Destination: California

After 18 hours and 1,200 miles, we arrived at Morgan's house in Santa Cruz, California at 3am and promptly went to sleep! We drove through the Mojave desert which usually gets less that 10 inches of rain a year. The day we drove through, the desert got three inches in one day. We passed the Pertified forest national park. We were a little behind schedule, but we really wanted to see the pertified wood so we compromised and stopped in the visitors centre.

As for California, I'm a little stuck for words here (fancy that...) as it is challenging to capture such an incredible ten days in words. Let me start by saying that we were only going to stay seven days...















Hannah keeping the beach safe!














Winter in Santa Cruz - tough!

Santa Cruz, the birth place of surfing, was to be our home in California. We stayed with Morgan, who lives in the home that Summer built, along with Phoenix and Jessie. Summer bought the house 6 years ago and has transformed it and the garden into something quite fantastic! It is colourful, light, and interesting, kinda like Summer actually...;-)















Hannah, Summer, Morgan and me















The house that Summer built!


Morgan and Summer have also transformed the back garden from a concrete slab into a wonderful garden that produces the most amazing fruits and vegetables! Over 90% of the US's produce is grown in the California. Okay, that might be 90% of US artichokes are grown in California, but just trust me, stuff grows in California.















The farmers market!















Any guesses as to what this is?

The first night that we were in Santa Cruz was Thanksgiving. Morgan is a trained macrobiotic chef and is busy studying to be a nutritional educator. Thus our incredible non-traditional, vegetarian meal was cooked by our own personal chef!

















Thanksgiving!

The weather was beautiful every day. In fact it was basically the same everyday: low 70's (24'C). We cycled along the beachfront and boardwalk watching the narly surfers catching big waves. We also played disc golf at the famous De Laveaga course. We met up with a volunteer of Hannah's in South Africa, Jason, who lives in San Francisco. We drove to San Francisco to visit him along the famed Route 1.


























Route 1!


We drove over the Golden Gate bridge and went hiking on Mount Tam
which overlooks the sea and, on a clear day, all the way back to San Francisco itself. There was a huge storm in Alaska at that time so there were huge swells sweeping down the coast, much to the surfers delight. We could see the swell so clearly from the top of Mt. Tam. After our hike, we drove into San Francisco to have supper, except we couldn't decide between Indian/Pakistani and Thai so we decided to go to both. Indian for starters and a few shops down for Thai for our main course. If you haven't done it, I highly recommend it.

































Hiking on Mount Tam!

One of the highlights of our stay in Santa Cruz, was visiting Nina and Sibley who are good friends of a good friend of ours, Will (phew!). Will put us in contact and we went to go and visit them on the small holding literally ten minutes from Morgan's house.















One of the yurts on the property!















View from Nina and Sibley's cabin

This amazing property was once a hippy commune and is nestled in a valley between two mountain ridges. There are eight houses / cabins / structures on the property and they are all run off the grid. We arrived mid afternoon and walked up on the ridge which overlooks the sea! On the ridge, in a stand of pines and bluegums are two redwood trees that stand 110 feet tall (35m). Nina and Sibley, on one of their eight wedding days (that is a story for another day), enlisted the help of their guests (Will included) to build a platform in the redwoods, 79 feet up. We decided to climb up to watch the sunset. The branches of the redwood radiate out from the trunk which makes it an easy tree to climb...well...easier than most. I'm not the biggest fan of heights but I'm proud to say that I followed Hannah, Sibley, and Morgan up the tree and got the most beautiful sunset as a reward! Thankfully going down was much easier than going up!















Morgan taking a rest during her climb.















The view from the top!

We extended our stay as long as we could, but eventually we had to leave.
But don't cry for us, California! The truth is, we've never left you!

We'll be back!

Christmas thank you!

Gretchen, Jon, Caitlin, and Emma, thank you for the wonderful Christmas Eve supper!

We all had such a great time!!

I know you read the blog, but I don't have your email to thank you ;-)

Santa Fe and the Great Couch Surf!

Couch surfing started in 2004 with the mission of connecting willing hosts with travelers. From a slow beginning with 45000 members by the end of 2005, it now has 780000 members in 232 territories around the world. It's slogan..."Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch at a Time"!

We heard about couch surfing from fellow SA traveler, Jonno who'd couch surfed in NYC and loved it. Our friend circle didn't quite extend all the way to New Mexico so we decided we'd try it! So Hannah jumped on the couch surfing site and contacted several people in Santa Fe, New Mexico which was our second stop on our journey! We wanted to spend a full day in Santa Fe so we needed to spend two nights.

Trevor agreed to have us the first night, but had another surfer the second night. Thankfully another couch hoster, Joel agreed to have us the second night!

We drive the 1032 miles (2800km) from st Louis to Santa Fe, New Mexico. We passed through Oklahoma which was fairly uneventful. We drove through Texas which was fine except that I kept looking behind me. We arrived fairly late in the evening and spent a fantastic few hours with Trevor hearing his stories about working in Antarctica and studying polarity theory. That night we had a relaxing sleep on Trevor's couch - our first couch surfer!

We had breakfast with Trevor and he told us of the interesting sites to see in Santa Fe. It is the capital of New Mexico and has a population of about 72,056. The city lies on a plateau and is partially surrounded by mountains that are often spectacularly lit by the rising or setting sun. The terrain of New Mexico is semi arid and similar to the Karoo in South Africa; It appears as if the rock features have been there since time began! It is at an altitude of 7000 feet so it is fairly high! The buildings are all in the Pueblo style which perfectly suit the semi arid environment of New Mexico. Santa Fe also boasts the US oldest building!















Pueblo style building! The oldest house!

