Live. Travel. Play.

The last two weeks have been a zoo. It turns out that working and vacationing at the same time is rather time-consuming. And scavenging time for blogging is a bit of a challenge. Last week, Gregor attended the annual Apple World-Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, where he overloaded his brain with binary banter. His mind was so active that he kept having really vivid dreams, and he would sometimes speak to me like we were on Starship Enterprise because I couldn’t understand him half the time. He said that the conference was “crawling with geeks”. Indeed, our downtown hotel was full of them. They kept hogging up the hotel’s Internet bandwidth in the evenings, so surfing the net was slit-your-wrists slow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the week, I worked in the hotel during the day but we still got out and enjoyed the city sights in the evenings. One night I went to the SF Museum of Modern Art while Gregor went to a WWDC bash at the Yerba Buena Gardens. We also went to North Beach, SF’s Italian neighbourhood, where we caught a great little blues band at a corner bar and had a yummy garlic-infused dinner at the iconic Stinking Rose restaurant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent last weekend touring wine country in Sonoma Valley with my aunt (Tita Marissa), uncle (Tito Lito), and their families. Tita Marissa and her son, Adrian, moved to Sonoma from Vallejo (in SF Bay Area) last October, shortly after a burglar pointed a revolver in Adrian’s face during a home break-in. Apparently, the US recession has turned Vallejo into a ghetto. As beautiful as California is, I feel very fortunate to live in Alberta.

After our week in the SF Bay Area, it was time to drive back south to Los Osos to pick up the van at Go Westy. Since we needed to break in the new (bigger) engine, we decided to head back north to Monterey. We caught their Tuesday Farmer’s Market and indulged (again!) in fresh calamari, rotisserie chicken, and organic veggies – soooo good! We also visited the touristy Cannery Row.

Did I mention that we had calamari? We miss the calamari.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For 3 days, we travelled up and down the scenic CA Hwy 1, which hugs the coastline. There were massive elephant seals lounging on the beach, cute little resort towns, and gorgeous ocean viewpoints along the way. I highly recommend Hwy 1 for road tripping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Don’t camp at Morro Dunes Travel Trailer Park – we rolled in there one foggy, windy evening, and the next morning we woke up to a terrible sulfurous stench. We found out that the Morro Bay Water and Waste Treatment Plant was right behind the tall fence surrounding the campground. Gross.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday, we got a final tune-up at Go Westy, and headed east. We passed by Bakersfield, CA, where we saw the highest concentration of oil pumps we have ever seen – makes Alberta’s oil industry look amateur in comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We slept in the van at a Flying J trucker’s gas station last night. Had some cereal in the morning and headed for the Mojave Desert. So freakin’ hot! We have no air conditioning in the van so we’re roasting in our own brine. The new engine is brilliant though – lots of oomph – no more slowing down uphills and no more pissing off fellow drivers behind us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a buffet lunch at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas, then tried to walk off the meal in the sweltering heat of the tacky but fascinating Las Vegas strip. By the way, Celine Dion is back from a hiatus and performing at Ceasar’s Palace again.

I’m writing this on our way to Zion National Park in Utah. So freakin’ hot! This laptop is melting into my thighs as we speak.