<photo promised in a few days>

The border crossing was terrible, as a lot of border crossings down here are (you get inundated with people trying to ‘help’ you cross the border quickly, and dodgy officials try to charge you for whatever they can if you aren’t paying attention). Estelí was a really nice little town, reminiscent of Antigua in Guatemala – old colonial buildings and cobbled streets surrounding the church in the centre of town. We stayed one night and then I was excited to get back over to the Pacific Ocean once again, for the first time in over a month. We traveled through León out to Las Beñitas and I got my surf on again. My first impression of the waves in Nicaragua were great!

<photo soon>

The next day I traveled down to Managua to meet with some people from the Volkswagen club of Nicaragua. I met these guys because my car has been breaking down a lot in the last month, and Efrain helped me get in contact with them to fix my car. Many mechanics had looked at my car but had no idea what was wrong with it, but these guys seemed to know the problem straight away. The guys from the Nicaragua club put me in contact with the Honduras club, and then three guys from the VW club in Honduras left their jobs in Teguc at noon to drive out to where I was in that little village in Honduras and brought a mechanic with them. It cost me $12 for the mechanic and the guys didn’t charge for their time at all – they just wanted to help out a fellow VW traveler. I thought that was so awesome, and they were such generous and kind people. In Managua I met with Eliezer and Vladimir who showed me around Managua and we did a little more tuning of my car. People say Managua is a dirty city, but I kinda liked it. It was nice and green in some areas (maybe due to the rainy season?) and it had some cool little suburbs that looked nice to live in.

<photos soon>

The next day I drove down to San Juan Del Sur, a big surf town in the south of Nicaragua. I tried to stay at a hostel but they never gave me a key so I was locked out at night and slept in my bus. I met some cool kids there though, and we all went surfing together for the next 5 days. Apparently this place gets off-shore winds about 300 days out of the year, which makes for epic surf if the swell is also good. And these days the swell was good. Wow I’ve never surfed so much in 5 days before, but we were out in the surf for a solid 4-5 hours each day. Great work out, epic waves, good people, amazing weather, cheap food, fun jungle roads, no development around the beaches. This place is fantastic!

<photos soon>

I had been considering going down to Costa Rica to find an apartment for a few months, but since being here I wonder if I should just set up shop here and buckle down for the next few months here. Costa Rica is much more expensive, much more americanized, many more tourists, has more rain, and doesn’t get the phat off-shore winds that we get here in SJDS. Next week I head over to Europe for some friends’ wedding, but when I return a month later I think I may come back up here to hang out for a while.

The trips out to the beach have been fun – we’ve been jamming 8 people and 8 surfboards into Bluey, and taking the jungle road out to the beach. Most of the beaches around here are 20-30 minutes away from town, through muddy boggy roads with big rocks, and dirt that gets weathered away by the rainy season. Bluey handles the roads just fine, and travels at twice the speed of the 4WDs that shuttle people out there (and Bluey takes more people than most of the 4WDs too – kombie power!!). Lately the roads have had bandits though. Cars will be blocked by boulders every few days, and bandits with machettes will rob everyone in the car of all their valuable posessions. Just a few days ago we drove back from the beach and found out that the car that left just 15 minutes earlier than us got robbed. Now when we drive to the beaches we are very conscious of the possibility of bandits, careful, and carry big sticks and bats with us. But the surf is worth it.

<photos soon>

It feels like we’re living in the days of Robin Hood or something, with the dirt jungle roads and lack of any development nearby a lot of these places. Two days ago we made the swim out to another beach. We swam out past the cliffs and rocks, paddled for a kilometre to get to a beach called El Tamarindo (in Nica, not Costa Rica). It was a long tough swim, and on the way we saw nothing that resembled civilization remotely. We looked up at the cliffs and jungle trees and saw a man on a horse watching us. To me it was like what the Spanish must have felt like arriving on new, untouched shores, and seeing local natives watching them. It was a cool feeling, and the reality of being in Central America hit me. Feelings and images from Pirates of the Caribbean flood through me all the time while I’m down here. I am in Nicaragua, this place is wild. Awesome.

I know I haven’t blogged much lately, I think my posts were getting larger and larger and more and more epic. I’ve tried to write since the last post but it has been tough. Now I think I’m just going to start small again and throw up little posts here and there about smaller things I’ve been getting up to, with less editing (and not even proof-reading this time!). I’ll also post some photos soon. Still don’t have a camera, so I have to wait til everyone else posts the photos so I can leech them hehe.

I know I haven’t written for a while – I’ve been adopting the Central American way of siesta, and the I’ll do it later attitude. But the last month has been crazy on the road. Now I’m sorta back in the groove of things and hopefully over the next few days I’ll find some time to write some updates about all the fun and crazy things that have been going on. Hope all is well with everyone, just wanted to say Hi and to keep your eyes out for updates soon.