Santa Fe is a mecca for artists and we spent a fair portion of the day looking at exquisite art from paintings to moving mobiles. One facet of Santa Fe's art which made an incredible impression on me was the sculpture, in particular, bronze sculpture!
One gallery we visited had an exhibit of sculptures of children playing and the artist had literally captured a moment of time in bronze. The children were not just life like, their expressions of sheer joy were perfectly captured! It was simply incredible!
Maybe the story of Pygmalion was not a myth after all...
We also visited a proper cowboy hat shop. The shop measures the exact dimensions of a customer's head and makes a custom hat out of the best material of all - beaver felt!

















The cowboy shop with the antique head measurer!

After spending the day walking through out the town, we met up with Joel and Matt at the local co-op. We bought some food and spent the evening making bread, cooking dinner, drinking wine, and chatting! We had such a great time that we stayed up til 2am. Our planned leaving time was 6am, but we wisely left at 9am!









Santa Fe - so laid back that even the traffic lights are horizontal!

Next stop - California!




















My motto: Big lures, big fish!


















Chilling in Santa Fe!

Here are some examples of the incredible sculptures...!















(Note: The sign on the right is the size of a piece of paper...this shows how big this is!)

The Journey begins...

We started our journey early one Sunday morning. The temperature was below freezing and the weather crisp and clear. Our first stop was st Louis, Missouri. The first three hours were spent driving through snow.

Note the ice of the window washer...wasn't
quite sure how to clean the window...?!

The trees were bare and the snow was…well…snow white. It was extremely beautiful. The rest of the drive was uneventful other than stopping briefly to see Rachel (Hannah’s sister) who was driving back to Greenbelt for Thanksgiving!














Hannah and Rachel!

We arrived in St. Louis in the late evening and were welcomed by our great friend, Naomi. We met Naomi in an ultimate tournament in JHB and we, quite simply, bonded! She was doing an internship in Pietermaritzburg and came to Cape Town twice and hung out with us! Naomi made a huge impression on us and we were so happy to see her again. We met her man, Ross, who is just about to finish his masters in architecture – poor guy! Naomi, not to be outdone, has just finished her law degree. Naomi and Ross were house-sitting one of Naomi’s professor’s houses. The professor has several programmes that are linked to the University of Cape Town...

...so there were numerous African items to make us feel at home! We slept so well that night after 14 hours driving.


St Louis is most famous for its 600 foot high arch and that is where we spent the following day. The arch is built in the same shape that a suspended chain hangs. There is a trolley car elevator system which takes visitors inside and up the arch. Hannah and I couldn’t resist a ride to the top.

Underneath the arch is the Museum of Westward Expansion which chronicles the travels and exploits of American settlers in their move westward across the country. The museum has an incredible time line that highlights the main events locally and nationally from ‘discovery’ of America by Christopher Columbus until the present. The museum is fairly depressing, though, and it is upsetting to learn about the treachery, deceit, and genocide that was dealt to the Native Americans. I suppose that happens right around the world.















Me and Hannah at the top of the Arch

That night we had a fantastic dinner at home with Naomi and Ross. I’ll let the pictures speak for the quality of the food. You’ll have to take my word on the quality of the conversation! The next morning we left our king sized guest bedroom and double headed for Santa Fe, New Mexico and our first couch surfing experience!




















Doesn't this look good?!















The real secret behind the arch!















The wonderful Naomi!















Ross and I about to tuck in...

Operation Cross Country

The plan: To drive from Greenbelt to Santa Cruz and then back again
Time needed: 19 days total (8 driving days)
Equipment needed: VW Golf 4 2.0, road atlas and a compass named Hannah
Total return distance: 6,653 miles (38,000km)
Longest distance to cover in one day: 1,115 miles (2,400 km)
Gallons of gas required: 294 (1176 litres)
States to be transversed: Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, D.C.

Home to Greenbelt - time for rest!

Hannah and I spent an extremely restful two weeks in Greenbelt - so restful in fact that during the course of a few days out of our two weeks I wore my sheepskin slippers all day. Hannah and I caught up on our favourite TV series Dexter as well as the series Entourage, which is based on my best friend Nick Hodge’s life.

Jenifer spoiled us a few times and took us out to eat at some great restaurants. We spent the rest of our days reading, watching a bit of telly, playing with Callie and playing disc golf.

Hannah’s friend Morgan and her man, Darren came to stay for a night while driving from California to Massachusetts. We finally got meet her mystery man whom we had all heard so much about! He scored 39 on our 43 point check list. 4 points are always held in reserve on a first impression!
It was great to catch our breath and it also gave us plenty of time to plan…Operation Cross Country!

Fishing report
I have been fortunate enough to befriend Harry who I met at Bass Pro. Harry is retired at the healthy age of 51 and works one day a week at Bass Pro to take advantage of the employee discount. Harry took me fishing on the upper Gunpowder for wild browns. The gunpowder is a heavily fished river, but for good reason. The river has been well looked after and the trout although educated can get up to 5 lbs. With winter starting to kick in, the morning was clear but very fresh. There was a hatch of mayflies around mid morning. The pools came alive with rising trout. I caught a brown on a small adams. Between Harry and I, we had loads of takes, but the browns would spit it out before the hook could be set. It would have been frustrating, if it wasn’t amazing to see. I managed to get two more browns from faster runs using a team of a dry fly and nymph dropper.

We also spent a day on the Morgan Run river. The river is a free stone river with incredible pools and runs. It was very fresh in the morning when we arrived. Gloves were a life saver! The river level was extremely low and very clear. We didn’t see many trout which was unusual. I finally decoded a 9 inch rainbow. After not seeing many trout, we decided it was time for a pint and some lunch!