Bryce Canyon vs. Gran Canyon

When we left Las Vegas I was relieved and sad at the same time! This city has been so much fun but i just couldn´t stand the heat. Our stay in Las Vegas did also mark that we already passed the first half of our road trip which made me feel very sentimental. From now on we are officially on our way back - kind a! I think at this point we were traveling for around 2,5 weeks and were still the happiest people on the planet. In retrospect I have to say that we should have taken more time to accomplish the first half of our journey but concerning the lack of money and the typical "german" stress which is following you or let me better say which was following me because Lucas seems to be the relaxed guy on earth when it comes to stereotypical german behaviour. But maybe we just rushed ( some might think ) through the United States because there is so much to

explore and we wanted to see more and more and more preferably every day! However let´s mention our next station: Gran Canyon! I´m pretty sure everyone already saw at least a whole lot of amazing pictures of it. Images from the a Helikopter and so on and so on. Honestly it´s hmmmm there. Hmm in that case means something like it was ok, similar feeling with Yosemite NP. In fact it is cool and I´m happy that I´ve seen it but it is so touristy and somehow shallow. Again you don´t have to walk a single meter while you are in the park and I wouldn´t wonder if they´ll build a Mc Donalds or  a Starbucks in the middle of the Canyon one day. When we headed to Gran Canyon you were literally able to feel the climate change. Even after 100 km you could feel a visible and noticeable temperature loss which made me unbelievable happy. Finally you wanted to wear

a shirt and a decent pair of pants.What a relieve!! The nature changed completely once more and I couldn´t stop watching out of the window because I did not want to miss one single picture and save it to be unforgettable as a vision in my head. America is just so beautiful and to be honest I wasn´t expecting that when we planned the roadtrip. Of course, I thought I´d see amazing stuff over there but i did not even think of all the stuff I´d see when we were "just" driving. So many scenic moments I´ll never forget about. When we left the Gran Canyon the actual plan was going to the Zion National Park which was unfortunately closed that day because it was raining cats and dogs and the streets were full of water and

sand so we checked out Bryce Canyon instead. AND it was such a blast! The canyon had amazing and vibrant colors and we even climbed one of these beauties in the red canyon which made me feel like a native american and ride a horse ( fyi: I don´t like horses). The view was stunning and it took Lucas quite a while to convince me to go down again. Such a remarkable experience which is still flashing my mind! As you might recognize Bryce Canyon is my favorite if it comes to the Arizona canyons.  I´m happy that Zion NP was closed so that we eventually enjoyed this bright and shining beauty <3.

Las Vegas résumé

We booked our Hotel over a Homepage which is called "Hotwire".com and you don´t know in which Hotel you are going to end up until you actually booked and paid it! Ours was ok, it had everything we needed especially the air conditioning and the 24 hours pool outside was exactly what I wanted really badly, I´d even say before we arrived I dreamt several nights of it! I highly appreciated all the luxury to the fullest. After the check in we hung out in the cold Hotel room took an extensive shower and planned on our evening in Las Vegas, where to go and what to see. For sure we wanted to visit the legendary spots of the city, walk around and enjoy the vibe. The Strip was packed - as expected! As I´m such a big fan of neon signs I have to say Las Vegas is such a beauty.                                                                                                             There are lights

everywhere in the city and they look cool and I felt like I´m in heaven - visibly seen! Our first stop was the vulcano in front of the the Mirage Hotel. Later on we checked out the Bellagio water fountains and "Botanical Garden" (haha what an overhyped attraction) but the fountains were quite beautiful and we stayed longer to watch them twice and listening to some music while it was happening. We checked out the Venetian Hotel as well and gambled a little in the Bellagio later where we got kicked out as one of us wasn´t old enough to stay inside. The Security man was friendly but decisive and escorted us on our way out. I found that quite funny but Lucas not so much :D We even ended up trying one of these icky cocktails which gets sold along the strip for 14 bucks in the probably

most embarrassing glass I have ever carried around! Imaging a 1meter tall neon plastic cup which looks more like a bong than a cocktail glass first i was pretty skeptical but whatsoever I probably won´t come back to Las Vegas and and so I forgot about all my insecurities and just drank out of it like an idiot or maybe better say everyone else as the cocktail was definitely reasonable and it actually wasn´t too bad. It was a fun time in Vegas and a moment I like to remember the most was that Lucas I ended up sitting close to some other fountains in front of a restaurant where they had live music and we were talking and singing there (i had my first cigarette in forever, what a bad idea!!)  before we left to sleep like stones in our cold hotel room. Unfortunately all of this happened 3 weeks ago and I´m sure I forgot about more or less details already but i for sure got the essence and will never forget my stay there. Can´t believe that it´s already almost a month ago and I want to go back soooo badly! Besides that I said that I´m not planning on going back there but maybe one day if I want to get married (don´t believe that will ever happen) I might want to check out getting married by some random Elvis. Could be fun!

