Back on the Road Again

So the last time I blogged I only got to day one in Santa Barbara, but there was so much more that we did there that I can speak of. The second full day we spent there we had planned to either go kayaking or body boarding, however it was completely overcast, foggy, rainy, and the waves were nothing short of pathetic, so unfortunately we didn't do anything on day two to write home about other than eat another one of Kaye's delicious meals. Originally we had planned to head out the next day, however David talked us into staying another day, and I am sure glad he did. The third full day we were there (technically day 4), the conditions were much better. The sun was beaming down, there were signs of waves, and their kayak was strapped to the roof of The Headbanger as we headed down to the shore to go kayaking. We headed out on the water for a ways and saw some sea lions, who pretty much just minded their own business. The wave activity that far out on the water wasn't all too exciting, so we said "peace" to the sea lions and headed to a section with better wave activity. Once we got there we decided to try and surf a few, on the kayak... THIS WAS EPIC! We only really caught two solid ones and we capsized both times, making James lose his sunglasses in the process. The third and final wave we caught was when we were getting back to shore where we set out. The waves appeared to be much smaller than they apparently really were so we thought we could catch one with little difficulty - that wasn't the case. The final wave we caught made us capsize once again however this time we were in super shallow waters and I got dragged under the kayak which gave me some pretty nice scratch and cut lines all along my back. I believe James got a few as well, however he was lucky because he was seated in the back thus didn't get the worst of it. Despite the losses and injuries, the whole adventure was completely worth it, and I'd head out again in a minute if I had the chance to.
Next stop we made was LA. We drove through Beverly Hills, we saw the Hollywood sign (it really wasn't that exciting), and drove down Sunset Blvd, before making our last big stop at Venice Beach where we took a look around. There are definitely some interesting characters down there - people trying to sell you their music, a whole bunch of hippies playing guitars and drums mediocrely (?), a guy on roller-skates with an afro in armour playing the electric guitar, and a whole lot more. But the few people I mentioned really stuck out the most. All in all it was kinda cool there, we stopped for a while at the skate bowl and watched some people shred some concrete, then passed the football around with some people, one who called me "white boy".
From Los Angeles  we went down to Death Valley. Several people had suggested it to me and I really wanted to go take a look there, however we were also looking at the temperatures of the place and were debating whether we should go or not. I am glad that we did decide to go. Although it was very hot and dry there, it was also very beautiful. We made sure we had lots of water, and we strapped two jerry cans on top of the vehicle in case we got stranded or had to spend the night there. There isn't really a lot to talk about with Death Valley so I suggest looking at the pictures we have from there for they will speak louder than words.
From Death Valley we headed to Las Vegas which is where we are now. We arrived the night of Friday, May the 3rd and are now about to head of on the road again on May the 5th. We have been staying with Blu, Chelle, their two children Lily and Madison, their dog Mojo, and their two goldfish (who's names I do not know). They have all been really friendly to the two of us. Blu is James' cousin and that's how we have connections here.
Yesterday we went and drove to Las Vegas Boulevard and walked down the street and into a few casinos and saw a show. It was a shame we weren't 21, because we would have liked to both played the slot machines at least once each, just so we can say we've done it. We even tried to, but all the machines needed "credits" which means that you have to exchange your money for credits at a kiosk somewhere. Something we both noted is that it seemed like 95% of the people inside casinos did not seem to be happy to be there, however they would continue to feed the machines like robots and blow their money. But we got a nice brief view of what it was like there.
Next stop The Grand Canyon?

I would also like to spend this next paragraph to thank both Kaye and David for the awesome time, and hospitality they showed us, James and myself had an excellent time in Santa Barbara! I would also like to thank Blu, Chelle, Lily, Madison, Mojo, and the goldfish of course, for letting us crash in your home and showing us both such utter friendliness and making us feel like we were at home. We both really appreciate it!

