We finally left California yesterday and arrived in the Bullhead City area of Arizona to visit my (Brandi's) cousin Michael and his wife Melissa and their kids Megan (11), Mason (9), and Michael (6). Again, I haven't seen Mike and Melissa since I was pretty young, I think 14, although I did get to see Megan and Mason in 2005 at the last family reunion in Florida. Sadly, we didn't get to meet Matthew, the youngest, who passed away last month. They're such a great family and we really wish we could spend more time here, but Mike and Melissa are [View Full Entry]

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It is really lucky for the park service that there happens to be SSSOOOO many Joshua Trees in the park. The place is just full of em. One of the things we REALLY liked about that particular national park is it costs $5 dollars to camp there. FIVE DOLLARS! that's our kind of camping. Grand Canyon is almost thirty a night. Anyways, there was many things we loved about Joshua Tree. We went on a day hike through the Hidden Valley, which is lined with these fantastic rock formations. Turns out Joshua Tree is a huge rock climber destination, and it's [View Full Entry]

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On our way out of the L.A. area we stopped for a few days at my friend Sunshine's house. She lives in El Cajon, it rained a bit which helped us find and repair a few leaks in Gimli. One night we went to the Gas Lamp district (downtown), and went to a bar called Shout. There are two pianos on stage, and several pianist/singers who would rotate in and out, playing requests. It was all very slap-stick, and lude. It was a great show and a very good time. We were surprised to find out that the majority (not all) [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Death Valley, we drove into LA on Monday to visit some of my (Brandi's) old friends from high school. Alanna, who I was great friends with in high school even though she moved to Iowa, lives in Malibu now and is going to Pepperdine Law School. We met up with her and drove into Culver City to hang out at her boyfriend's apartment. Had some delicious pizza and watched a couple old videos she had of us in high school (probably incredibly boring for Wes!), and then hung out in the hot tub for a bit. It was really [View Full Entry]

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First of all, sorry there haven't been any postings in a while. We've been out and about, often without internet. But anyway, we'll catch up on all the things we've been up to at and after Yosemite. So we met this great guy named Paul, we found him through couchsurfing.com, though we didn't actually surf his couch. He had little puppy dogs, and showed us the bear print from when a bear was inside his house. We stayed in the bus on his property. One of the reasons we chose to leave earlier then planned was that he lived atop a [View Full Entry]

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So we're in Yosemite. We're staying with a really great couch-surfing host named Paul who lives right outside Yosemite, we sleep in our bus parked on his land. Yesterday we hiked the Upper Yosemite falls trail, got some great pictures and enjoyed killer views. Today we hiked around the valley, got great views of Half Dome, The Three Brothers, El Capitan, and we got really close to some Coyotes (pictures to prove it). It's raining pretty hard now, it's cold, and we're considering heading down to southern California because the place we are staying is on steep, muddy, windy roads. Just [View Full Entry]

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We finally hit the road the other day- Saturday- and made it out to Sacto to visit some friends. We drove all the way out here on veggie oil, which was great, and had to fuel up from a restaurant for the first time today. It was really messy and more time-consuming than we had imagined, but definitely worth it, especially when you consider that a 40 gallon tank of diesel costs around $120! So far we've had a great time visiting friends, watching the superbowl, and sleeping in. We're off to Yosemite tomorrow for a few days of hiking, and [View Full Entry]

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Welcome! This is the begining of our trip, and we're trying to figure out this travel blog thing so every body can follow us on our journey. We're starting off in California, we moved out of our house a couple days ago and quit our jobs a few weeks before that. We're now at Brandi's wonderful mom's (and Dave's) house in San Rafael, and from here we're thinking about going up to Sacramento for a few days before we get to some hardcore driving. Right now, we're doing a lot of work on the bus, putting on the finishing touches. Gimli [View Full Entry]

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