Stu

I left San Diego on June 21st after seeing Donavon Frankenreiter in Solana Beach. Our moustaches clashed so hard the resulting force drove us both from the city. I cruised through the border, without showing my passport, without anyone even looking in my vehicle, and hauled ass down the empty highways to inject myself as far into Mexico as possible that day. I stayed my first night in San Quintin, explored a little bit, and spoke to as many people as would tolerate my amazing grasp of about 7 Spanish words.

D-Frank singing for me

...They collided so hard our last names Actually swapped for a few moments...

The next day I hauled through the desert down to Guerrero Negro and I was stopped about ten times by the Mexican Military to search my bus. One guy found my guitar and made me play for his little mercenary battalion, I guess he wanted to make sure I wasn’t a drug smuggler just using the guitar and surfboard as a guise? It was amusing none the less. I helped some other people jump start their car and charge their battery, lovely people and all willing to chat. I stopped to give water and the remaining cigarettes to a road crew who were very dehydrated working in ridiculous heat. Bluey also needed a splash down about 6 times in the desert. It felt as though I would drive 10 miles and then already be overheating again, so I’d stop, splash down the engine with a bottle of water, open the oil cover and let it all cool for 15 minutes while I practiced guitar in the sweltering heat amongst infinite cacti.

Long road through the desert

Funky little building I found a little way off the highway while waiting for Bluey to cool down

Bluey, just chilling under a tree

Another military stop

Guerrero Negro

When I arrived in Guerrero Negro I pulled into an empty cafe for a drink, and found myself hanging out for hours with the shopkeeper, a very patient old man who was happy to practice Spanish with me. He was not the brightest old man, but it was fun and I learned a bunch of Spanish from him. A few guests came in and one was from London and asked if I wanted to accompany her to some sort of film festival that was going on around the corner. I followed her there and hung out with the locals at this outdoor film showing. I was swarmed by kids and their rapid fire Spanish attacks, but in no time they were blazing around on my skateboard, looking through my Spanish dictionary showing me words of all sorts etc. Eventually I asked where I could find a good place to park and sleep for the night and the one 13yr old kid who was most fascinated with me, Luis, offered for me to come and stay with his family. Sure, why not.

My Guerrero Negro friends, Rosa, Roxanne, Luis, Manuel & family

Bluey, resting safe at Luis y Manuel's Home

Manuel y Stuzor y Jorge

So I followed him and his grandma to their house around the corner and stayed for two nights at their place. I must have met about 6000 of his family members. They made me play Creedence Clearwater songs over and over and over… and I only know 3 or 4 of their songs. That didn’t bother them, they never tired of a single song like I did. They would literally ask me to repeat a song as soon as I’d finished playing it for them. Luis’ brother Manuel was 18 and we got along very well. His English was only a little better than my Spanish, and he had just graduated High-school the day I met him , so we spent the next 2 days chatting in Spanish, exploring the beaches and his town. His family was very generous, and shared what very little they had with me. Wade Tibaldi, it seemed very similar to how I imagined your experience with that family in Vietnam. They gave me my own concrete room that hadn’t been used in probably years, with my very own broken toilet, (which didn’t look broken at first.. if you know what I mean), and my very own water bucket. It was a most humbling experience. Eventually the time came to leave, and I was gifted with a big lump of local salt, about the size of my combined fists, and two printed photos of the salt mines in Guerrero Negro. I won’t delve into the details, but rather let your imaginations run wild. They were amazing people, and I highly recommend not visiting there if you are uncomfortable with extreme poverty (relatively).

The Sea of Cortez

The further south I drove the more tropical the surroundings became. I came through many oases, valleys, mountains, rocks, cacti, (if you ever played the game Death Rally as a kid- this was just like one of those race tracks!!). I drove through vast empty deserts, on many many dirt and rocky roads, waited for countless road crews to let me pass, but eventually sighted the Sea of Cortez. Wow, it has such a rich and saturated aqua colour, it is just beautiful. I pulled up somewhere to let Bluey cool down, and I took a dip to cool down too. Unfortunately the water was way too hot was not refreshing at all. I kept trucking down to Puerto Escondido… of the Sea of Cortez, not the big surf town on the mainland – I guess they like to re-use names of cities a lot here? Long story short I tried to avoid all the other obnoxious tourists. I still consider myself an obnoxious tourist, but I wanted to be obnoxious all on my ownsome. I found myself a quiet and cheap RV park where I was the only visitor and went for a skate around the marina with immensely vast stretches of flat concrete, and absolutely no one in sight. Unfortunately I rounded a corner and ran into the end of a big American fishing tournament, but Fortunately I arrived just in time to enjoy some free dinner. I was happy to mop up the scraps, and they were happy to feed me (at least until they realized I wasn’t part of their little fun club). Because fortunately I had just adorned my cleanest white shirt, my cargo shorts, and slip on shoes – and I was the perfect image of a sailor yacht snob. Everyone was asking me which sailboat was mine, where I had sailed from, how my catch was etc. Sorry guys, didn’t know this event was on, just here to eat your foods, Thanks!