Living's Good

So we are currently residing in Santa Barbara where we are staying with David and Kaye, who have connections with Sally, who is the mother of James. It is really nice here and they have been so friendly to us! A proper home cooked meal today was definitely a nice change from our usual slight variations of Annie's Pasta (Annie's with pepper, Annie's with mushrooms, Annie's with kale, Annie's with mushrooms and kale, etc... You get the idea), and it doesn't hurt either that Kaye is an excellent cook.
So far we've only really spent one full day in Santa Barbara and James and I did an epic hike up to a place I believe was called Seven Falls? We didn't find the path that led up to the top so we made our own path - but this was a lot more fun anyways. In order to get there we had to do a little bit of rock climbing and a very minimal amount of bushwhacking. Once we arrived at the top there was an amazing pool of water which we both skinny dipped in - one at a time of course. We may be close friends, but not that close. :P
Anyways we are planning on probably spending two more nights here in David and Kaye's home. They offered us the place for as long as we needed, but we do have other areas to explore and a loose schedule to stick to. Tomorrow we are hoping to go body boarding and maybe biking too? Santa Barbara is beautiful and we feel as if we are being treated as kings, which is a pretty nice alternative to the previous "van life" we have been experiencing for the past few weeks.
Next stop L.A? Once we've been to L.A. it will likely be the last time we see the coast until we are back in Vancouver. This means that it is likely to get a whole lot warmer throughout the day, and for two "white kids" from Vancouver, we ain't exactly all too used to such weather. I already have a horrible farmer's tan which I am not very proud of. What makes it worse is that it is only on my right arm because I've been in the passenger seat for the entire trip, thus I get all of my sun on that side. Sigh.

Oh well until next time I can update this thing. Is anybody still reading it, or am I pretty much just talking to myself?

PS. The Headbanger is still running super smoothly.

Hooray!

THE HEADBANGER IS RUNNING SMOOTHLY!!! So we went to the shop and I believe they changed the coil and something else. Whatever it was they did, it sure seemed to work, because she hasn't misfired once! This is excellent news, because this means our road-trip can continue.
In the last few days we have been to Berkeley University which is a really nice campus full of cool shops and super chill people.
Yesterday we went to Yosemite park and were happy to find that it was apparently "National park week" or something along those lines, meaning that we didn't have to pay the usual $20 fee to get in. Instead James donated $2 to the park... what a guy. Whilst in the park we did an amazing hike up to Upper Yosemite Falls and had a little music session up there with the ukelele and the djembe. We got back just in the nick of time because it got dark about 10 minutes after we had arrived back to The Headbanger. There we ate Amy's Tomato soup in the dark. If you are reading this, I highly suggest you never purchase that soup because it was pretty disgusting and I had trouble finishing mine.
Next big stop we are planning for is Santa Barbara, where James has connections and a place for us to stay. I won't lie, a proper home cooked meal and a shower are going to be pretty nice. I'm sort of starting to get tired of our oatmeal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and pasta and/or soup for dinner. As "exciting" as they are, a bit of variety would be nice.

Still Here?

Alrighty then... So we took the camper van into the shop and the people there worked on it for a little while and charged us $145.50 for the work and supplies they had offered our van. We could have lived with that if that fixed the van, making it no longer misfire... However that is not the case. The Headbanger (which is the name we gave the van because it is small and we bump our heads in it all the time (I will also be referring to the van as "The Headbanger" from now on)), is still misfiring, almost worse than it was before. Today we returned to that same auto shop and talked to the gentleman who worked on The Headbanger. He re-assured us that they had fixed all of the problems in The Headbanger which needed obvious attention. This means that the reason it is acting up could be one of many things. So in order to fix the problem and for us to be able to continue on this trip smoothly, we need to keep fixing things which are "potentially" causing the problem. Unfortunately this could be relatively expensive. Meaning that our trip will inevitably be cut shorter regardless of whether we fix the problem or not. If we do not, we have to head right home (which I have no idea how we are going to go about doing so), but if we do fix her up, that means the costs of fixing it come right out of our road trip budget. 
We are still currently a little North of San Fransisco and it feels as if we have been here forever. We are both eager to keep going, but it is hard to do when The Headbanger is acting up. We have to wait until tomorrow morning to bring it into the shop again where they are replacing a few more items in the engine. If I remember correctly, they are replacing the cylinder and something else, however I am not an individual who knows a whole lot about cars and I could be very wrong.
So now we are sitting in Barnes and Noble which has a Starbucks - which basically means free internet. I don't really have all too many exciting stories to tell of from the past few days because we've been pretty much sitting in the same area cruising around, eating food, reading books, sleeping, and eating more food.

