Life is good. We are in Arcata, California at the lovely home of Carol and CJ Ralph. Carol is our friend Ali's sister. Ali is a former Academy Studios compatriot of Melisse's. Yes, the one with the goats. Carol and CJ were most inviting. They live at the end of the road next to the dunes and beach. Experts in birds and plants. After a spectacular walk over the dunes to the beach, we tried to play "stump the stars" with them but they had answers to all of our bird and plant questions. Way to go! Washington was glorious. We [View Full Entry]

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Blogger's note:Bear with us loyal blog readers, we are generally away from internet service so some blog entries will be written and posted later, maybe en masse while several days may go by between postings. 8/29/09 Since we left St. Louis, I have been quite buoyant. Our moods have been high and the highway has us excited. That was not the case for me today. I had the blues, which was curious because I also had my first reunion with the California coast in years. The ocean always makes me happy. Not today. I think the reunion caused me to grieve [View Full Entry]

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One word... ...WoAhhhhhhh! ... ...more words: (as transcribed from my scattered journal, so excuse the writing.) 25th July Well, it's been the most wonderful week of fresh air, pixies, family and awesome hitchhiking! It all started a bit slow after Salt Spring Island, with Steve n I not getting the best of luck with our rides up to Courtenay (but nothing as bad as the previous week!) But eventually our lunatic behaviour got us there and we rolled into Alani's place before dark. Spent a beautiful few days hanging out, gardening, making felt and swimming in rivers and waterfal [View Full Entry]

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When driving through the Redwoods National Park or any redwoods scenic byway, just plain ignore the mileage thinking you can estimate how long it will take. Between stopping to gawk in awe at the giants and stopping to catch your breath from near death from the foggy, unguardrailed cliff-winding, tourist-filled roads, it will take 3 times as long as you imagine. But well worth it. We stopped at the first park office and were told which roads our RV was prohibited from taking- good to know, so I'm glad we stopped and asked. Even the roads which were supposedly safe for [View Full Entry]

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Sorry I suck at updating this. Last time I updated I think we were in Montana. I forgot to mention that something I found extremely interesting in South Dakota was that at every point there was a fatal car accident on the highway, there was a sign that said something along the lines of "Think Don't Die". It was so bizarre. Saw Yellowstone again, got to see Old Faithful! It was exciting. Everyone should see that at some point in their life. Once in Idaho, we saw the Craters of the Moon National Monument. There used to be some volcanic activity [View Full Entry]

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Camping in the middle of a "city" finally revealed its drawbacks. During the night, we heard endless trains going by. And, obviously, they all needed to blast their horns at 2am. To get rid of all the cars that were CLEARLY on the road.... So when we finally woke up (around 7am or so) we decided to just get on with the day. We drove to Crater Lake (this time with gas!) and entered the park. The park ranger informed us that only 8 miles of roads were open, which disappointed me a little bit, but we got the point. We [View Full Entry]

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Tja nach einem ziemlich langen Flug nach San Fran, 3-4 Std. verspaetung, sind wir dann doch noch angekommen und gleich zu Alamo wo wir unser Auto gebucht hatten und dann ab nach Arcata dachten wir. Wir naruerlich ohne Plan von SAn Fran unterwegs immer schoen der Beschreibung von der Ulrike folgend, 101 Richtung Norden, durch San Fran. Nur da hier die Beschilderung nicht ganz so ist wie in D und man hier etwas laenger gedult haben muss wenn man geradeaus faehrt, aber nach ungefaehr einer Std. Irrfahrt in San Fran und nach dem Weg fragen, sind wir dann auch endlich ueber [View Full Entry]

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On my last morning in Mcleod ganj I went to my favorite restaurant, Oogos, and order some of the very best french toast. As the theme song to our trip "om mani padme hum" (a song we heard in the streets, restaurants, hotels, etc) sung out over the speakers I became quite sentimental. As I paid to leave, the tibetan woman who i saw everyday I came here gave me the sweetest hug goodbye. At thangka painting class I finished transferring my white tara drawing onto canvas. In the evening Jason walked me and my luggage to the bus stop. The [View Full Entry]

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Spontaneity is the key to that feeling of freedom, me thinks! This past Sunday, the lady Phoenix and I decided to road trip with our friends, Annette and Azza, back to Arcata, increasing our magical time spent with them aphond also avoiding a long hitchhike back for them (which I'm sure they would have loved, honestly). So from Santa Cruz to Arcata we went. We took Highway 1 all the way up, which of course is always a beautiful route. The plan was also to meet up with some other wonderful friends - Andreas and Julie. It took a while to [View Full Entry]

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This weekend I traveled to the coast and saw the pacific ocean, the redwood trees, and the most hippie town I think that exists in the United States. It was nice to get out of Chester and see some of the major points of California. The pacific was awesome and freezing, but we went swimming anyway. I found 3 giant green anemones and some baby shrimp. Oh and my camera died right before this so I have like 12 pictures from the whole trip, half of which are of state route 299 because it was ridiculously smoky. The next day we [View Full Entry]

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