…It was all going to end up in the trash anyway …I did it for the starving kids in Africa who don’t have their own sailor costumes to get free food with.

The Sea of Cortez, It really was beautiful

Cabo San Lucas

The next day I drove a long way down to Cabo San Lucas. A few wrong turns here and there added an extra 50 miles to the trip, but I made it here and went for an epic surf in 8ft barrel swells. No wetsuit! Oh that was nice. My board wax had completely melted so I had to do a make-shift wax job with more melting wax, but I hastily made it work and got out there and attempted to fit in with the locals. I found a beach that was completely away from tourists, so I was the only white person out there – it was great! I learnt the words for waves, surfboard, flat, sharks, etc. Just a taste of the surf lingo. Whenever the sets rolled in all the locals would shout “Arriba, Arriba” and haul ass toward the waves. They were big waves, breaking to the right, fast, and over a permanent and shallow rock bed. I was a little cautious, but I caught a few really good ones in the end. I headed back into town and found my way to The Cabo Inn, the cheapest hostel I could find online, which is absolutely deserted! I thought youth hostels would be teeming with people around here, but I’ve only seen two other people so far. A German couple around my age who are living in Mexico City – we had dinner together last night and might go surf together later today. Nice people, great to learn Spanish from. Tortillas, rice and beans. They are delicious. I hope they continue to be delicious, because they are breakfast, lunch, and dinner… Every day.

Get yourself a new look ;{

One nice thing I have noticed about my moustache, and general appearance, is that it is a great filter for dismissing really superficial people. I mean, I’m traveling in a hippie bus, with a dirty mexican moustache, long hair, and generally look like a clean bum. I get it… And inherently a lot of the other gringos see me that way – and I can smell their stand-off attitude and upturned noses from miles away. So the people that do end up actually chatting to me are the people that don’t seem to care about that stuff, and are genuinely interested in learning about me and who I am. This also implies that they have more to them than mere superficial vanity, so it’s perfect! But at times when those good people are not around and I’m surrounded by the former group of people, then it can be a little demoralizing being ostracized so strongly in that way. I also learned the same thing back in San Francisco, about how people judge superficially, especially contrasting how I used to look when I first visited San Fran a few years ago to how I look now. It’s interesting playing around with my appearance in this way, and how a little facial hair can change people’s impressions so easily.

Me

Dave, I’ve learned a lot from you and how you talk to people with a relentlessly positive attitude. When you left, I noticed the gap and have been trying to fill it myself. Cheers brother!

Other Upcoming Travels – Europe and Cayman Islands

I booked flights to my friend Alan’s wedding in the Cayman Islands. I leave from La Ceiba, Honduras, on the 18th of July – those were the cheapest flights I could find ($350 vs the $1100 from other Central American cities). So now I have to cheese it down there pretty quickly, and I’m currently looking into ferries to get me from La Paz over to Mazatlan, back on the mainland. Glenn, I’ll see you in Honduras pretty shortly! I’m also looking into flights to France for Nico’s wedding in September, and glad that my sister Callie is going to join me for a few weeks of travel around France/Spain before I continue my voyage through the Americas.

I’ve been practicing guitar every day, pushing my boundaries and learning stuff that is much harder than what I already know. I haven’t been writing much lately, the road in Mexico has been much harsher than in the USA, and I’ve been driving a lot more due to my flight arrangements in Honduras. I’ve been really enjoying learning Spanish so far, and am trying to dive into every conversation with confidence and all of my vocabulary. And the surfing has been great. Mexico = big tick so far. It feels just as dangerous here as one might consider snowboarding to be dangerous. Don’t let that fool you if you’re considering a visit here!

Thanks so much for all the comments and support, I would not have kept writing if I didn’t get so much interest from everyone. It means a lot to me so keep it up, and spread the word to other people who might be interested. Lots of my friends haven’t heard about my travels or this site yet, so it would be great if you could share it with them please. And though you’re hearing a lot about me, I don’t really hear much about what everyone else is doing – so I’d love to hear what’s new with you all – feel free to send me updates from time to time – more points for big fat juicy comments.

What’s new up in Seattle? At Microsoft? How’s TFS going? Brisvegas? Surf in Australia? China?

