Roadtriplife: Visiting the Bay Area and San Francisco

Follow our adventure! Browse my blog to find out some more about the roadtrip of our lives!

This happens top be the time our car broke down - I am going to save you on reading about our car breaking down again (if you are interested anyway: klick here to read about it). 

So, after this little detour into hinterland California we finally made it to San Francisco! One day late, but luckily, we could change our Airb'n'b booking. Time for a little 'luxury', 2 nights in a real BED in a HOUSE with a KITCHEN! And San Francisco! I was particulary excited to see this  town. 

Cable car

After weeks of sunny, hot weather, we hit the fog. And the wind! Luckily, we found out on time that we have to pay for crossing the Golden Gate bridge going inwards before actually crossing it. We went downtown to explore a little. The mood was a bit down because of all the car (and money) issues and we couldn't make much of downtown San Francisco. But the next day, we went to Fishermen's Wharf and all the Piers which made up a bit for ugly downtown. We did not know that going to Alcatraz required as reservation made weeks before. Kind of a bummer, we really wanted to go. Instead, we treated ourselves to a nice lunch and bought NFL hats...Time for a little treatment for ourselves. We didn't cover some of the most popular sites in San Francisco. I feel we could have made a lot more of this visit and we were really missing out, but there is up's and down's and these days, we were not at our best. BUT the stay definitely helped to recover ourselves a bit, get some sleep and eat proper food.

View on Bay Bridge

Alcatraz

Found some pretty flowers!

To finish up our visit to the Bay (and a bit recovered from the last shock) we went to see the University of Berkeley! Our accomodation was strictly spoken in Oakland and our Airb'n'B host recommend to just drop by as this uni was literally around the corner. It was super nice to sniff some uni air again! There was a lot of construction at the time we visited, but of course we did find the biology buildin.

After getting a taste of uni again, we remembered that there is a second well known university near San Francisco (yeah and obviously a lot more all over California ;D), so off we went on our way to Stanford university! We crossed a bridge over the Bay and of course, the trouble started again. The engine was heating up and... oh well. The next drama was coming. We stopped as soon as possible, quickly became memberes of the AMA (Alberta motor association) to save money on towing and had to get towed to the next auto repair shop. Again, they were really helpful people, but close to 5 p.m. there was nothing they could do the same day.  We were allowed to sleep in the car in their backyard (yes we were that desperate at this point) and the next morning got an estimate for getting the cart fixed. Another 1100$ made us want to cry. Then, again, we were extremely lucky with the repair shop. The owner had daughters our age and felt really sorry for us. He phoned around a bit and we ended up only having to pay for the parts - 800$ it was. Still, basically money we didn't have and the though to just leave everything as it is and just go home did cross our mind not only once. Again, I can't be more thankful for my family, who jumped in to help pay for the repair and made it possible for us to finish the roadtrip! Also, a good talk with them and some motivational speeches of a few other friends did help a lot. The mood was up a bit!!!

While our car was being fixed, the owner of the repair shop helped us organize a rental car for the day for only 30$! We were stuck there already for 1.5 days and we were in kind of an industrial area, so it was good to be able to still do some sightseeing for realtively cheap. We already were in Palo Alto, a very nice suburb (?) of San Francisco and also the town were Stanford is located. And WOW!!!!!!!! I am still amazed by this place. I feel like I need to marry very rich very soon to be able to go there and study! It is a very very cool place and I don't want to even imagine how much tuition is. See for yourselves:

This is the DRIVEWAY to uni. The driveway.

Following a 'secret' tip from our favourite repair shop owner: Facebook! We went to see 'the Facebook' ;) The only thing that's really remarkable though is that it is really really huge! And we did the must-do pictures with our thumbs up. This is very social media is made, so it was still cool to see it. We finished the little sightseeing trip in our cute rental car up by a visit in downtown Palo Alto which was really lovely. It becomes obvious really quickly that this is probably a town where mostly rich people live and this is reflected in the whole town. We had some food there and were finally able to hit the road again! Time to get going!

Roadtrip life: Crater Lake National Park, Redwood National Park

Follow the adventure of your dreams!

We started our journey in Western Canada, crossed the border to the US, travelled the Pacific Northwest, and yes, finally, we've made it down to Cali! Both of us have been California dreaming for like 9 months (that this visit needs to happen was planned well ahead) and we were so close now! But first, we did a little detour to visit our first American National Park (NP), Crater Lake NP! Being fed up with cities already, we very much welcomed this adventure into nature. It was like a 600km detour, so this better be good! 

Crater Lake

And WOW.

