WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY DOING RIGHT NOW

November 7th/8th

Heading to Walmart!

Warning posted on the restaurant entrance

So, this is real. Like, happening right now! We left Big Sur early afternoon and spent most of the evening in Salinas catching up on the blog. We're heading to Yosemite now for the next few days. It's almost midnight and we're going to get kicked out of the restaurant soon. But some highlights of the day include shopping at walmart and putting all our blogs up-to-date (the last 6 posts). Hope you're enjoying the trip thus far!

Us, right now, kind of tired after writing 6 blog posts

So, we're literally leaving now to drive for a bit before finding a nice spot on the side of the road to sleep in the car for the night.

Good night America

FROM SANTA CRUZ TO CRUISING THE COAST

November 6th and 7th

Leaving Palo Alto we stopped in Santa Cruz to ride on California's oldest Roller Coaster! SOOOOOOO much fun. It's my (piver) type of ride....a good old wood coaster! We weren't that lucky though as the people before us for some reason got to go round 3 times! We only got to go once :( still super fun though!

After our short pause in Santa Cruz we kept on cruising south to Big Sur! Supposed to be one of the nicest highways in the world, but with all the fog we couldn't see much. However, for the first time in probably forever we arrived at the campsite before dark and were able to set up our tent in day light. That being said, we weren't as lucky as we had to pay for the site (35$).

We spent a quite evening in the country and away from all the hustle of the city. Waking up in the raining wasn't the best surprise though.
We quickly packed up, and headed down the coast a bit to see what Big Sur was all about....we, we can't really tell you what it's all about as we couldn't see much. Luna claims to have seen a dolphin....I saw a bunch of rocks poke through the break of the waves :~ We did see a nice mini water fall though, and some lovely coast.

WIRELESS FAMILY CONNECTION IN PALO ALTO

Kupferblum connection

Leaving Sonoma we headed back into the city to Pier 39 to meet some distant cousins for lunch! Between fresh fish and seafood we tried to figure out a whole Family tree coming from Poland, Israel, etc..After a very enjoyable lunch (both food and company wise), we were left with wanting more. So, we later went down to Palo Alto to meet Art and Gene again and chat some more! Not only that, but we got to hang out and play with their 3 year old grandson, Sasha.

Sasha

Once again, we forced ourselves to bed as we spent the night chatting, and swapping movies and stories. It is always nice to see that someone has such a lovely family spread all over the world. Before leaving the next morning we got a personal and private tour of Sanford university and then of course ate some traditional bagels before heading out.

What a good time! Hope to run into these cousins again.

WINING AND MEETING LOVELY PEOPLE IN SONOMA

November 4th!

At Cline Winery

Biking down to the mechanic's we pick up the car and drive over the Golden Gate Bridge as we make our way toward the Sonoma Valley (aka Napa valley, but cooler!). We quickly find out that it's VERY easy to find many places to taste wine, and even for FREE! To the point that we have to stop "tasting" as I need to drive, and well, Luna can't really think straight (or walk) any more. This of course all came with a tour of the winery....we now know everything about make wine....they grow grapes, crush them, ferment them, bottle them, and voila!


More specifically we were at the Cline Winery. They are all organic, and use solar energy....so not too bad I guess?



After our "tasting" experience, we headed into beautiful Sonoma, and checking our email! While trying to do so, we got "KICKED OUT" of the McDonalds as we were "stealing their energy" wtf. Anyways, we were in luck, in our hurry that morning we messaged a few people to "surf couch" (luna's new saying), and we've had some replies! So, we head over to Joan, a lovely 79 year old women who welcomes us open armed and with warm, fresh, organic, vegetable soup! YUMMY! We spend the evening chatting about life and force ourselves to bed.

Breakfast with Joan

Before heading back into the city the next morning we enjoy a lovely breakfast with Joan, and thus quickly ended our time in Sonoma.

Beautiful Sonoma Sunset

JUST ON THE RIGHT TIMING IN THE CITY THAT HAS 5+ FACES!!!

October 31st to November 4th

View of the city as we cross the bay bridge

Following the last post (en spanish), which explains our experience arriving at the crazy guy's house at which we were suppose to couch surf, we headed into town. Prior to this though, there was the actual challenge of getting into the city. Americans DO NOT know how to drive. I have never been passed by so many people on the right, nor cut off and had people slam their breaks in front of me while driving...all this of course on a 6+ land highway with exits on both the right and left hand side and the road splitting on multiple occasions, and people driving super fast all tailgating each other. I am so surprised we made it with nothing happening.

