San Diego

Monday we left LA after a two month attempt to find work. What we managed to find was meager and sporadic. We are sad to say goodbye to our new friends Pierre, Lindsay, Ryan, Chris, and Jordan and my old friend Colin. You will be missed, and your kindness will not be soon forgotten. We gave our farewells, closed out our P.O. box and filled our water tank for the next part of our journey. We met with the last few kayak shops on the West Coast along our route to San Diego, the last major city in California. Our hopes of driving to Central America had been long forgotten after our struggle to find work and our high cost vehicle repairs, not to mention me losing my passport right before we came to LA. Some things are not meant to be, at least not now. In San Diego, we had Mexican food in Old Town and then crashed for the night next to the Department of Transportation. In the morning we took the time to explore the area and go paddling. It’s disappointing that most of the Southern Coast is overdeveloped or cliff. I look forward to my summer paddles on Cape Cod. Our plan to spend another night in the city changed once we had biked around Ocean Beach, ate delicious lunch at Cass St. and checked out some other areas, and we started our journey to our next stop, Slab City. We only made it 100 miles before we needed to eat and sleep. We pulled off the highway and parked on a back road overlooking the desert and Mexican border. We could even see the fabled wall dividing the two countries. I thought it was just a myth. That night we were visited twice by the border patrol. “You just camping?” the officer asked. “Yes sir”, I responded. “Okay, right on” and he was off. This was much less of an ordeal than other encounters with law enforcement officers. In LA we were pulled over for the Panda Paddles sign on the back of our bus. The officer claimed that we needed proper permits to hang a sign on our bus and he asked if it was commercial. This seemed suspect to me; more like, let me see if I can get the punks for something while I have them pulled over. He even went as far as entering our vehicle without permission.

San Fransisco

We left Eureka, CA, on a gray day, much like most of our days in the Northwest. We drove through redwood forest along rocky coast toward wine country. The scenery was much like Spanish countryside with its green rolling hills, Eucalyptus trees and vineyards. Our first stop for meeting with kayak outfitters was in Point Reyes, a beautiful piece of countryside surrounded by forest and sloughs, which are like estuaries. The weather started to turn to our favor boasting temperatures in the high 60’s-- a welcome change and what we had been looking forward to. We drove further south to Oakland where we would spend the next week, parked on a quiet, hilly cul-de-sac (gracias, Armando!). Our bus attracted a lot of attention from the locals and we gave several tours of our little home and explained the journey we had started almost two months ago. We spent the next several days exploring the surroundings areas, working around the bus, and Amanda visited several schools in the area that specialize in Somatic Psychology. We made some new friends which we hope to keep in touch with. Armando’s neighbor Stephanie invited us out Friday night and we biked several miles to a late night art walk. Much to our surprise we found ourselves fading at about 9 o’clock; we had forgotten about the time change. At the moment time had slipped to the wayside, freeing us from much of what confines us to our daily routine. We work when we can and play just as often. Amanda had a mini Rice University reunion with Jeff, Rene and Leif in San Francisco. I spent one Saturday with a friend from a semester in Spain. It was great to see her again, a much overdue visit. The night before our departure south I went on a beautiful full moon kayak in the bay with folks from California Canoe and Kayak, a premier outfitter and guide service. Needless to say I brought the paddle along which got a good review. That same evening a dear friend from high school called to have dinner, a pleasant surprise since both of us were leaving for extended trips in the morning.

The following day we awoke early and continued our journey south to LA, where we plan to have our winter stay and replenish our bank accounts. The journey has brought us through some of the most breathtaking landscapes we have seen on the West coast. Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing was one of these places. We spent the night on the water, falling asleep to the barking of seals and the ocean surf. In the morning we took our kayaks off the bus for a morning paddle. Let me describe the procedure of removing a 16 foot boat from atop a 10 foot high roof rack. This involves two people, one on the roof and the other on the ground. The person on the ground catches the boat as it slides delicately off the back, becoming almost vertical. The one on the roof then lowers the 50 pound boat over the edge with a rope. While this may seem a simple task there are certain risks such as crushing a $3,000 boat, slipping off the edge of the slanted roof or dropping the boat on someone’s head. The paddle was full of sea life such as sea otters, seals, loons, pelicans and the standard seagull. The seals follow the boats and playfully dance in the water beside you, sometimes for miles. The sea otters bob their head out of the water like the whack-a-mole game at Chuck E. Cheese. Watching them play chase and wrestle in the water, as well as watching one momma sea otter cross the river on her back with her furry baby asleep on her belly, was one of Amanda’s favorite things.