No dissappointment here. So pretty. So incredibly pretty!! A former volcano, and in its old crater a lake has formed. The color was the bluest of blue and you can drive all around this beauty (about 67km).
Obviously we were sharing this pretty view with an incredible amount of tourists, something that took some time getting used to. In the end, we were tourists as well, but you can be a tourist, or you can try a little more and don't act like stupid dumbasses from backcountry wherever. A little respect, everyone!

The Pinnacles

We took another detour to see the Pinnacles which where advertised in the brochure you get when entering the NP. Some more evidence that this, indeed has been an active volcano at some point. Very impressive, and for me, who never has been close to any volvano, active or not, specifically awe-inspiring.

And then: CALIFORNIA!!

Just entering California coming down Highway 101 from the North, you are going to drive through the Redwood forest. Redwood trees, giants of the nature!
For those who don't know: I studied Biology (and Krissy as well) and although I am not particularly interested in botany, this was great. We talked about these wonders of the nature in lectures but it's different to finally see the real thing!

Huge, huge, HUGE

You could literally hide IN the tree.

And you just find again how small and insiginifcant you actually are

There's trees growing on trees. How cool is that?

You drive right through this dense forrest. We stopped a couple of times and did a little exploring. Climbing onto those huge trunks can be a little mission! There's alway time to fool around a little ;D The inner child will never die... ALSO we found a (cheap!) campsite in the Redwood Forrest. It was an amazing experience to camp underneath the gentle giants. Furthermore, our campground neighbours were a friendly couple traveling on motorcycles from no other place then Calgary, Alberta, Canada. What a small world. We enjoyed great conversations with these lovely people! (You can't say that about a lot of campgrounds we stayed on)

First glimpses of California beaches :)

Why this place was called Elk Meadows... I don't know ;)

Unforutnately I can't remember the name of this tiny town, but it did have a very pretty view!

 The next night in California we spent in Eureka, a bit of a bigger beach town because we were hoping to find a garage. By this time, our car was making very weird squeeching (whatever the proper word for that is). And yes, we did forget that it was actually Sunday. Even in America no auto garage is open Sundays. So we had to take the risk and drive some more the next day as we had an Airb'n'b booked in San Francisco. We had to be there in 2 days time and it was still quite a drive.

Dead on Sundays...

... we took a littel stroll around anyway.

Roadtrip life: Crossing the border and exploring part of the Northwestern US

This time, I'd like to start with a little quote.
"See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made of paid for in factories" said  Ray Bradbury. Very true I find. I hope reading this makes you want to go and explore by yourself for a little as well!

Back in July, I started writing about Krissy's and mine roadtrip through Western Canada and the US. If you haven't read the first article yet, you can click here to catch up on the first stops of our adventure :)

We said goodbye to Thea in Victoria on Vancouver Island and now it was just Krissy and me traveling by ourselves. We crossed over by ferry from Vancouver Island back to the mainland and drove the last couple of kilometers down to the border. Where, of course, our car got searched and we had to wait for quite some time. Bureauocracy (if this is how your write it... but you get what I mean) is a slow b***h. BUT everything was fine and we were 'mildly' excited (means we actually freaked out a little). Just before Seattle, we hit some outlets and did some shopping already. Of course. And we purchased our most loved pieces of clothing for the whole roadtrip (it'll become obvious to you guys as well which ones it is ;D).

The first night in the car was... interesting. Not yet professionals in finding the best spots, we parked on a Walmart parking lot. It was bright and noisy and we just did not sleep well. Later on we found that it just needs practice to find a good spot and, also, that the best one's are definitely not on a Walmart parking lot, but it was a good learning experience. 

Sunny Seattle

The next day, we hit downtown Seattle and went to see the Pike Place Market, the first Starbucks store and the Space Needle and a couple of other things. Krissy had a friend in Seattle whom we met in the afternoon and who kindly offered a place to stay for the night. After being on the road for a while already, having a real bed in a real house was just HEAVEN.

The first Starbucks on Pike Place

Seattle skies

NEXT STOP: Seaside, Oregon! And what a pretty little town! We overestimated the summer in the Pacific Northwest a little, so it turned out to look super nice, but still only be like 20°C... Well. No one and nothing was keeping us from going to the beach for a little while! Also, it turned out to be way easier to find somewhere to sleep in the car in small towns. We found the most awesome spot and finally had a calm night in the car.