So, back to leaving the crazy guy's house, we didn't make a direct route to our hotel. We of course stopped at a MacDonald's along the way to connect to the internet to find a cheap hotel...it was Halloween, so on top of all the regular crazies, there were extra crazy people both in types and quantity! And of course police out in the parking lot frantically searching through a car.

We finally end up at a cheapish motel on Market street....crazy people HQ! By the time we go through the whole ordeal we're too tired to go out and we ended up missing out on Halloween.....no worries, we were happy to get to sleep somewhere we felt "safe". Fun fact: unpacking the car we discovered that Luna's suitcase literally melted to the trunk of the car....hmmm something is wrong...more to come later

MOvember...time to shave

MOnday MOrning...can anyone guess what day it is of this fine MOvember? It's the first day of MOVEMBER! Time to get your MO on people! It's also our first day in San Francisco(SF)! So we head out to discover the city. Walking down Market street we got to see some of the highlights of SF and many of the lows. We've made a theory, the more liquor stores per street corners, the more crazy people per block...so far so good. SF fits the theory. That being said, it's a beautiful city. After seeing the sights of Market Street (such as the old trolley's being turned manually) we made it to the Port of SF (via the financial district) and the walked through China town on our way back to the hotel. Lucky for us, the Giants also won the WORLD SERIES that night! We really were in the right place at the right time!

Manually turning the trolley

Tuesday was a whole new day! We headed out on our bikes up Haight Street (coolest street ever, with the best shops) towards Golden Gate Park where we visited the dejong museum for free (it's free on the 1st tuesday of the month). We got to see some "american" art and got to up to the observation deck to see a grand view of the whole city. On our way back down we side stepped over to Japan town and also saw a couple of the SF's cathedrals. 

Dia de los Muertos parade

That night was probably our best in the Bay Area. Today was Dia de los Muertos and we really got to live the hispanic catholic tradition. "Over 15,000 people will gather in the Mission to participate in the 26th Annual Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead Procession & Altars. 

Dia de los muertos

Through art, music, and ritual this event honors our ancestors and celebrates the vitality and richness of today's community. While the ceremony remains true to its Latino roots, the San Francisco procession actively encourages participation by people of all origins."Dressing up in our best "dead" costumes, we joined the parade and celebrations as it made it's way through the Mission District. We visited the altars and really got a feel for this important event.

million people +/-

switch the "T" with the "F"

Wednesday started off with a trip to the Mechanic...guess what, the exhaust system is BUST! That's why Luna's suitcase melted (all the exhaust was coming out underneath the car, so the trunk was SUPER over heating). We were lucky nothing happened. So, with the car getting fixed, we headed out on our bikes again. This time though we weren't alone as ALL OF SF was out in the streets celebrating the GIANT's win. I don't think I've ever seen so many people in the streets all at once!....One thing is for sure people here cared WAY more for the Giant's win than about the elections (which occurred on Tuesday).

the Giant's littlest fan

Facts: Population of San Francisco 776,773 (of total Bay Area 7.4 million)

Giants parade - over a million people were there!

the guy behind us is famous

After the celebrations we headed up to the Castro district to meet our host for the night, Jenner. This is where Luna's Curtain Theory comes into play. At our crazy guy's place on Sunday night, Luna noticed before going in that all the people in the building had really shitty curtains, and yes, it was shitty inside. Whereas at Jenner's place, nice curtains were hanging, and thus, nice interior! 

After hanging out a bit we headed out for our biggest excursion yet...Castro to Golden Gate Bridge over to Fisherman's Wharf and then back up Market to Castro.... for a grand total of a little over 25km +/-......doesn't sound like that much, but now take into account the hills of SF....it was a grueling but enjoyable afternoon/evening.

Upon arriving at Jenner's we went a got groceries and then made a big dinner all together. Before going to bed we watched Food Inc....this drastically changed our road trip plans. We were going to have a Fast Food counter of our trip, but watching that movie has ended those plans, and we're going to try to stick to better food :) FAST FOOD COUNTER: 0 ( and it will stay like that...)

not sure who's scarier?

