Saturday, December 18, 2010

Montana De Oro - Los Osos CA

This week we went on a camping trip to Los Osos, California which is between LA and San Francisco. The first night we just set up behind a CVS because we were tired from driving late, but we had to pop the top because our friend Andrew was with us. At midnight a police officer knocked on the door and Trey answered it. The officer asked him a few questions like where are you from, going, etc. He checked out the sweet mushroom print interior and said "well you guys can stay here for the night as long as you split early." Nice! Early we continued to Montana De Oro state park which is in Los Osos right by the sea. It was beautiful but the camping was over priced! $25/night with no hook ups and no running water, except a spigot of non potable water. They wouldn't allow wood gathering in the park even though it was plentiful and they sold bundles for $8/ea! gotta love those Cali prices!
The first day we were there a thick fog rolled in in the afternoon and stuck around the rest of the day. We took a long hike over some huge dunes down to the beach. Because of the thick fog it was like it was just ours. There was also walking areas through woods that had really cool trees! I'm not sure what type they are but they shed their layers of bark the reveal different colors. Very pretty!! EDIT: They are eucalyptus trees, thanks to Susan!

Our Campsite

Inside what looked like a huge Aloe Bush
Hiking the Dunes to the Sea

Foggy Beach


eucalyptus trees

the second day was clear & sunny but we had to get back to LA.

We stopped in Port San Louis so Andrew could buy HUGE clams for $10/dozen. There were tons of Sea Lions! And birds diving into the ocean for fish.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Southern California

We reached our destination in Long Beach California a week and a half ago. We stay mostly in a salvage yard where we picked up some extra work with our friend. We also have been staying in Huntington beach which is a lot nicer. The smog here is very noticeable in LA. There is a lot of traffic but we haven't gotten into anything too bad yet. In Albuquerque we saw a lot of old VWs but here there are lot of VW buses and vans! At some points we are even on the road with at least two other Buses, which I find surprising as drivers around here drive as fast as possible! I wouldn't think there would be as many "slow pokes" as there is.

Huntington Beach

Laguna Beach


Sunset in the Salvage Yard

Meeting fellow Blogger friends & Arizona

I have been slacking on posting lately, so I will try to update these past few weeks tonight and tomorrow... two weeks ago we got to meet our friends Mike & Heidi who have been following my blog since the very beginning in Quartzsite Arizona. When you enter the town there are tons of different RVs set up along different roads- the town is pretty much made up of RV-ers. We had a good relaxing few days with our friends and Heidi taught me how to knit which I am still practicing. The sunsets were beautiful and the sky was so clear at night. Our bus attracted a lot of humming birds which we thought was strange...






Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Lots of Cacti!

Arizona's landscape was pretty in the south eastern side and got a bit more boring though past Phoenix. Most of these pictures were taken at the Saguaro National Park in Tucson.



some of them are huuuuuge!








New Mexico through Arizona

Peter's kegerator in the Tiki Bus

Fraggle Rock is in SW New Mexico apparently!


Arizona becomes rockier



Free Camp spot on BLM land in Tucson Arizona

Loving the view out my "bedroom" window


Weird giant baby cutout in field outside of Phoenix AZ

Friday, November 26, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving


We got to spend our thanksgiving with our new VW friend Peter. We found him on the AIRs list while traveling in Albuquerque. He is letting us stay at his place while we do some adjustments to the Bus, like fixing the sliding door etc. We also got a new starter from a friend of his who has tons of VW parts! There are tons of old VWs here, if you ride down the block you will see at least 4 or more! We've been having a great time meeting lots of great new people and making friends. We also recruited Peter to go to Buses by the Bridge with us @ Lake Havasu AZ in January!



This is Tiki Bus~ Peter built a kegerator in it~ more pics to come later

We are staying here until Saturday and after that we decided to head South to get on I-10 instead of going I-40 because of the cold weather. It snowed here thanksgiving! We will miss some of the things we wanted to see but we would much rather stay warm. And there are places we want to see South as well, and meet up with some friends in Quartzsite AZ.

Thanksgiving was great for us, because we met some seriously awesome people, got to have delicious Southwestern style thanksgiving dinner and better parts for the Bus! We are very thankful this thanksgiving for the kindness of strangers and the luck of meeting great people. We miss our families but luckily we will get to visit them for the Christmas holidays. Well, happy thanksgiving everybody!

Monday, November 22, 2010

Route 66 Museum and straight shot Thru Texas Panhandle to NM

Hello all~ Just wanted to share that I changed my settings so all of you wonderful anonymous readers can now comment on my blog! I do look forward to reading comments so feel free to leave some for me, as long as they are positive! No negativity needed here.

We visited the Route 66 Museum in Elk City~ it was just $4 each with our AAA discount and $5 if you don't have AAA. Then we stayed the night in Amarillo Texas at the Amarillo Welcome Center. It was a nice, quiet, safe spot with 24 restrooms. Now we are staying a few days in Albuquerque NM, its a bit chilly here though.



My next project: building a teardrop trailer


Huge Fabergé egg collection
World's First torture device perhaps? Or a hair curler... you decide!



Somehow we went back in time!

Leaning Water Tower

Cadillac Ranch


Desert, desert, and look! a mound...