We had plans to get up at 5:45 to get an early start, as we’ve decided to adjust our sleep schedule to the sun so we make the most of our days. We ended up waking up around 6:30 so Lindsay allowed me to go take a shower while she took the tent down. This was most fancy park campground we had been at. *they had bear boxes. These metal cabinets you could put food and things inside that bears could not get in to , so cool but unnecessary seeing as we hadn’t seen a bear since we left british Columbia. California you silly state, so deceiving with the bear on your flag*We got ourselves ready and headed out… hitting the road about 7:15. Back on the 1. Biggest trees ever. The fog was back too, giving us an element of mystery. We stopped to stand next to the Redwood and wrap our arms around it…literal tree huggers. You feel so small when you stand by these trees. We continued down Highway 101 and turned onto the 1. The end parts of the 101 had been curvy and winding, but Highway 1 was just plain ridiculous. We weaved through the woods for a while. Up and down, around, and around. We stopped at the Chandler Drive Thru Tree…but our cooler at the top prevented us from actually driving through. Plus it seemed pretty narrow. We opted to park and walk through. Such majesty. One of the trees was on its side, so you could stand in its core. We made friends with a dad visiting the forest with his family from Oregon I think and he was blown away by the miles we had traveled and our ambitions. Lindsay had worn a dress that day, making it hard for her to climb the trees so she made me do it. I scaled the side of the log, and photobombed some peoples’ pictures. Oops.
We continued on the Highway 1. Overwhelming smell of pine. *Serious pine. My eyes were burning it was so strong. It was like someone shmeered pine-sol on my cheeks. It smelled more like upnorth than up north does. Oh California never a dull moment. Thery have awesome trees though AWESOME!!!!*That was mixed with a smell that I could only categorize as the stale smell of an airplane. After a while of smelling this, I finally figured out the smell’s source… the bags of coffee beans sitting on the dashboard we were bringing Matthew from Portland. The mix of pine and coffee as we weaved on the road was enough to make me nauseous. In 22 years I’ve never gotten car sick… I can read in the car, and I drove the Road to Hana in Maui, but this road was just ridiculous. We weaved and turned, in the woods and in the forest, on the coast, near the beach, round and round. At one point, we counted the amount of times we changed direction in one mile. 18 turns in one mile. The overwhelming smell of pine wasn’t helping. It was like sitting on a tilt a whirl in the middle of a Christmas tree farm. I had a headache, but I couldn’t eat, cause my stomach was uneasy. And this wasn’t a one or two hour drive…. Nope, 9 hours later, we passed Stinson Beach, home of Matthew Bucholz. *this being the reason we didn’t blog on these days. Because you were literally ill if you were in the passangers seat. I drove that dang road for 11 hrs twisting and turning and when you are driving it’s fine, totally reminds me of snow mobiling or weaving threw the poles of a downhill ski course. Kinda fun but only for like the first hour or two.*
San Francisco was one of the places I was most excited to go. I wanted to explore the city. While I can jump aboard the nature express, I find cities interesting. I love the architecture, the buildings, the people, and in this case, the proximity to the ocean. In Dublin, the girls described me as “an all American girl” and sometimes I embrace this concept. I wanted to stand on the Golden Gate Bridge, and enjoy this feat of American engineering. I had planned on being in San Fran by 1 or 2 to be able to spend the day in the city and see the sights, but as Lindsay loves to remind me, nothing goes as planned..so let go of the schedule. But this was neither of our faults. We had kept the stops to a minimum…it was just that it was slow moving since we couldn’t really go faster than 45 mph on these windy death roads. Lindsay began to lose her marbles…singing, honking the horn to the beat, basically going stir crazy in the drivers seat. *steering wheels make great teething rings. Dear lord I lost it. I was trying to be funny about it and not cranky and making light of the situation. Brittany was laughing at me and though I was loosing it we were good.*We were rapping old school Nelly * oh brings me back to highschool sneaking cigarettes in the car to try and keep it from my parents. Oh the good old days. NOT!*as we joined the caravan of 5 oclock commuters weaving up and down the mountain, through the forest, next to the beach. The people in front of us undoubtably saw us dancing and rapping…whatever.We hadn’t had much of a lunch, so by the time we arrived near the Golden Gate Bridge, we were both crabcakes. Lindsay was not any more pleased when we had to pay $6 to cross the famous bridge. * Well hello I just went from driving on a two lane road with no shoulder or guard rails and sheer drop offs to all of a sudden 5 lane freeway where the wind was so strong I thought we were going to lift off. I nearly had a heart attack and then you make me pay $6 to cross a bridge are you Fing kidding me. Rip off.*Part of me considered the fact that we should’ve abandoned sight seeing and just stopped for the night at Matthew’s but I wanted to see the bridge. And we desperately needed an oil change and a tire rotation. Google said there was a Jiffy Lube relatively near the bridge and tire rotation was one of their listed services so we headed there. By the time we got there, Lindsay was in full blown “no food = bad mood” and just a peach. * I was driving for 11 hours and didn’t want to run around this huge city like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find a place to get all this stuff done.