Las Vegas - you are insane!

Honestly I expected these 2 days to become pretty lame but I have to confess that Vegas was actually incredible and I had an amazing time there! Of course, in the end everything in and about Las Vegas seems to be in contrast for what I stand and in what kind of moralities and human behaviors I believe. Whatsoever this city is just crazy and it´s definitely worth a visit. We started our adventure on the Walmart parking lot somewhere in the suburbs and it was hot and sweaty (this fact hasn´t changed during our time in Vegas) After a almost sleepless night with several midnight and morning awakening, we started our day with some scrambled eggs and realized our gas stove was broken (when the heck did that happen?? However it still worked out which implies there was no need for me to be grumpy puuuuh ;)) As we weren´t able to check in in our hotel at this point we hit the road in

direction to the famous Las Vegas Shark Aquarium which you can find in the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Well, it was ok but I should have known better that such kind of attractions are more illusion than reality moreover I´d prefer seeing all those animals in their natural habitat instead of knowing that they are locked in their glas rooms and aquariums. We also booked 2 other attractions, one of them was " Bodies" which is an exhibition of real human bodies which are already dead and prepared to last and show people their organs and how the human system is working! Once I ´ve seen the bigger exhibition in Hamburg around 10 years ago but I found it still really impressive and educational. Lucas was amazed as well and we spend a lot of time there! Afterwards we visited the CSI -Las Vegas attraction which was lame. I tried to relax my mind and not to expect something super cool.

We had to solve a case where a young woman got murdered by her best friend because of envy about an upcoming actress job. It wasn´t too time consuming (implies that it wasn´t hard at all too find out, especially if you can work in a super professional LAB haha ) at all and in the end we even refused buying our CSI- Diploma...  uppps what a pitty, tooo bad! Anyways it wasn´t really hard to abide our time, Vegas is way too exciting and there is so much to see. It´s totally different from everything I´ve ever seen in my life and it´s of course weird and almost not understandable. The quote to say: "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!", starts to make totally sense now because everything is possible! You can win 10000s of dollar or loose them within seconds and get 100% wasted in public and no one would even care but guess what, what can you expect from a city which has an Eiffel tower, a Statue of Liberty and a pyramid with a sphinx in the front of it located in the same street!!?

desert time!

Originally our plan was to go to Death Valley and than head to Las Vegas but after an extensive research session at the San Diego Beach Starbucks we decided to visit the Joshua Tree National Park first as it was on the way anyways! Actually it was the best idea we had so far because the park is amazing in comparison to Yosemite tiny though but extra ordinary beautiful and very unique.
We hiked a fun trail through lots of rocks and desert plants and Lucas climbed upon one of the "mountains"! I spend my time hanging out on other rocks in the shadow and listening to music. It was probably the most relaxing thing on the entire trip, lying on cold stones listening to Al Greens "Love and Happiness" and watching the planes fly by! What a peaceful place to be and just for once I did not feel like visiting a big tourist attraction! WHAT A FEELING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Besides it was very very hot during the day we realized that it also was almost unbearable warm at night, too. Sleeping in the car got really uncomfortable once more :) but every sweaty second was worth it! That day was probably the most broiling day I´ve ever experienced but I´m pretty sure a african Nomad would have laughed at me. Very loud.
Anyways when we headed to Death Valley we had to traverse another desert which was not even a tiny little bit as beautiful as the Joshua Tree National Park. We passed away the time in a heat shock for about 2 hours. Nothing was possible but sitting and sweating and boiling - Nothing crossed our way except a bunch of people on their motorbikes who must have been felt more awful than us ( imaging 50°C
wearing a leather suit - sounds like a big party!!)!

It was a fatal mistake opening a window because it made it even hotter! I felt like a Vampire who got spotted by the sun and just wanted to get out off the heat! Lucas and I were questioning us a lot who´d want to live here but we saw a bunch of mailboxes every couple of miles! When our gas was almost empty and I kind of felt scared that we might have just starve to death somewhere stack between L.A and Las Vegas in the middle of nowhere, we saw a gas station and believe me at first I thought - it´s a Fata Morgana for sure.
Once the tank was refilled the Lady who served us told us that it´s not hot at all today and I couldn´t stop thinking of how much I want to get away from this place immediately! :D After that Lucas and I were pretty much convinced that there is no way that anyone of us wants to drive through the Death Valley National Park without an ac which was supposed to be more hot than this unknown desert! ( I want to come back but maybe not in August next time :D ) So we drove to Las Vegas without any further diversion to detect that when we arrived it did not become cold at night and we spent another terrific night in the warm car (NOT) The ice cubes we bought at the local Walmart melted away in no time but at least I felt a little better!