And thus ends our time in San Francisco...but not the Bay Area. As thursday morning, after going to pick up the car (which is all good now) we slowly made our way to Sonoma!

FIN DE ALOJAMIENTO GRATIS!!!!!

contador gente rara en San Francisco >  INFINITO!!!

vistas desde su solarium

Hemos pasado hasta ahora durmiendo en campings en los cuales llegando después del atardecer y saliendo a las 6 de la mañana no hemos pagado, noches en casa de gente conocida de David y noches durmiendo en casas de gente de Couchsurfing. Con lo que no hemos gastado ni un duro en alojamiento desde el principio el viaje hasta San Francisco... La historia fue llegar a la casa del supuesto Couch hoster que nos tenía que hospedar. El tipo tiene 52 anos, viste pantalones caídos y camisetas como un crío de 15 e iba taaaaaaaaaaaaaan fumado y morado que se caía por las escaleras por no poder ver los escalones! El pavo nos abre la puerta del piso  y nos enseña su GIGANTESCA  plantación de MARIHUANA!!! de todos los colores y tipos ( colores, verdes...juasjuas). Supuestamente tenía un gato porque todo el suelo estaba cubierto de bolitas de comida. Pero para mi que el gato lleva meses desaparecido o muerto de asfixia por el olor de Maria, porque no había ni rastro del gato. Lo que si había eran las sobras de comida de las veces que el pavo debía tener gula de ir morado por toda la casa. Ni que decir del baño...Puaj!!!y eso que los estándares que tenemos en este viaje no son muy altos....la licencia de su moto llevaba caducada mas de 2 años y ni que decir del estado su ordenador.....

en fin, que muy  a pesar de habernos podido fumar toda la Maria del mundo y hacernos de oro a su costa, tuvimos que dejar su casa debido a claras medidas de Sanidad. Y acabamos en un Motel en la peor zona de San Francisco  ...pero eso ya es otra historia. Con ello EL FIN DE NUESTRO ALOJAMIENTO GRATUITO!!!! Hemos estado justo un mes sin pagar....sniff sniff

FIRST SNOW IN CALIFORNIA

October 29th and 30th
Animal counter: Deers!

Continuing on with our journey

Cali!!!!

We arrive at Redwood National Park in the dark of night and try to find a spot to camp....first place we end up is down some "spooky" road....following the fog and darkness we end up deeper and deeper into the woods to the point that we feel we should turn back. ( cuando digo spooky me refiero a que estabamos cagados de miedo...diarrea es poco....una carretera toda con niebla, en la cual no veimaos mas de 3 metros en frente de nosotros, al lado de la pendiente del monte...A cada senal tuvimos que girar el coche para iluminarlo directamente y ver algo.).

So, once again we arrived at our camp site in the dark, and once again we left bright (well still dark out) and early in the morning to make the most of our day (and saved a few bucks too). We headed into the woods and went for a hike through the trees and saw the "biggest" trees in the world....WTF, they were HUGE!

Paul and Babe

Exciting events during this day: we hit 177777 on the odometer. We saw Paul Bunyan and Babe. We became tree huggers. We left and entered many tsunami hazard zones and we went from coast, through fields to mountains. We also saw the smallest town thus far - population 97!

Extreme camping

After hugging some trees we left the coastal fog to be entrapped into the mountain fog.

Arriving from Redwood, (FOR ONCE!) before sunset, to the Lassen Volcanic National Park. Some miles after we make it to the Campground with still daylight! Ready to prepare the tent and dinner (at Canadian time…meaning 17.30  lol  ) we find out that half of the Park is closed because of snow, so a Ranger (ginger hair 20 something girl) redirect us to the southwest Campground so we are closer to the open part of the Park. After driving some good 25 miles we end up in a Halloween School party talking with a Real American Grandma (“Cause in Spain and in France you don’t have as much Freedom as her, right?” her comment when looking at me..  lol.. and then some.."We need some new kids for the School" once again looking at me..). Once we start driving again to head to the Campground, everything is dark and foggy!!!Since we can’t see more than 3 meters in front of us at 30km/h, we ended up on a closed road!!Went back to find a 3 Indian (from India, not natives..) guys that showed us 