*When the jiffy lube guy told us that they couldn’t rotate our tires, and that they only do small compact car’s tire rotation, Lindsay had about had it. The guy told us that Paul’s Tire Service might be able to do it, but they weren’t sure what time they closed, but gave us street coordinates to us. Lindsay replied “that means nothing to me” in a somewhat displeased voice. I quickly explained that we were from out of town and therefore would need a little more direction. I pulled up google maps on my phone and pointed us in the right direction. Lindsay was impatient and demanding, telling me she wanted me to call to make sure these places did the proper services, but I was trying to navigate and investigate at the same time…not simple in a foreign city. Lindsay pulled over in some parking spot and we determined all auto services were now closed since it was 6:05 pm. She had been driving all day and not a big fan of city driving so we switched places. We determined that it would be better to get the oil changed that night and then we could get the tires rotated at Costco the following day because I found one and Lindsay needed her prescription filled anyway. So after we switched places, we did a lap and returned to the Jiffy Lube. The guys probably thought we were ridiculous because we had just left, but whatever. We got our oil changed with synthetic oil…which cost us a whopping $83 and figured out our game plan. *again another rip off. So far not impressed with san fran and no I’m a country girl through and through cities are only a cool place to visit and for one day max. I tried to make light of the fact that I was proclaiming “California …Overrated! I hate cities” by blowing the air horn app on my phone to put some humor in my disgust and frustration at the moment.*We determined that it was be better to just go to Matthew’s, eat some dinner, and explore in the morning since Lindsay wasn’t feeling it. She was hungry and therefore crabby, and also had lost a few brain cells from all the turns. She sat in the waiting room of the Jiffy Lube honking her airhorn app on her cell phone. Sometimes I feel as though I’m traveling with a small child. Not only did we leave and come back, we were now sitting in the waiting room, honking an electronic air horn out of frustration. Oil changed, we got back in the car, and crossed the bridge again. It really is magnificent. We headed back to Stinson Beach, taking a detour through Muir Woods which Bill had recommended. This also lead us to a different route home which was more direct and less curvy. * as we left Jiffy Lube I had called Matthew and said “I’m tired and cranky what do you have to make it better?” he answered with a “so you’re coming over tired and cranky huh?” I answered with a “yes” and he said some very magic words, “are you hungry?” ah “yes” “then we will eat” . Great phrase! So we got there sat down and were immediately served with fresh backed halibut potatoes and broccoli and wine. Thank god for Matthew.*
We found Arenal St…we had scoped it out on our way to San Fran and looked for 2,6 … the weirdest address ever. Lindsay insisted on just calling out Matthew’s name…which was more effective when we were next to his door than when we were wandering down the street. Matthew greeted us, welcomed us in, and within 4 minutes, had warm dinner for us. Lindsay had warned him of his bad mood and in typical Bucholz fashion, he made us a delicious homemade dinner of halibut and broccoli with potatoes, red potatoes in fact. Must be a Bucholz thing. We ate dinner feverishly, the fruit snacks had not held us through the day. We caught up with Matthew as we ate, then decided to take an adventure to the beach, which was only a 2 minute walk away. We walked along Stinson Beach, it was a little chilly so luckily we had on our sweatpants and sweatshirts. Lindsay stopped to take pictures of more birds, but I didn’t get much sympathy from Matthew. All these Bucholzs seemed equally enamored with birds. *Bucholz Power…right on.* Lindsay found me a jelly fish and put it in my hand…it was dead and looked just a silicon breast implant.*which I had already told her previously but as per usual she must have toned me out for that as she has with a lot of things on this trip*When the sun went down, we headed back… our stroll ended up being about 4 miles. * on this leasurely stroll I hadn’t noticed any of the houses until the way back because I was too preoccupied looking at the ocean and the footprints in the sand and the birds and the sand fleas. EWW I knew the existed but I thought they were little like dog fleas. No they my friend are not. I picked one up thinking it was a crab and asked Matthew what it was because I realized that it was not oriented from side to side like a crab but 1front to back like a shrimp. This thing was the size of a large grape or the green olives they put blue cheese in. It moved and I freaked and threw it. I can handle crabs (giggle) but not large crustacean like bugs …heebie geebies. And on the way back there was what I thought was a seagull but soon I realized it was not. I tried getting a picture but it was too dark and this bird, like the sea lion, was taunting me. Every time we got relatively close it flew about 10 yards ahead of us and continued this all the way back. I had to look it up on my phone because it was bugging me. I suspected some sort of heron…and I was right a night heron. Pretty cool.*Matthew had to get up early so we settled on the hide-a-bed and tried to find something on Netflix to watch. After a day exploring Northern California, the National Geographic Redwood Forest documentary seemed appropriate. While visiting the Chandler Drive Thru Tree, that was 2,400 years old, some man had commented to us that it was around before Jesus…National Geographic made the same connection. However, after a LONG day in the car, and a full belly, and a 4 mile stroll, I had about 5 minutes of Tree TV before I fell asleep. * I however learned that redwoods put on more girth the older they get than when they intitially start growing. They grow to 6 feet in the first year and just keep going. 95% of the old growth forests have been logged and new growth wood as not as good of quality as old growth, go figure. The trees are able to grow to such great size because they continually absorbs the fog. I know I learned more and watched a bit longer than B but didn’t finish it. Although I had seen the end of it at brent’s house on the monster screen. Fasinating stuff though so sad that all the old growth trees are almost gone. Stupid people.*
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