2 months ago we set out with Sixt UK on an iconic trip across the west coast of the USA.
In 7 days, we crossed 3 states and 2 National Parks, all while waking up for every single freezing winter sunrise along the way. This probably sounds crazy, only because it is. See Sam and I run a Travel Media collective called Move To Create, and we regularly travel the world searching for open roads and embracing what life throws at us while we run on 5 hours of sleep, lots of acoustic playlists, and gas station snacks.
We live for these adventures, so when Sixt UK wanted to send us up the coast on an adventure of a lifetime in the 2019 Jaguar F-Pace, we knew we were going to make it legendary, and those sunrises sure were a bit easier when we could watch them from the comfort of our heated seats.
To kick off our journey, we began in San Diego and hit the road straight to Yosemite National Park, just in time to capture one of the worlds most anticipated natural phenomena’s: the Firefalls. The Firefall is a natural occurrence that only happens a few days a year when the sun reflects off of a cascading Horsetail Falls, illuminating it a bright red color. The all wheel drive F Pace gave us confidence we needed on the icy roads to get into the Yosemite Valley safely, and on top of the incredible drive, the conditions aligned perfectly for the falls to light up that evening, giving us the view of a lifetime.
Next up was a scenic 10 hour drive up the coast. Every second we came across something visually breathtaking. We even found this random red bridge in San Francisco that we thought looked cool, so we took some pictures of it. The locals didn’t recognise the bridge as Red, as they named it Yellow or Gold, or something like that – maybe one day they will learn their colors or colours ????.
Check it out for yourselves!
Speaking of things that aren’t actually red, after crossing the bridge we took off up the coast to the Redwood National Park. This was an area not easily unnoticed, with towering Redwood trees lining the roads acting as mother nature’s sky scrapers. I’ll never forget pulling up next to these natural giants, few moments match the feeling of exiting your Luxury SUV and throwing your hands to the sky screaming with joy in the pouring rain.
We didn’t have much time to waste, we quickly dried off and headed up the coast to Oregon. Oregon is known for many things; it’s beautiful roads, scenic coastlines, and incredible nature everywhere you look. However, with all this green comes rain, so we were nervous for the weather that Oregon was going to bring us. Yet as we pulled into our mid trip sunset location along the coast, the sun broke through the clouds, smothering the mist in golden light and hitting falling raindrops creating beautiful rainbows. This resulted in an unforgettable beach side sunset, overlooking the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean.
As we continued to drive North the conditions fell South, driving through bitterly cold snow storms and avoiding one road closure after the next, in a seemingly unphased Jaguar F Pace. We weren’t going to let the cold get us down. Inspired by the treacherous Pacific Northwest roads, we decided to pull to the side of this incredible snow covered road to photograph the contrast between the bleak colours of winter and the deep reds of our car. This turned out to be an incredible decision, as the photos we captured turned into some of our favorites.
We wrapped up the trip with our final location on the itinerary, the bustling day market of Pike Place in Seattle, Washington where we said goodbye to our Red beast dropping it off at Sixt’s bay quite conveniently. After a week of driving the coastline and the mountains, it was fun to hit the city in our car and play tourist for an afternoon. We even saw a break in the crowds and took the chance to capture one last photo of our home for the week in front of the inconic Pike sign. As hard as it was to drop off our new favorite car, we knew it was time to start planning our next Sixt roadtrip. There’s a long road ahead, so we might as well take it in style!
Written by:
Luke Jackson-Clark & Sam Newton
Founders
Move to Create