Watch out Green Peace...you have some competition

 that the entrance to the visitor centre was OPEN! we spent the night in a WARM, DRY place....once again FOR FREE!....and only got yelled at in the morning when the cleaning lady came in, lol.  9 probably by now the police from all the states visited must be looking for 2 campers who havent been paying the camp fees!!! oups..)

first snow

Well recharged (literally, as we charged up our camera batteries), we headed up Lassen Volcano to see what we could see....well, that wasn't very much. It was SNOWING like a mofo. We got to see the Sulfur works (aka bubbling mud pools aka 1a vez que he visto LAVA VOLCANICA burbujeando), but not much more. We hiked a bit, but the snow was falling pretty heavily and we didn't have the gear. So we called it a day and headed down to San Francisco to make it there by Halloween party time for the evening. Along the way (well, actually, along all our road journey so far) we were well accompanied by several Christian rock radio stations (I think we've memorized "reaching out for jesus" by now).

DIRTY HIPPIES CAMPING IN OREGON!!!

October 27th and 28th

Nights for free> 2 out of 2

Hotsprings> our 2nd and best!!!

# of showers: NONE...DIRTY HIPPIES

animal counter: racoons ( way too many and sacry ones). Elks

map of the trip so far

Bling Bling!!! finally "hit up" the bank

Leaving Seattle we get some tips to go sleep near a natural Hot Springs near the coast of Oregon. So we start driving South. We drive, drive and drive..we pass Portland and drive some more...by the time we arrive nearby the Camp-ground, the night is dark like hell, foggy and in small roads with no one else...pretty freaky!!Finally we find a sign that says the name of the Camp-ground we were looking for!! Miracle!! we make it to the tents places and ii is late night, in between all kind of crazy animals while it rains....by this time all my excitement of my first night camping in the EEUU is gone...so we decide to not leave the car to sleep...we only left the car to go 1 meter away for liquid necessities...so we spend the first night of camping not camping!!! Between the fear of getting eaten  by a Cougar or a Bear, getting soaked in water and put the tent over the river due to the low visibility; the back of the car seemed even comfy.

The next morning was another story..we couldn't stand for more than 5 minutes without having backache, and our neck muscle mobility reduced by a 90%. So while we put everything together again to the back ( cause with all the stuff on the pilot seat it is IMPOSSIBLE to drive) the boss of a construction crew comes to visit us: The camp ground wasn't open to camping because is was under going maintenance works,OUPS!!But we don't have to pay for the night!!YUHU!!!

We start our way to find some hot-springs where to clean ourselves...dirty,dirty,dirty..we find them..THE BEST SPRINGS I'VE EVER BEEN ( together with the ones in Taiwan). In the middle of the woods a native Indian ( she wasn't wearing all the feathers and leather loincloth ( aka taparrabos for my Spanish fellows)  as I expected..."What a disappointment") she gives as directions for the hike to reach the Springs...when we arrive..." OHHHH"( exclamation of amusement) we find a 5 pools hot springs with water at 43.3o Celsius on the first pool!  with barely no one in them ( 2 guys and the girl who was cleaning them). And they have been cleaned ( they clean them very 2 weeks) just before we get in. SO I guess after us they should clean them again since we were kind of dirty hippies...Poor people..

After the wonderful time at the Hot Springs it was hard to push ourselves to leave for the coast. We headed to Florence where we got our second night of free camping. Tip, arrive at dark and leave early morning...like VERY early morning (we got up at 6am). Our evening though was a little bit more eventful as we weren't alone and got to make "friends"....we start easting our speciality of pre-maid  Maccarroni'n'Cheese by the time big yellow eyes appear surrounding us!!!"aRGHHHH" CRISIS!!!!

David shown the flash light to discover tons of Racoons aproaching to us ( our meal). So the Chasing fight starts with me making noises with metal stuff  and other specialise techniques!!! 

Part of the drive

Next morning we got up before the break of dawn and made our get-away south towards the promise land of california via the 101 along the Oregon Coast! Amazing views, and tons of Elk to be seen. 

ps: guess how much gas was here (cheapest of the whole trip so far)...73 cents a litre (2.79 per gallon) What up! Gas prices are crazy here. You'll drive through a town and see about 7 different prices ranging a good 20 cents difference.

Elks!!

Sunset on the Oregon Coast

We are INTERNATIONAL businessmen on INTERNATIONAL business trip!