The journey to Monterey was my biggy on the notorious Route 1, but south for the next sixty miles we would be in for a surprise. The road has many treacherous curves and with steep cliffs on either side. Signs warn of landslides and fires every few hundred yards. The guard rail would be nothing more than a speed bump if we lost control. White knuckled I drove 15 miles an hour for the next sixty miles. That didn't stop from us enjoying the beauty of the landscapes and the breath taking contours of the shoreline. I puttered along at my slow pace, yet even if I had wanted to drive faster it would have been futile because the road was so winding that our bus would have had a hard time staying on the road. I could just imagine how thrilled the traffic behind us must have been, yet none of them beeped or gave us the finger. Every so often I would stop to look at the GPS. "I can't believe we have only been seventy miles, at least we only have thirty to go." Well after dark we managed to pull over and find safe parking. Only eighty five miles from where we had started that morning.

Stop, Go

Well, I'm sorry its been a while, I guess we fell off the blog wagon when we broke down and life got a little crazy...but we're back! We made it out of Utah, through cold Idaho, west through Oregon, and we were so close to Portland and the coast when the Wander Bus came to a sudden and decisive halt. The engine died and would not start again. It happened at a four way stop in little Hood River. Justin jumped out and opened up the hood, I grabbed him the toolbox and rummaged for the number for roadside assistance. A passerby helped out by getting in the road to direct traffic because a long line had formed behind us; drivers just didn't want to believe our hazard lights meant they needed to go around us and some didn't even want to obey our impromptu director. Maybe his landscaper's attire created some doubt. Anyway, Justin had his head in the engine in an instant, replacing one of the fuel filters, and soon diesel had spray coated him and a 3 foot radius, but to no avail. The cops came and were anxious to get our vehicle out of the street. The tow truck finally arrived, and Justin was working on the engine until the moment they hooked up the vehicle. We were towed to a shop at the edge of Portland where Justin and the intake staff worked on the bus until past 10 pm. They also informed us that they would not be able to work on the vehicle, there had been some miscommunication and we shouldn't have been towed there in the first place, we needed to go to an International repair shop for an International engine. So we slept in the bus in the parking lot and in the morning we got towed again. The silver lining is that the repair shop had a clean, hot shower for stranded people like us, and it felt for a moment like being in a hotel. We do have a sun shower, but we hadn't had sun or the necessary seclusion.

The International shop had said that they would look at if not start work on the vehicle that same day, but instead it took them five days to even look at the bus. FIVE DAYS! It was in a seedy area in the outskirts of Portland, which happened to be quite rainy and cold. I like Portland fine, minus the rain, but Justin was bothered by all the street punks. One thing that's great about Portland is how bike-friendly it is, with bike lanes, bike routes and riverside bike paths. Sustainability is big, and the kayak outfitters we met with were stoked about the bamboo paddles. We also liked how the city breaks up into small neighborhoods, with clusters of independent coffee shops, cafes and bars. We were thankful to stay with Joe and Casey during this time, but they had a lot going on and we eventually stayed in the bus by sneaking into the repair warehouse at night, where mechanics worked until midnight and started again at 6 am. Our repair bill was huge (a friend said "I thought you meant that amount minus a zero") and once we dried our eyes we were on our way north to Seattle.

Boulder, CO

We're enjoying this week in the Boulder area. One of the more memorable things was the stop we made on the way, though, in Grinnell, KS, population 286. We spent the night parked out in cornfields--real, non-stop cornfields this time--and in the morning we attracted a lot of attention when we took photos of their "downtown", which was one sleepy street. Brad from the feed mill at Frontier Ag offered to show us how soybean is processed into cattle feed, so we got an awesome lesson (on video).

We had a productive meeting once in Boulder with Sustainable Flooring, who have an existing relationship with Panda Paddles, to explore new possibilities for the product. We gave them a tour of the bus and they got to see what their beautiful cork tile flooring looks like in a school bus.

The past several days have been spent hiking and checking out the area. Bill, Justin's stepdad, visited before heading to Utah with Justin's mom, and he and Justin mountain biked. Justin and I liked hiking in Eldorado State Park, south of Boulder, as well as in Rocky Mountain National Park, where we got a little snow shower today at the top of Estes cone. It was 11,000 feet, small in comparison but enough to keep me winded.