San Fransisco and Surrounding Areas

It's been kind of hard to keep this thing updated since we don't exactly have internet access whenever we need it. But the past few days have been really nice. We went down to San Fransisco twice (once on the 18th the other time on the 20th). Unfortunately we haven't been able to keep heading south and have kind of been sitting around the area of North San Fransisco for the past few days, this is because the Van hasn't been running all too smoothly and keeps misfiring. (*Insert, " told you that would happen" comment here*). So the van is in the shop right now and we have yet to go back and see how much money we need to spend on it. Hopefully this won't cut our trip short - in which case, if it would, see you soon Vancouver.
San Fransisco was pretty nice. However as a tourist in a new city, the transit system is always a little bit confusing. Also it has some interesting characters, such as naked men riding bikes, an older woman telling her little girl to "shut the fuck up", and a crackhead who throws footballs at people's faces (as James experienced first hand). Seeing as we were there for the second time on 4/20, there were a ton on potheads roaming around. This made the city just that much more interesting.
I don't really have all that much to say about it other than that it was nice, REALLY HOT (the weather here in spring is easily like summer in Vancouver), it would have been cooler if we knew our way around properly, and also a whole lot cooler if we were 21. Don't take the cable cars... We never did seeing as how they were $6, even if we only wanted to ride them for like 10 feet.
Also we didn't expect to see palm trees quite yet, but we did. It's sure starting to feel a whole lot more like Cali.

PS. We went to a place called Yolo because we saw it on the map and couldn't NOT go after seeing it... after all, YOLO. (You Only Live Once, for those of you who aren't quite up to date on the lingo).

Peace for now.

Still Alive

So it's been a while since I've posted anything new on here but we've kept ourselves busy. We are almost in San Fran and should probably be there by tomorrow. We've driven through the Redwoods, along the coast, and seen many beautiful viewpoints.
We also got kicked off of a campground because we tried using their showers without asking (it had been a while and we were getting desperate for one). I was almost already undressed when I was rudely interrupted by the caretaker. It was awkward enough not being fully naked yet, I don't even want to imagine what it would have been like if I was. We did however get a free shower at the next site after asking the people there kindly if we could. So lesson learned I guess? Always ask first haha.
Also I still have no idea how to upload photos to here yet so I'll just attach a link to James' photo album on facebook. I think you'll be able to see them if we're friends on facebook, otherwise I guess add me?
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200460512089820.1073741826.1067388543&type=1

Quick Update.

So James and I are once again stealing some internet from Starbucks, but this time we are in Tillamook, Oregon. Our expenses for how long we've been gone for, are so far relatively descent. Showers at the campsite yesterday were bloody amazing! (and free too). I think in order to save money in the future we'll just head into a campsite, use their showers and find a spot to spend the night for free in the trustworthy van... as opposed to spending around $20.00 to spend the night there. Oh well, this is a learning experience. The highlight of yesterday (April 11th) was definitely the jam session James and I had on the sand dunes by the beach under the stars, we had a djembe, a ukelele, and our amazing voices. :)
We've had several comments about our VW van, mostly from middle aged men who reminisce about how they used to drive their VW, "back in their day". We are also still rocking our Canada toques (a term most Americans are not familiar with) with pride!

PS. Some pictures are coming soon, we just have to figure out how to upload them to James' computer, unfortunately neither of us are exactly tech literate.