the two locations, so there's no way I could show them all. Here's some of my favorites though:

Our first campsite in Crater Lake! And yes, that is indeed snow in the background. It got down to 30 deg that night!

Crater Lake, OR. One of the clearest and deepest lakes in the world. And in my book, the most beautiful I've ever seen. 

"Crater" Lake used to be a volcano. This is the tip that's been sunken into the lake after it erupted thousands of years ago. There's still geothermal activity on the bottom of the lake, as well.

Riding on the cable cars in San Francisco! Definitely a 'must' if you ever go there! And hint: if you're there for a couple of days, it's worth buying the multi-day passes. We definitely got our money's worth!

My favorite part of the trip at Cable Car Museum! It's an engineers paradise: these are some of the sheaves that run the four lines of cable cars. And this is only the part that is above ground, the rest of the engineering is below the city. :)

I ran across the Golden Gate Bridge on our final morning in the city! All 1.7+ miles of it :) One of the best experiences I've ever had.

It was super foggy the entire trip so I couldn't get a decent picture of the bridge. This angle is still one of my favorites though. It was taken from Fort Pointe, which is the old city fort that is directly under the south end of the bridge. Some awesome history there!

This is for all of my bakery friends. San Francisco is known for their sourdough bread by Boudin's Bakery. The ovens run 24/7 to make enough bread bowls for San Fran's infamous clam chowder every day! Not to mention all the other amazing kinds of bread they make too! 

 We waited an hour or so in line to drive down Lombard St. Now I can say I've driven down the curviest street in the world :)

Last picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and the fog decided to clear up RIGHT as we drove under the towers :D

Muir Woods, home to some of the largest and most beautiful Redwood trees in California.

Seriously, that tree could eat me.

And they are GIGANTIC.

This is a slice of a tree that started growing in 909 AC until it fell in 1930!

Basically, we did all of the tourist-y things like eating at Fisherman's Warf, driving down Lombard, riding the cable cars, crossing the bridge, etc. Another one of my favorite parts, of course science and engineering related, was going to the San Francisco Exploratorium. It's basically a massive hands-on science class with specializations in biology, physics, electricity, automation, and the five senses. We spent three and half hours in there and didn't even get through HALF of the exhibits! If I ever go back, and I probably will, I'll have to go back there and finish it off :)

After we went to the woods on Saturday, Blake and I just decided to drive through the night to get back home so we could have all Sunday to rest before the work week started again. It was a LONG drive total, but definitely worth it and one of my favorite experiences of being in Oregon this summer! :D