Rain, Laguna Beach, San Clemente, Vista, Xmas, and NYE

Our View Amazazing

Right now I am on the train back to Southern California ready to resume our trip that will hopefully take us around the US. Being home has been a great time with family and friends this past week and change. I had some adventures back in Sacramento and even got to do some traveling while up here. It is sad to go but an adventure awaits us. We will once again have to acclimate ourselves to living out of a VW Bus and hunting down camping spots and everything that goes along with this road trip. It is a little surreal that we are about to embark once again on this journey.

On the train cityscape of LA *Vomit*

Before coming home for Christmas, the rain had not stopped dumping since my last blog entry. After freshening up at Jacob and Rachel's we went to Laguna Beach. Talking with them we found out that it is more of an art town. When we got into the city, it really did seem to have a nice feel to it. It was unfortunate that it was raining so badly. We found this highly rated coffee shop there using Yelp. We now check Yelp all the time to find the cool places to go in the area we are in. The coffee shop had a good vibe and we just hid from the forbidding weather there. We made it down to a Mexican joint that was popular too. It was unpleasant walking in the wind and the rain but we enjoyed the food and felt like Laguna is a place we need to return to when conditions are better.

Delish coffee

This is a Portabella and Tofu burger, decent

We planned on staying the night in San Clemente and getting a shower and working out at a local 24hour fitness there. After the work out and shower we went to the local Walmart to camp for the night. Now we have been staying in a lot of Walmart parking lots on this trip. Some allow camping no problem, they are usually 24hours, and the ones that say they prohibit over night parking/camping usually don't enforce it. In fact we have never been kicked out of a parking lot we have decided to stay in. Well that ended in San Clemente :(. We parked by another RV in the Walmart parking lot and thought for sure it was a good spot, at least I thought it was. We were close to the building itself but it was tucked away. It looked like it was where there was employee parking. Well we fell asleep but then got a knock on the door at about midnight. The guy was nice and just said no overnight parking and I said ok and were on our way. Anna gave me a, "I told you so." that was not well received and we went exploring for a place to camp while we were half asleep. We ended up on a residential street and had no problems. We just struggled to go to sleep because the rain was falling so hard on the roof of Maander.

Playin' wit my hurrr

We met the Marinellos in Vista at probably 1pm the next day after doing laundry and stopping at a bagel shop in San Clemente. We talked for the rest of the day. Peggy had a lot of great stories to tell and Len shared some great ones too. When we went to bed the rain was coming down so hard I just couldn't imagine how bad it would have been in Maander.

Our train ride up to Sacramento was crazy. 3 transfers and the weather was making everything late. We eventually made it and I quickly switched into socialize mode.

Steph and Anna

Our 10 days in Sacramento had me going to Bodega Bay for crabbing, 2 Christmas dinners and Lake Tahoe with Emmett and Stephanie for New Years Eve.

Christmas was interesting because since we don't have a house to put things in it really hinders the type of gifts people can give us. Some of the things we received I was thinking, "Man, there is no place to put that in the bus."

Sistas

Don't get me wrong, I loved all the gifts I received but we just can't have that many things. Both Christmases with the Hattons and the Fast/Danns were great. I ate a ton and had many laughs. I guess it is nice when you see family you haven't seen in awhile and you have this adventure you can talk to them about. Many of our relatives were interested and just gave suggestions and enjoyed (hopefully) our stories.

Of course we said hi to Titus

Thanks Micah and Rachelle for
letting us use your Rav4

Emmett invited me to go crabbing on the first Sunday I was back in town. I was excited to go and looked forward to being with friends and possibly catching crabs. Instead of San Francisco like usual, we went to Bodega Bay because of the great crabbing spots I saw while traveling. At first we had a full car about to leave Sacramento but unfortunately people kept flaking as we got closer and closer to leaving. In the end it was just Me, Emmett and his friend Greg. On the way to Bodega Bay we got in a discussion about demons and the occult. We were driving the two lane highways in between Petaluma and Bodega Bay and it had this really eerie feel to it. I decided that is what Christians do when they want to tell ghost stories :P. In Bodega we caught crab but none big enough to keep. On one drop of the pot, we dropped it then jumped in the car and drove to Bodega Head quickly because I wanted to show them it. It was 1 am and the moon light illuminated the water enough where we could see the waves. These waves were absolutely huge. Waves just as big as the ones we saw in Big Sur! There were huge rocks where the waves didn't come close to coming over on my last visit and with Emmett and Greg they were being completely engulfed.

Biggest one of the night, meh

On the way back we thought we would get gas in Bodega Bay they have a 76 station there. Well it was closed and the next gas station was in Petaluma. The fuel light was on and had been on. I thought there was absolutely no chance we were going to make it to Petaluma without running out of gas. We said, "Well I guess we don't have much of a choice" and we relied on the fact that I had a AAA card. Oh wait, basically no cell reception on the drive back so that doesn't do us much good... We drove cautiously and anytime we went downhill we went into neutral to try and preserve gas. We prayed for a Hanukah type miracle and it happened. We rolled into the Shell station on the edge of Petaluma and filled 'er up. We then had to swing by SF to get Buddy who was supposed to come crabbing but due to some miscommunication and poor planning by us had to stay in SF with Jonny O and miss out. This made me sad because Buddy and I never got a chance to hang out while I was back for Christmas.

Sophisticated 

For New Years Emmett and Steph invited both Anna and I up to their grandparents' cabin in Homewood. Lots of their family were supposed to be up there and it looked promising for a good time. The first night it was just Emmett, Steph, Anna, me and Janice and Chris with their kids-relatives of Steph. The first night was mellow and in the morning we went to Reno to gamble. We quickly lost the money we allowed ourselves to gamble with and headed to a restaurant in a casino that promised good food with a low price. It was tasty and we promptly left Reno after that. Reno does not seem like a nice place to live or really to visit.

PDA

In forest jail

OMGOMGOMG
sooo much fun

Once we got back to the cabin, most of the family was there and we introduced ourselves and the NYE party began. We met Betty and Milt who are the owners of the amazing cabin. Everyone was extremely welcoming. Betty made some amazing food and we all sat down at their big table and laughed and ate and drank some amazing wine. The party just got better from there and about 11pm we went walking around the neighborhood where we found a family that had made a huge bon fire in the snow. They lit a huge amount of roman candles as well. We were back in the cabin by the time the clock struck 12 and we kissed our wives and some what soon after that we headed to bed.

NYE night, this is how much it snowed

Fun with family... NYE

Hizzaa

In the morning we played in the freshly fallen snow. Phil, Steph's brother, had his snowboard so we made a jump and some kids from the neighborhood used their sleds on the jump. We had joked the entire time we were up in the snow about tree tipping. I won't explain exactly what it is but I will show you a video of it. Yes, it was me that finally decided the conditions were right and found the perfect tree to perform a tree tip. Enjoy:

Consequence of a Tree Tip

After the snow we packed and headed down the mountain before the conditions got any worse. While we have enjoyed all of this excitement in Sacramento and the places we traveled to while up here, we were tired. Once we got back to my parents' home we have just been recharging and getting ready for the ride back. Its been fun people, but now we are to strike out alone again! We will be going to San Diego and then trying to keep as warm as possible while we head east into Arizona and beyond. Wish us good luck and if you know anyone in our general direction let us know, we would love to meet them. If you know of great places to see let us know as well. We are basically just heading East now so it is pretty easy to guess where our next stops will be. And we don't mind detours ;)

WE LUV EACH OTHER AND THE SNOW!!!
And 2011
And fun
and
and
....
Peace