Haight street and Sutro baths

Deedra and her two room mates took us out for pancakes in the morning at a nice breakfast place down the street from their place. After that Deedra showed us Haight street which is said to be the place where the Hippie movement of America started in the 60s and that is still packed with a bunch of the last survivors... It is a very colorful and interesting place with a healthy mix of new and old shops, cafes bright people. We walked up and down the street looking through the shops and enjoying the vibe that reminded me strongly of the "Schanze" in Hamburg. We went back home for a little rest before Deedra had to go to work and gave us a lift to downtown where we checked out the big mall for our final Christmas arrangements. It was crazy big there and and very hard to find anything in between all that stuff but at least we figured out what we wanted to give each other. Yay!
Later we walked to the fisherman's wharf which was quite a bit away but it was a nice walk with all the Christmas decorations and lights everywhere. We had a coffee while we waited for Deedra to finish her shift at home before she picked us up and we drove home. At night we went to a party at a friends place which was fun and the people we met there were really cool. Some of them seemed so very Australian and they reminded me of my friends back there.
The next day Deedra and her room mate Megan took us out for a hike to the Sutro baths, which was a large swimming pool complex in SF in the 19th century that had burned down and remains as ruins right at the ocean. The weather was awesome and we had a lot of fun on that hike. The trail led us up the cliffs from where we had a great view over ocean beach (and its waves that were pumping that day) and later on we could see the GGB and the entrance to the bay. We had bought some really nice bread from a small Russian store that we had found on the way which we ate close to the water with some nice Swiss cheese.
The ruins of the baths were really cool. It must have been a huge complex and it was right by the ocean so you could relax inside and see the waves break against the outside... Over the years the water had formed a tunnel into the rocks behind the baths through which you could walk all the way across to the other side of the cliffs which was very cool. After a nice long break we went back to Deedra's place because she had to get ready for work and we had decided to switch sleeping locations (after all we were blocking half of the girls' living room).

The crew: Bekki, Megan and Deedra

The Sutro baths

This is how the baths looked in the 1920s

Our friend Lauren, who we had met in Long Beach had given us the number of a good friend who lives in SF in case we needed a place to stay and he told me on the phone that it was no problem for us to come any time and stay with him and his room mates for a while. He didn't live far away from where we were and so we packed our stuff in the evening and backpacked to his house in Randolph street, probably the coolest place in the whole of San Francisco.

Time with the Don: Santa Cruz and a day full of San Francisc

We left Kenny early the next morning to meet up with a guy in Downtown LA who would give us a lift to Santa Cruz. We had finally found someone on Craigslist who was willing to take us with all our luggage plus the surfboards and we had also contacted someone on CouchSurfing who was staying in Santa Cruz so everything was set for the next big adventure. Our driver was a really cool guy, a bit late but friendly and he had a very nice old Chevy van with the most comfortable seats that I have ever experienced in a car. They were tipped to the back a bit and so very soft and bouncy... I took the front seat from where I could see the beautiful road (the highway 1 is rated one of the most beautiful roads in the world) and found a great conversational partner while Bekki stretched out on the bench in the back and slept through most of the trip. We stopped in Pismo beach where we watched the sunset for a while and arrived a few hours later in Santa Cruz at about 8:30 pm from where we only had to drive 15 minutes into the hills to Scott's Valley, the town in which we would meet our CS host. 

The van...

We had taken the route 1 along the coast because the van wasn't good in the hills and it was really struggling to climb the flanks of the Santa Cruz hinterland. Our host was a pensioner from Florida who had been a tour guide all over the world and had a lot of stories to tell about places he'd visited. He was touring the country in his huge RV and offered  to stay with him where ever he was. The RV was probably the smallest space that we had CSed so far but Don, our host, came up with a very pleasant surprise. After we had brought our stuff inside he told us to put on our swimwear and follow him outside where he showed us his HOT TUB! It wasn't really his, it belonged to the camping ground but it was just next to his RV which made it his... It was so nice to sink into that hot water and it was great that it was outside because the air was freezing cold which emphasized the difference even more. How luxurious to have a hot tub as a CouchSurfer .