San Diego - Vacation time!

Just a quick "hi" from San Diego because I´m chilling as much as I´m able to ( discovered that relaxing doesn´t seems to be a part of my personality and not that easy for me haha) or let me say we were hanging out without changing the location that much!

We also decided to not do any sight seeing as I felt kind a visibly full and not hungry for adventures these days! Renting a surfboard and try surfing especially in California was on my personal bucket list for years and I was happy to finally try doing it. Well, I´m not super talented and I did not get to stand up fully because I was just not having enough power to get the board out to a good spot for a few times and than surf the wave. My arms were already shaking after 30 mins of carrying the board but the few times I made to get on the board was literally amazing and I promise I´ll be back next year in January to surf in Tofino on Vancouver Island! During the next months I´m planning on going to the gym as much as possible to train my muscles and get a better condition because I don´t really want to miss out that much fun! Furthermore we have been to the cinema, eating great stuff and taking care of our sun burn! A vacation from the vacation :D 

Los Angeles - City of sweat

What can I say about L.A? Puuuh... It´s crazy big and it´s hot! Since we entered a certain point in California we are back in the summer season.

Unfortunately our car is not having an air conditioning system which makes it sometimes pretty hard to feel comfortable especially without a present shower but after almost 3 weeks I got kind of used to it (washing your hair in the morning in the walmart restrooms is at least helping a little bit to feel fresh and clean in the morning!

Our first stop was the Santa Monica Pier and after finding a cheap place to park, we walked down the beach to the Pier. Again I have to admit that the USA is incredible. Yes I´m visiting touristy places but as I´m kind a traveling for the first time I feel the need to get a superficial insight on places to decide where to go back again later particularly just to explain it a little more we only have 1-2 days for every stop on our list which makes it even more difficult to explore everything you

want. For example we planned on visiting a few more spots in L.A but we caught up in the city traffic jam for 2-3 hours which cut our time to a minimum and we only got to see the Hollywood sign, the Santa Monica Pier and the Getty Center because no one of us were really interested in spending any further minute in the car. What else can I say?? Hmm L.A is ok... I´m not totally convinced, it´s probably not my cup of tea.  Our time on the pier was quite beautiful though and seeing all the stuff you usually see on the TV was interesting :D. 

There was nothing going on on the Muscle beach square and we were just hanging out and sweating on the beach and observing people using their rollerblades. We then headed to the Hollywood sign which was kind a pain in the ass to be honest concerning the traffic jam and I´ve most certainly seen the biggest gathering of tourists in my life! We made a bunch of jokes about it and left a little disillusioned :) ( not that I was expecting something super great).

The Getty Center was a nice place to hang out though and I got to see another wonderful van Gogh painting which I fell in love with after 0,1 seconds. We found a lot of church art there and the exhibition of James Ensor who painted quite a few interesting paintings was nicely curated! The garden was beautiful, too and we throw in a few coins into the fountain!

The heat made me a little dizzy and we had some Korean BBQ before ( disappointing experience especially because Lucas never had korean food before and I wanted to show him how delicious it tastes. Did not work out that well;) ) we met our Couchsurfing host Jeffrey. He is a cute korean guy who works as a therapist and is a passionate musician. During our stay he performed a Beyonce-Medley with all her successful songs and a few songs he has writing while he had a unhealthy relationship and was really lovesick for us. It was beautiful and not that the guy had the perfect job and great style, his voice and the way he sang was just adorable. We were pretty much convincing him to record something immediately for us to listen to it in the car. Jeffrey told us about living in L.A where everyone wants to be famous and where you can´t live without a car. The evening turned out to be amazing and we slept pretty good!

In the morning we left the apartment to visit the Natural History Museum which Jeffrey recommended and as I have never seen real dinosaur skeletons we felt like it was about time for me to see some!

Just let me say this, to stand in front of them was just amazing and my brain wasn´t able to combine that these fascinating animals once really lived on our wonderful planet! Literally we weren´t able to not look at them for hours! Unfortunately we missed the butterfly house but the rest of the museum was educational and interesting. The exhibition about gemstones and diamonds was beautiful as well and it was really great to learn a lot about stones and asteroids. After now almost 3 weeks of traveling we were feeling a little low and decided to go to San Diego to meet up with Anna and Mike who we met in San Francisco and just hang out on the beach! I was definitely looking forward to that! Just relaxing and eating! wooohoooooo.....

