Day 15

Current Location: San Francisco, California

We are at our final stop in California and it brings tears to both of our eyes. We had a lovely time staying with Tucker in Santa Barbara. Our visit was full of organic food, music, long walks on the beach, surfing, and lots and lots of hippies. Our constant joke was that Santa Barbara would be the equivalent of hell for Nick Garibay, sorry for those of you who do not know our wonderful friend Nick, but lets just say he is not too fond of hippies, haha; however, Katie and I had a grande time. We had a pretty chill day on Monday. We had a delicious breakfast at the Cajun Cafe, which is quite ironic because we ate Cajun in California, and when we were in Louisiana we ate at a place called the California Grille in New Orleans. After breakfast we went by Jiffy Lube and got the rabbit all fixed up with fresh oil and love, then Katie raided a lemon farm and stole some lemons off of their trees, and then we went for a long walk along the cliffs by the sea. Santa Barbara is amazing because the whole town sits up on these huge cliffs overlooking the ocean. We walked for a couple of hours and ended up in the middle of the University of California Santa Barbara, which is an amazing campus. Somehow we made it back to Tuckers and we went over to his friend Spencer's house where we made fresh local salad, potatoes rice and drank lots of delicious California wine. By the way, I am not hating on the hippies. We met some amazing people who truly want to make the world a better place; however, pretentiousness and narcissism can often creep into to places such as Santa Barbara and while Katie and I felt some of these vibes, everyone we met was pretty chill.

I got to play music with a violinist, and we played through some songs which was loads of fun, and then we all went to this thing called bean night, which is an open mic night at one of Tuckers friends house. There was poetry, spoken word, comedy, and lots of music. I was suppose to play but we ran out of time, so we ended up just playing more music at Spencer's house. Imagine walking into a dark room only lit by two or three green lightbulbs. The entire room is crowded with people standing and sitting on all surfaces. As you make your way through the crowd a 6 foot 2 black guy named Lindsey and a hippie kid with long hair are singing a song about love. Wafts of smoke float across the room as everyone moves and sings to the music...trippy, eh. That was bean night.

Tuesday morning we got up bright and early and headed up the 1 to San Francisco. John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors, and it was amazing to drive through Salinas Valley where a couple of his novels take place. We stopped at Monterey Bay with its famous cannery row, where sardines were canned and shipped all over the country back in the early 20th century; however, all of the fish left which means the canneries shut down, and now the place is one big tourist trap. However, Steinbeck has two novels that specifically center around Cannery Row and Monterey, so it was awesome to peak into the inspiration behind his writing. We went to the Monterey Aquarium which honestly was not that amazing. Katie and I felt cheated out of 50 dollars. We did see some otters, and penguins, and sharks, and loads of jellies, but the amount of people almost made it unbearable.

We arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon during my mom's favorite time of the day, around 5 30 when the sun makes everything seem way more beautiful than it actually is. We were taken back by the size of the of the city, but it is so beautiful. San Francisco is by far our favorite place so far. We are staying at this amazing inn with only six bedrooms. We are on the second floor overlooking the street in the Golden Gate Room. We have a big bed with a canopy, walk in shower, a beautiful garden in the back with all kinds of flowers, and we were just served fresh fruit, tea, orange juice, home made banana nut bread, eggs with ham, asparagus, tomatoes and cheese, and toast outside in the sun in the garden...I just might be in heaven, not to mention the fact that it is Katie and I's 6 month anniversary today...hooray! And what an amazing six months it has been. Last night we went to this delicious restaurant called Zuni. We walked there and it ended up being two miles away from the inn, so we got to see alot of the city. We had oysters on the half shell, wine, fresh bass and rabbit's leg...mmmm. We thankfully got a taxi home because it is surprisingly chilly up here.

Anyways, today we plan to explore the city, and then we are meeting up with my old camp councellor from North Carolina and going climbing and then spending the night at his house in Berkely. It is very random, but amazing that I am going to get to see him after 6 or 7 years. Also sorry that there are no pics, but the camera cable is in the car which is a couple of blocks away. I will make it up to you by putting double pictures on next post.

peace