The next day we visited the Mystery Spot, a place where physical rules don't seem to exist. Water seemed to run up hill, everything was skew and small people seemed as tall as tall people and no one had a proper explanation for these phenomenons. The owner had found out about it when he noticed that no building would last that he built on that hill and so he made a tourist attraction out of it. He managed to set up a little hut that was skew in itself which confused the observer even more. We figured that it all had to do with some strong optical illuson (and not some alien ship, burried deep under the mountain which is one of the reasons they are trying to give you) but it still was very impressive.

Don brought us to Santa Cruz's legendary boardwalk where we spent some time walking around and looking at the attractions which unfortunately were closed through winter. We played a game of pinball and I normally wouldn't mention it here but I won two free games... something I never managed before and definitely because of all that training at Kenny's place. We had lunch on the pier fron where we could see Steamers Lane, one of the famous point break of Santa Cruz and seals playing in the bay. I wanted to get a closer look at the wave so we drove to the headland with the little lighthouse where the access point for the wave is. It was a small day but it wasn't hard to see the potential of the wave. Clear but fast righthanders that could, on a big day, be ridden a long way into the bay. The lighthouse on the headland had been transformed into a surfing museum with a lot of old boards and pictures from the beginning of the sport in CA. I even found a German newspaper article about the surf crew from Santa Cruz. We drove a little up the beautiful coast road before we went bach to Santa Cruz to get some shopping done for Christmas. Back at the RV we made a delicious dinner and enjoyed the evening in the hot tub. It was already late when we woke up but we didn't really have anything planned exept to go surfing and the tide was just about right around noon. Bekki went for a run and Don took off to do something else so I was all on my own when I paddled out towards Pleasure Point.I had my wetsuit on plus two wetsuit tops which made it very hard to paddle and my arms were tired after the first two waves but it kept me warmish in the freezing water. The waves were small but super nice and  even got referred to as the Australian which I took as a compiment towards my surfing. 
It was one of the best surf sessions I ever had but not because of the waves. Along the coast of central and northern CA the Kelp grows like crazy in huge areas called kelp forests and they are natural habitat of a lot of different animal species. I saw so many different birds, otters were playing only a boards lenght away from me and I saw some seals or sea lions in the distance. And to top it all a school of at least 20 dolphins passed me in a distance of only 20 about meters; they were so close that I could see every detail on their skin, see their faces and even make out the eyes. Truely magical! I surfed for a couple of hours before I came in because the waves had dropped completely and I couldn't feel my hands and feet and only the promising hot tub session could warm me up.

A section of the boardwalk right at the beach

On Wednesday we made the trip down to Monterey, a place that a lot of people had told us to visit and that really was worth the drive. It had a huge and world famous aquarium but they wanted to charge us 30$ per person which was a bit too much for us so we decided to drive down the  beautiful coast a bit further and enjoy the ocean without having to pay for it. It is no wonder to me that the Pacific Coast Highway (1) is in the top ten of the most beautiful drives in the world because the views you get driving along it are incredible. I would love to ride my bike down the west coast some time because a car often goes to fast to capture all of that beauty. We drove through Carmel, a small tourist village and towards Big Sur which is one of the highlights of the route. We stopped at a restaurant that had charged 6$ for a shot of coffee with some froth but had an amazing view over the cliffs leading down to the pacific. Because it got dark we stopped at a bridge to watch the sunset. Bekki and I walked down the path to the edge from where we had a great view, took a few pictures and watched this wonder of the world together that we had seen so often but is still amazing and beautiful.

To see (or not see) Big Sur in the dark wasn't really an option so we turned around and ended this nice day with a long hot tub session.

The kelp forests of Monterey

Lazy seals

Cute seal

On Thursday we left Santa Cruz and Don offered to drive us all the way to San Francisco which was very nice of him. We took the Hwy 1 because I wanted to see the place where the legendary Mavericks breaks. The actual wave breaks over a mile out at see and it was a really nice day with hardly any swell but it was still crazy to be there where, with the right conditions, a monster is unleashed. 

Somewhere far in the distance it breaks. And we even found the original Mavericks sign by Brainwaves...