Santa Barbara - soooo beautiful!

Since we were driving through California, I was pretty in love all the time! San Francisco was a highlight but when we headed from Yosemite National Park to Los Angeles I fully dived into the California Vibe. Palm trees and sunsets were definitely my favorite moments to take pictures. The radio played California Dreaming, Hotel California and all my favorite psychedelic rock and hippie songs -perfect state with a perfect soundtrack. The people are ultimately friendly and relaxed. They are smiling and greeting you from everywhere all the time and the landscape is changing drastically within the state which makes it super interesting and even more adorable. California is impressive and beautiful and I´m literally in love with it! The Eagles once said "You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave" I´m sure they meant something completely different but for me it says that it´s so great here that you never want to leave which describes exactly the way i felt when we passed Santa Barbara!

We had a over night somewhere between Santa Barbara and Ventura which was kind of weird but still comfortable and more or less quiet and not too bright! We made some salad and drank some Apple Cider, we passed out pretty quickly because driving down the west coast without air conditioning can be really exhausting!

On the next morning we had some breakfast on the beach which was awesome and not to forget the shower at the local YMCA (super great!) Later that day we decided to hang out in the most centered Starbucks to catch up with friends and family with the help of their free wifi. Furthermore we were planing on our next stations and looking for sights to stop by and hang out as we were planing to head to Los Angeles afterwards! Before we left Ventura we couldn´t stop ourselves checking on the second hand stores. Apparently it is more common here in the states to get your stuff in Thrift stores than back home in Germany. They had around 5 stores next to each other and they were pretty crowded, unfortunaletely we didn´t find any cool pieces that´s why we left earlier as expected and stopped at one of the fast food option to get some fries and burgers.

Yosemite National Park

That is going to be a quick and short post as I wasn´t really amazed by the park. Of course it was quite impressive and beautiful but unfortunately the waterfalls were already dried out and to be honest the park felt a bit like a drive through nature attraction. It was possible to go everywhere by the car and i would not have wondered about a freeway in the middle of one of the tourists attractions. We decided to stay one night on the camp ground and experience quite a few funny things. For example we had to put all of our food and everything what was in the car with a smell on it into a metal box 4 meters away from the car. Apparently bears who are living in the park have a really good nose and would try to get into the car to grab the food. To be and stay safe we inspected the car for all our smelling items and put it in the box.

We started to cook a dinner and while we were waiting for the noodles to be done our gas stopped working and we realized the bottle was empty. What can you expect from two confused spaced out idiots... tzzzz... so we had tortillas with tomato sauce which was quite good though.

At night I might have seen the most amazing sky in my life with so many stars in it that no one on the planet would be able to count them. It was literally the most romantic event i had in my life and made me want to have a boyfriend immediately which is not happening that often.Usually I ´m quite happy to be free and go everywhere I want without taking care of someone or missing someone constantly. Traveling especially doing it alone is changing you. The people you meet are changing your perspective and I definitely have to write a post about that, too :D

The next day before we left the park we stopped at a lake and cooled down our feet in it. As cold as the night on the mountain has been as warm or almost hot has it already gotten while the sun was out again. On our way to Los Angeles believe it or not we had two flat tires and gradually I thought we might be the two most unlucky persons on the planet. Actually it was kind a funny though. Lucas was wondering about this weird sound outside while we were driving and I was just saying " oh maybe it´s the middle line of the street" which makes sounds when you are driving on it. One second after we realized it was the left back tire and rolled upon the next petrol station. The employee was the most grumpy mexican guy i have ever met and was either not really interested in helping nor giving advices where we could go to fix the tire the next morning. Luckily we met a super nice restaurant employee who helped us getting the second safety tire on and recommended a tire store, he even gave us some cold water which was highly appreciated by us! That night was the first weird sleepover I was not feeling super comfortable about but everything went well and we got the tire repaired in the morning and even found a super awesome gym to shower in. On our way to the petrol station to refill the gas and air on the tires we found out that one of our front tires had a nail in it, too. We drove back to the store and got that repaired as well. Finally a cheap thing... wooohooo!