Empty beaches

Setting up our camp: Always taking a little Canada with us

Cute promenade

We left early in the morning to drive into Portland and spent a day in this city. By that time we were already a bit fed up with visiting cities, but Portland turned out to be very refreshing and for an American city unusually pretty. There is a huge park right by downtown where we spent a lazy afternoon. It was about 30°C that day and just too hot to get super crazy with sightseeing. We made plans for having a drink in one of the countless microbreweries, but got super lost in all the one-way streets and I got so annoyed that we just drove out of town again. But nevertheless, one of the very few American cities where I think I could possibly live in.

Kids playing in the fountain

Oregon sunsets

We did a little googleing and mapping by ourselves and decided we were going to a place called Newport, Oregon next. Turned out to not have a real plan and do a day-to-day assessment of the situation worked best for us. It is kind of liberating not have to be anywhere at a specific time! After a beautiful sunset and another calm night in the car in Oregon country (yes, we were getting better at this) we made our way to this tiny town. I think this was as close as it gets to an 'old town' in the US. We spent some time at the pretty beach and ended our visit with a coffee (HOW ELSE??? P.S. WE <3 COFFEE)

Beautiful, windy and empty beaches.

The town center: Welcome to Nye Beach! (Nye Beach is the old name for the town)

The next day we did a must-stop: The famous Oregon dunes! This was very fascinating. You would think you were in the middle of the desert - well, turns out the ocean was a 5 minute walk away and this sandy landscape seemed a bit random. Pictures say more than words, so just take in this view. You can see that we were literally the only people by foot around there. Everyone was going at it in Quads and beach buggies which looked like a whole hell of a lot of fun. Well, as we were traveling on a budget we had to pass on that one, but nevertheless, this was awesome!

People on quads going at it

Just our footsteps in the endless sand

Found the ocean!

Concquered the dune...

... and down again!

This is it for now, but I am going to take you to California and a lot more beautiful places in the upcoming weeks! Stay tuned ;)

Hiking Grassi Lakes and biking Healy Creek

FINALLY I am very close to catching up at least with the Banff stuff :) It's raining right now, so I can't go outside and I decided to make use of the time. 

Grassi Lakes is just a little 45 min hike very close to the town of Canmore. Susi and me wanted to go a couple of weeks before but ended up not going because of the heat. The day Steph, Jess and me decided to go it wasn't super hot, but nice enough. A good day for a little exploring!

The 'difficult' path

Pretty flowers

There's 2 trails, a 'difficult' one where you can see a bit more and a literally almost straight easy path. Of course we went up on the difficult one ;) Turned out to be not bad at all, just a tiny little climbing session in the end. It paid of, there was a beautiful waterfall to see on the way up! Also, it was kind of cool because there were little streams of water all over that you had to cross. A nice little hike.

Waterfalls...

..and a lot of forest

Up at Grassi Lakes... wow! Such pretty colors! See for yourself :) I don't know if you can actually see it, but on that mountain in the back there's a lot of rock climbers.

so clear!

Little explorer :)

THESE COLORS!!!!

We ended our little excursion with an afternoon lunch/dinner (?? Is there a word for a meal between lunch and dinner??) at an Indian Restaurant in Canmore before making our way back to Banff. What a nice day. Thanks girls!

One of my last biking adventures in Banff was biking Healy Creek. We (Sophie and me) were planning on going and then the weather decided to be a bitch and it was raining. We went to the market, had a little stroll around and then decided on going biking anyway. A little rain doesn't do any harm so off we went. 

The first part is very nice and paved and then there's a little turnoff into the woods. Well. Rain doesn't do a muddy forest floor very good... But also... a little mud... no problem!! 

Right through the woods

Number 2 (Sophie) of the exploring team

With a couple of sections inbetween were we had to push our bikes (mud, steep hills) we reached Healy creek. It actually took us quite a while to finally arrive but turning around wasn't gonna happen. Healy Creek is just beside Sunshine road I have seen the turnoff for it lots of times already going there skiing. We sat for a while and had some snacks and enjoyed the view.

Healy Creek

Getting our bikes clean again

THIS bridge

We decided right away that we were gonna go back on the highway (no fighting back through this mud again), so we needed to cross the river. There was some construction going on, but there was a bridge. So no problem! Coming closer, we saw that besaid bridge wasn't as finished as it looked like. Meaning to actually use the bridge, you had to climb a ladder. And we had bikes. Inconvenient. Luckily there was no one around so we just entered the construction site and in a team effort pulled up the bikes onto the bridge and went over. Well. Little (illegal?) adventures. Oops. But how else were we supposed to cross? ALSO there was no sign all along the way saying 'hey, people, you can't cross the river, just letting you know!'. As unusal as it is for me as a German, it is actually perfectely legal to bike along the highway and also quite common. So off we go. Safely back to Banff :)

Bking along Highway 1