We drove through Pacifica, where Don stayed while he was up there and then arrived in SF. Don took us to the Twin Peaks from where you can see almost the whole bay area and pointed out a few landmarks like Guantanamo, the bridges and downtown for which his experience as a tour guide came in very handy. After we had enough of the view he took us to the Golden Gate Bridge, the thing I was looking forward to most in SF. We got a good look from the south side before we drove over it and saw it from the north side :) Don also took us to Sausalito, a small town for the rich people and tourists and to oceanside, the headland at the north side of the bridge from where we watched the beautiful sunset and the Golden Gate Bridge immersed in its golden light. On the way back we got a bit lost on the highway before we arrived at Lombard street which is the street with the most bends in one block in the world (this one steep section has eight tight hairpin turns in one block). We didn't see very much because it was already dark but we drove down the road which was an experience by itself.

We drove past the docks and the famous fishermans wharf with all the tourist attractions and had dinner with Don at a nice Italian place that made very good pizza. Bekki had contacted a friend, Deedra, whom she had met on a party in Eckernfoerde (she was there for an exchange) and asked if we could stay at her place for a while. Aftre dinner Don drove us the where we said goodbye to him. He was a really good host and had done so much for us and I am really glad that we met him.

Deedra was very nice, she had set up a bed in their living room and we fell into bed early after that long day with so many new impressions.

Downtown and surroundings

from the south...

...the north...

...and the west.

Not my own pic but it shows the street nicely...

Restart

As if the ocean was welcoming us back the swell picked up and offered clean and big conditions on Tuesday morning. We dropped Dani of at work and took her car to drive to Huntington where I had a wonderful surf session in really nice waves. I finally felt completely comfortable on my new board and I didn't have to worry about where to stand and what to do once I was up and riding. I had another surf in the evening, the sun was setting, the wind had completely died down.It was an amazing experience. While I was paddling out the sun shone through the waves which made them look like green fire and one guy rode a barrel right in front of me standing upright, just a black silhouette shooting along that green wall with the setting sun in his back. It was also the first time for me to be the very last one in the water, I stayed until I couldn't even see the waves coming, and it was such a great feeling having the whole wide ocean only for yourself. The next day we surfed the rest of the swell with Dani and a friend called Mike. He was a cool guy and I enjoyed having him with me. He was great surf company. The rest of the day we stayed at home, chilled and started to plan the next trip up north and that is also pretty much what we did for the rest of the week.

We also went hiking with Kenny one day. He picked us up after work to take us to Mt. Baldy, a mountain close by to show us how close together everything is in California. After a 40 minute drive we reached the foot of the mountain from where we started our walk. The air was so much nicer up there and all the little cabins and the trees made you think you were far far away from any big city. We had left a little late so we had to hurry to get up the hill in time to have some light left and we only made it halfway before we decided to stay and enjoy the sunset from a clearing on the side of the hill. it was beautiful and even though we couldn't see very far it was great to be there. It got cold quickly though so we hurried back down the track in the fading light and drove back into the big, loud, smelly city.

Mt. Boldy

Kenny picked us up on Friday night because we wanted to have pancakes with him and his mom on Saturday morning before he took us to a Pinball auction. The Pinball auction itself was quite interesting (I definitely need a Pinball machine when I come back home) but Bekki and I felt a bit lost between all those experts and it took a long time until they actually started auctioning the pinball machines and Bekki and I got a little bored. Mike, who had come to Santa Barbara with us scored two machines for a good price though which was good for him. After the auction we visited Brianne, Kenny's ladyfriend. They were restoring an old Pinball machine there, which was taken apart and ready to be sprayed. Bekki helped them put the stencil on the sides while I played on another machine... We went back to Kenny's place at around 7pm where we met Dani and a few other friends who we hung out with. Dani had to leave early because she had work the next day which meant that Bekki had to say the real goodbye to her because she would leave the country from SF. I had already decided that I would stay until my I had my passport so I knew that I would be coming back.

A day to forget

When you travel you experience good things and bad things, live trough easy times and hard times and even though the good times are mostly longer and the easy times are more frequent, it is the bad times that leave the bigger impact in that moment.