San Francisco Part II

The second day in San Francisco started really relaxed. We got up pretty early and safe with the knowledge that everything was clean again in including the dishes and all of our cloth we left the hostel with a good feeling. Living in the car makes you feel absolutely free but when it comes to cleanliness it´s kind of an adventure. Especially when you are a person like me and can´t live without a shower in the morning and a decent breakfast! Poor Lucas, he definitely had to suffer a few times as I was in a really really bad mood. But he started to make jokes about it and it is helpful for me as well :D to overcome these habits and relax even more ( Thanks Lucas). The first thing which we visited in the morning was the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course we drove over it a bunch of times the other day but we wanted to take pictures and hang out and enjoy the lookout on the ocean and the coast.

After that we decided to go to the Golden Gate Park which is quite far from the bridge but in San Francisco as well. The Park is super big and has several museums and gardens in it! Above you can see a picture of the beautiful Japanese Tea house which you can find close to the Botanical Garden in the Park. The Modern Art Museum and the Academy of Science are kind of in the same spot, too. After walking around and checking out the prices we decided to get some indian chicken and discuss which of these awesome places we wanted to visit!



Usually I would be up to visit the Modern Art Museum but regarding the fact that I´ve been to the MOMA and MET in New York recently I gave up on my usual habit and we went to the California Academy of Science instead.

The visit turned out to be an amazing decision. They have a bunch of incredible interesting stuff there going on and it was quite a wow experience. For example they are showing you how an earthquake will feel and what will happen during the quake. The best part was the planetarium (LOVE LOVE LOVE) , the movie they´ve shown was super interesting and again I regretted that I haven´t studied science!  Furthermore they had a cool exhibition about skulls and skeletons going on which was interesting and exciting. After that we explored the rain forest part of the museum which was super warm but beautiful because they had butterflies flying around and lots of other animals which were living in the glas hall. The biggest butterfly of all of them just landed besides me and I almost kicked the pretty thing off of the handrail by accident.

The aquarium was our last stop in the Academy made the visit even more special. Usually I don´t like animals in cages and won´t go and support these kind of attractions but it was there and we walked through it and unfortunately I ´ve to admit that the jellyfishes were beautiful though and the sea life is gorgeous and colorful exactly how I like it. I took around 2000 pictures and am planing on creating some new patterns very soon.

6 hours later we got out of the Academy and started cruising around the city. We decided to have a look from the Coit tower to see Alcatraz as the trips to jail island were fully booked that day and when we arrived we realized that we were able to have a wonderful breathtaking view over the entire city! san Francisco is truly beautiful and for sure my new favorite city. As we only had 1,5 days there I definitely have to come back and stay for at least a week or two. Our last stop was the Alamo Square which is a small but nice park. On the other side of the road you could see the painted Ladies which is a row of victorian houses in pastel colors which were named that way by 2 authors, Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen. Concerning the earthquake which are happening quite often in San Francisco there were more of these buildings in the city once but a lot of them got already destroyed by nature. Architecture is more than inspiring and amazing here in San Francisco and I was more than unwilling to leave!

San Francisco!

I fell in love with San Francisco almost the second we arrived there! It is a beautiful city and one of my lifetime goals would be to live there and be happy forever and ever! Of course the first things which happened is that we had bad luck with the hostel we wanted to stay at. They were fully booked and the room we kind of made a reservation for on the telephone got given away 1 min before we arrived there. I was super disappointed because the place looked super cool and there were tons of nice people hanging out. Especially that it was located in Chinatown made my heart beat a little faster regarding the food option I´d have had for the next days.....

Our last and second option was booking a hostel room in Sausalito which was faaaar away but better than nothing and as San Francisco was one of my favorite destinations I definitely wanted to shower and sleep well :D we had to go there. When we arrived we found out that there is almost no public transportion into the city which meant that we had to go there by car. Luckily we weren´t the only ones who had to stay at this place so we met Anna and her boy friend from Chicago. They joined us on our ride into the city and it was quite a funny drive because they had to lie down on our bed. Apparently we haven´t had food the entire day and were starving and I was already about to eat my own hands when we found a decent restaurant in Downtown/ Chinatown. The Sesame Chicken was probably the best I had so far but the waitress was kind of weird though. It felt as she wanted us to leave the restauarant as soon as poosible but I guess that is one of the things which is totally different back home in europe where people actually enjoy hanging out at a restaurant and chat after they had their meal.

 

After brunch/dinner we just walked around in downtown and checking out things.  The evening at the hostel was pretty quiet but I have to admit that internet is kind a stressing me out. haha. There is always something to do or to answer people and after about 2 days and more without it can feel pretty overwhelming. I slept really good and I guess with the time I´m getting more comfortable with sleeping in strange foreign environments with snorring people! juhu!