Tuesday, October 26th

Leaving Vancouver, Leaving Canada and going to AMERICA/USA!

Starting at 176389

First stop Seattle! However, we first have to go through the boarder, aka question period. Luna got pulled aside for extra questions as she seemed very suspicious and they weren't sure if they would let her in - in other words she needed to fill out a form before entering. I guess us Canadians have it easy...minus all the ones who aren't white. Inside the building was full of people going through extra questionings, and literally all of them minus Luna and I were "Canadians", but just not white.
"We are INTERNATIONAL businessmen on INTERNATIONAL business trip!" > thats what i had to say to the Police on the border (Luna). Actually not, ..

After passing the boarder we headed straight down to Seattle where we got to have our first Couchsurfing experience. We stayed at Nadav's and Mary's place in Capital hill. Between home-made humus, cheese and cookies we had an amazing night playing games and talking. Next morning the best Pumpkin pancakes were waiting for us on the table!!

Wednesday we headed out into the city for a quick visit before heading south to Oregon. After an amazing breakfast (thanks Nadav), we headed down to the Public Market and then over to the Space Needle.

STARTING THE REAL ROAD TRIP!VAN-CITY to recover,sleeping in a Chateau!!

October 21st to 25th
LETS START THE ROAD TRIP with the 4runner!

After a 10 hours drive journey, we make it to Vancouver late in the evening! went straight to Sarah's place where an awesome air mattress was waiting for us!! went straight to sleep. Next morning I wake up by Sarah leaving to class on a horrible rainy day!!!( ok guys, in Vancouver it isn't cold, but it rains like a MoFo!). We stayed the whole afternoon in Sarah's place to work on some internet stuff, CV's, etc.. 

We leave on the evening to grab some Sushi for Emilie, Kristin, David and me!! We arrive to a small castle of 300 m2???of course, as in a good Castle, we get a KING SIZE BED ( once again in capital letters cause is BIG!), with huge bathroom with bath and shower,...After some beers, wine and Sushi we leave to the PNE to go to the Frigth Nights at PlayLand, after using Kristin's FoMo against her!  (http://www.pne.ca/fright-nights/) where some rides, attractions, haunted houses and other Halloween stuff is waiting for us! Met some other people ( who surprising already knew me...???i guess I was in Vancouver in another precedent life..) and had fun!! Too bad there was so many people waiting for the attractions.But lucky us we had the best cab driver in town, A Passport girl on a phone and Piver paying with a bill on the bus coin machine...what else could we want!

Next morning, after the best night sleep ever ( seriously I wanna know where is that bed from...im so buying 1 and installing it in the 4 runner...dont know what David thinks about...), we got on our bikes and headed out into the city. We cruised along the ocean pathway through Vancouver over to Granville Island. We then crossed over the bridge and went down Davie St before cutting over to Robson to do some window shopping (it was hard to resist all the 50% off sales). We ended the day with the best thing ever - some ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI from Tanpopo's down on Denman St where Sarah joined us for dinner. We all enjoyed the meal some mor than others, ;let's say Sarah enjoyed this way> " I LOVE SUSHI, I JUST DON'T LIKE RAW FISH. I love what it comes with Sushi": Let's say David misunderstood what he was ordering for HIM and ended up eating MORE THAN 30 PIECES OF SUSHI. And for me, probably one of the best sushi's I would have had ( out of the ones in Asia) until the waiter told us what a BC Roll is > " The skin of the salmon fish, yummy"  DISGUSTING!!!

On Sunday we became real Vancourites - we hiked up the Grouse Grind (in about 1h15mins) in POURING rain. It felt great once we were at the top! Got to see some Grizzly bears too!

That evening we had an awesome time at game/bbq night at emz's parent's place. We all got to learn what the word shart meant (for those who didn't know already), as the game consisted of questions, such as, something that is embarrassing to do in front of your friends. Then, everyone answers on a piece on paper, and then everyone has to guess who wrote what etc.
ps: Luna, the non-english speaker, won!I cant believe I was able to write a 7 words long sentence in English , all on my own!!! ( Kristin!!)

Monday we visited Stanley park (picture on right of us and the Totem Poles), and then had dinner with Sarah before heading over to the mechanic to get the breaks checked out - all is good!