The day we left Pozo Valley was definitely one of those bad days that can overshadow a whole week of good. Ryan, Michelle and their kids dropped us off in Paso Robles, a small wine town in the middle of "not much" from where we planned on traveling to San Francisco. It was 7:30 am when we found the train station, only to see that we had to wait until 11 o'clock for it to open. We walked around town for a bit with all our stuff before we found a café with free WiFi where we stayed and started to plan our trip. We had a few options that we could choose from and we decided to take the cheapest, a bus/train connection, that took a bit longer than the others but also left earlier. The coffee was good and the chairs comfortable and the wait wasn't even that bad. We didn't have access to the internet while we were on the farm which meant that we hadn't contacted anyone to stay with and non of our other contacts were able to host us for the next few days which meant that we had to stay in a hostel if we didn't find an emergency couch to stay on. We were both stressed out by the time we left from writing all those couch requests and looking for rides with rideshare and my head felt as if it would explode every second. We arrived at the train station where we had to find out that the bus wouldn't take the surfboard which blew over all the plans we had made. I asked the women if I could at least take my surfboard on the train and she assured me that I could so we decided to take the Amtrak to San Jose, a suburb of SF, from where we would take the local transportation to the next hostel. We wanted to watch a movie at the local cinema but they didn't have any good movies so we just sat down in a little shop where I had a pasta salad and we met a nice girl who we talked to for a while who was very exited about our trip and loved our stories. We changed our location back to the nice little coffee shop where we had internet and continued to look for a place to stay. After almost 4 hours we heaved our stuff on our back again and went back to the train station. We were tired and pissed because everything was going wrong so far, we didn't have a  ride, a place to stay or a plan for SF and it seemed like such a big effort to organize everything on one day that we even considered to go back to LA from where we would organize everything with more time. It seemed like giving up though so we decided to take the train to SF and work something out from there even though we would have arrived at 11pm in a very shady area with no place to stay. I called the Amtrak number to buy our tickets over the phone and had everything worked out with the friendly lady until I asked about the boards. I had asked a few hours ago but to be sure I asked again and she told me they couldn't take the board on the train, not even if I paid extra. This fucked our plans all over again (obviously we wouldn't leave our board there), it was dark already, we hadn't found a place to stay, not even in the town we were in, and we were both so tired that we could have slept right away and the only thing that seemed logical to us at that point was to call Dani and to ask her if we could come back to her place. That was no problem and an hour later we found ourselves on the very expensive Greyhound bus towards LA. The six hour trip went past quite fast, Bekki slept through most of it and I watched some series, and we arrived in Downtown LA at 11pm from where we only had to find the metro station that would take us to Long Beach. I had looked up the way on a map and decided that the distance was walkable which turned out to be a bad mistake because it was longer than I had expected, we, especially Bekki, were more tired than we had thought and the area we had to walk through was full of homeless people and prostitutes and has a very bad reputation (which we found out afterwards). After a long and scary walk we arrived the metro safely and were glad to rest a bit during the 45 minute drive to Long Beach. Dani picked us up from the station, it was already 1:30am, but she said that it was OK because one of her friends had done the same for her during her travels and from now on it was up to us to do it for someone else. Tired but relieved and happy to have a place to sleep we sunk into bed. It had been a long day with a lot of bad news since we got up at 6 o'clock. We had waited a total of 11 hours in Paso Robles, spent about 9 hours on the road and carried all of our luggage around with us... It is still too much.

Pozo Valey

When my uncle Pete was my age he traveled through the US where he met some people who lived on a ranch near Santa Margarita, somewhere between LA and SF. He stayed with the family for several months and as their kids were older they visited him in Australia; that was about 10 years ago... Now Pete gave us a phone number which we should try to call if we needed help or a place to stay and after we arrived we tried to call several times but it was a business number and I always forgot to call at the right time. After some tries I finally got through and after I had told the woman on the phone that I was Pete's nephew her voice got very exited and the first thing she asked was when we would come. We told her about our trip and our plans and she invited us to stay on their ranch, which was also a winery, for as long as we wanted to. Even the fact that the time we were planning on going north was during the American holiday of thanksgiving didn't change anything and so we told her that we would come on Tuesday the 22nd.

We arrived at night in San Luis Obispo after the great day in Santa Barbara with Kenny and Mike and got picked up by Debbie and Steve , the parents of the kids who visited Pete in Oz. They welcomed us very warmly and gave us a huge room with a big bed after offering us a glass of their own wine and some cookies. The next morning we met Michelle, Debbie and Steve's daughter and her husband Ryan and their two little girls Reagan and Emri. Ryan was a Cowboy on a ranch at the coast and he had nine of his working dogs with him, most of them were friendly and one had seven freshly born puppies. Reagan is 2 1/2 years old and super sweet and Emri is 11 months and one of the happiest baby's I have ever seen. She laughts most of the time and I don't remember hearing her cry at all. Ryan showed us the ranch with the vineyard and the animals and introduced us to Joey, Debbie and Steve's son who had visited Pete and Sal in Australia and is now building a house for himself and his family on a hill nearby. The boys are both cowboys and they were training for a big roping tournament in Las Vegas but the soil in the arena they practiced in was too wet and Ryan took Bekki for a horse ride around the lake. Real western style. The boys started drinking their first Bud Light beer right after breakfast and I gladly joined in with them from the first day. Along with a few other brands Bud Light is a big part of American farm life and it is only enjoyable when it's cold so there were cool boxes with ice in every house, truck or place they would spend their time. It is light beer that has been watered down and it doesn't taste like much but it is very easy to drink and very refreshing.

It was Thanksgiving while we were there and they generously invited us to be a part of their celebrations. It was our first Thanksgiving and we felt very thankful and privileged to join this lovely family and experience this holiday that is only celebated in the US in such a traditional way. On Thanksgiving day I joined the men on their Quaile hunt while the women stayed at home with the kids and prepared the feast. I was unsure if I wanted to join the hunt but it was an interesting and cool experience, we had to find them and shoot them when they fled. I didn't shoot at the birds but I had a go with a shotgun and I gave the rock I was aiming at a really hard time... It was the first time for me to fire a real weapon and it was a very strange feeling. It is loud and the force with which the gun moves back when you shoot is quite strong but it is so easy to pull the trigger and release that deadly bullet and it gives you a very strange and scary feeling of power but I'm glad to have that point off my bucket list.

We went home with 15 birds, a decent catch, where the food was already on the table and the Thursday afternoon game was running and sat down for a early meal. The food was delicious, even though we didn't have any of that turkey, and there was enough to eat for everyone for the next 3 days. We ate with the whole family, Jessie, Joey's wife and their daughter Lainey and Mark and Cindy with their son Miles who had been hunting with us earlier. The evening was very nice, we ate and drank, played card games and laughted a lot before we sank into our warm and comfortable beds.

The next couple of days we just enjoyed the life on the farm. We hiked around the property where we found bear tracks and a dead cow that was probably eaten by Coyotes, played with the dogs and watched the boys train for their tournament. The weather was cold but mostly clear and we spent a great amount of time outside.

They had a lot of leftover wine from 2006 which they had to get rid of for money reasons so we helped them to drain it into the ground. It was a sad sight to watch all that good wine be waisted but no one had any use for it anymore and the barrels were needed for the new wine. They had a big problem with rodents in their fields and to get two birds with one stone we poured the wine into the holes in the ground. We even chased one of them out, he was drenched in wine and ran as if he was drunk until the dog got him, and after we had emptied the last barrel we had drained more than 2700 liters of good wine into the ground.

Another day we assembled all the cattle to brand the calves, Ryan, Joey, Michelle and Debbie were on horses, sorted them into groups and branded them the next day. It was fun to watch them do their work, the oldschool roping and the branding with the hot iron but I had to look away when they castrated the young bulls. Bekki and I would have loved to help a little bit more or to do some work for them because everyone was so nice and we didn't do anything for it but they said that it would have taken a lot longer to explain stuff to us than to do it themselves and there wasn't even a woodchopping job to do for us.

We had really great 6 days there and are very thankful for how everything had worked out and for everything that we learned during our time there, for the nice people we met and the kindness we recieved. It was another very different but valuable experience that we made on our travels and a very nice one.

The vineyard

Bear tracks... Aaaaaaaahhhhh

The farmhouse and the beautiful land around it

Puppies

Ryan at his workplace

I feel that I should make beer adds...

Reagan

Emri and Lainey

My eyes almost have the color of the can. That's when you know that you're on the right way

Roping action. It doesn't look like it here but it is really fast

Santa Barbara with some Ami's

The forecast was looking good on Monday so we headed down to the beach in the morning with Dani to check it out. The conditions were beautiful, quite small but glassy and smooth waves where ever you looked. I surfed for more than two hours and was still hungry for more when Bekki and Dani signaled that we had to go because Dani had to do some work. She left us her car though so we could go again later on. We only needed to send a package with our stuff back to Germany and decided to do that before we surfed again. Because our stuff was at Kenny's place we drove there, packed our things together and went looking for the nearest post office. We struggled a little trying to fit everything into the small but hellish expensive box. I had hoped that we could just leave it there and go surfing but the woman at the counter pinned us down and asked us all these stupid questions (I was sure that it was meant nicely...) and took soooo long to type in our details. We ended up being there for over a hour talking to one of the slowest people on this planet. I kept looking outside where the sun was already setting and got  really nervous and jumpy but she wouldn't let us go. She didn't even notice that we were in such a hurry and to crown it all her computer had some sort of problem which stalled us down even more. By the end of the procedure it was far too late to go back to the beach and I was so bummed because we missed a great surf session but I was also exhausted from being mad. The sunset was beautiful though and the drive back to Dani along the coast was very nice. We watched "The Motorcycle Diaries" while eating another pumpkin dinner and started dreaming about traveling again. I really loved that movie, it makes you dream, think and laugh, sometimes even at the same time.
Dani and I went for a very early morning surf on Tuesday, the day we wanted to finally leave LA and travel north, not because we didn't like it there but because we wanted to see something new (after all we are travelers). The waves were still fun and it was so nice to be out there while the sun rose with only a few other people out and no wind.
We left from Kenny's at nine where we said goodbye to Dani and Liz, Kenny's mum who had taken the best care of us while we were there, and boarded Mike's truck together with him and Kenny. We had planned to go to Santa Barbara together where we wanted to spend the day and then take the train north to San Luis Obispo. The drive was about two hours and I had a good time in the front seat talking to Mike while Bekki and Kenny napped in the back.
The first thing we did in SB was to check out the bus and train times before we continued following the plan that we had made on the way, or rather that Kenny and Mike had agreed on because they wanted to show us the worlds best crepe- and coffee place. We liked the idea (who would say no to crepes and coffee) and followed them to a tiny shop not far from the main street that had a great variety of sweet and savory crepes which made it very hard to decide what to get. Everything looked so good...
I ended up with a simple Nutella crepe (I hadn't had Nutella in what seemed years) which was really good but I would have taken the one Kenny chose if I had known how it tasted before. I don't quite recall what was in it but there were some veggies and cheese and it tasted divine! I won't even try to go into detail because there is no way that I can describe it...
After the crepes we only had to go a few doors down the street to get to the "Santa Barbara Roasting Co" which apparently had the best coffee in the world. They definitely had a lot of different blends and good prices with a free refill, I think... The coffee was really good, even though I wouldn't call it the best and we drank a lot of their extra strong blend and also tasted our way through the other flavors which led to a strong  caffeine overdose that affected Kenny the most. As we left he used the "I work at Disneyland" phrase on a girl which always seems to work and in the car on the way to the beach he wouldn't stop talking, so fast and loud that no one was able to interrupt him. It was entertaining but didn't last very long before all of us got really tired. The boys took us to the pier from where we watched the sunset and took some pictures before we had to go to the train station. The trains in the US aren't even a little better than the DB and they told us that we would have to wait an hour for the train. We just stayed at the station and killed the time by playing Pinball on Kenny's 3DS. The train arrived on time, exactly one hour late, and we finally had to say goodbye to the last of our good friends. It was a very sentimental moment because we had had a really good time with both of them and had become close mates. The train helped us though by closing its doors and we could only wave, I with a hoody-poncho that Kenny had given me (one of mine was still at his place), until the train started moving and we left them behind.
The train ride was three hours but we had a lot of room and Bekki watched a movie while I read my book. We arrived 30 minutes early in SLO, it was dark and quite cold but we soon got picked up by our next hosts.
It had been a really nice day, one of the best we've had in CA, and Bekki and I both felt very lucky and special to have met all of these great people that had made our time here so special and unique and we felt that it wasn't the last time that we would see them.

Only a little bit of coffee...