My site is pretty ordinary, so let me know if you have any suggestions for how to improve it. What do you like reading about? If I’m writing too much about X, tell me to write more about Y. If you want more details (or less?) of things like surf, or descriptions of places and events – let me know. I’m kinda just winging it with this whole writing thing – having a bit of fun – so some specific feedback would go a long way.

I’m in San Diego right now, and my US Visitor Visa expires very shortly, so I’m planning my exodus into Mexico over the next few days. Hopefully all goes well, I think I’m ready for it Let me know if any of you are interested in joining me for any part of the trip through Central or South America. I’ll be canceling my phone plan over the next days, so if you want to call or text me to say hi then do it soon – 425.221.0934.

I’m sure my experiences will take a bit of a twist, and the focus of my days will change dramatically, so keep an ear out for new updates.

Mush Luff to all,

Stuzor

So far I love San Diego. I’ve been surfing every day since I arrived 11 days ago (except today and yesterday because there is zero swell) and it has been very soul-soothing. The first day I arrived we hung out with a bunch of German’s from a hostel that Dave was staying at – they were cool peeps. Patricia and Jens came surfing a few times, and Patricia got hooked and bought a board we found at a yard sale. She came every day with us, despite her gangrenous ankle injuries from skateboarding. Every day we went to a new spot, loaded up the bus with boards and people, and had a good time. We’ve been to Tourmaline, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, Black’s Beach(!), Solana Beach, Lo Jolla, and a few others I don’t know the names of. We surfed up at Solana Beach one day, where I met up with Chris and Kristen from The Darien Plan and Drive The Americas. Turns out Chris is a software guy too – and they just finished their trip around the americas in their vehicle and are getting back into the daily grind routine. Chris came out and joined us in the surf a bunch of times too – I feel we’ve reinvigorated his passion for surfing, and I think that just by being around they’re remembering a lot of reasons why they travel, and are already not too enthused about getting back into the work lifestyle. Dave started coming surfing after he had recovered from running his marathon too – it’s been so good to be out in the water every day, and with new people every time. I bought a 6’3 fish which I’ve been really enjoying, and I donated the board I built to a friend I met up in Santa Cruz. She wanted to start learning, and I had a heavy board that I didn’t really like riding – so it was an easy exchange. How’s the surf going Angelica, shredding much yet? I’m catching waves both left and right, but I’m still not very dynamic when riding left – I’m sure with time and some good left breaks I’ll start ripping it up more. It’s nice to give my left elbow and shoulders a bit of a break today and yesterday while the swell is gone. Why do I have to have shitty wiry elongated skinny muscles and limbs? I’ve been using copious amounts of Deep Heat on my elbow lately, sitting in many hot tubs, and massaging it constantly, as it has started pinching again. But I’ll not let that stop me getting in the surf, everrrr!

La Jolla - climbing into a wet wetsuit

Wetsuit Trick – MUST READ if you have a wetty

Speaking of which – for those of you who have wetsuits – I found out a really cool trick for putting them on easily. Keep a plastic shopping bag with your wetsuit, and put them over your feet when you slide your feet through – the feet slide right through whether wet or dry. Oh so easy… Patent pending by the way.

Dave coming out of the surf

Surf view from the bus

Blue's Quiver

Chris contemplating the lack of swell at Swami's

Stu and Dave heading to Black's beach with Walker and Aaron from A-Frames Surf Racks in Bluey's distant cousin, the VW Eurovan

Ze Germans - Patricia, Hans the Cleaner, and Jens

Guerilla Camping

One night the bus was so overloaded with people’s stuff that there was no way I was sleeping in there – so we slept on the beach at Ocean Beach. We happened to pick the one night it rained, and I happened to have nothing but a blanket and a pillow. I didn’t sleep much. But we did find a sweet place among the dunes for it – and it was nice to fall asleep under the stars with the waves crashing all night. How’s the serenity. So much serenity.

Skateboards

Skateboards and I have never gotten along well. It seems that whenever I get on one I fall on my wrist and hurt them. But I’ve always wanted to be able to ride them, and so I bought a used longboard on my second day here in San Diego. Jens, the german guy from the hostel had also just bought one and we convinced Patricia to buy one too – so the three of us all went out cruising and learning to ride together. There’s a long boardwalk from Pacific Beach to Ocean Beach, and we cruised along there in the sun. Patricia was the first to have a nasty fall, scraping up her leg pretty bad. I got to use my first-aid-kit for the first time, or should I say my second-aid-kit now. boom. I had the second fall and scraped up my elbow in a very publicly humiliating way, it was fun. We’re all getting the hang of it, and I’ve been taking the board with me everywhere. Dave bought himself a used beach cruiser and so we’ve been cruising around San Diego in between surf sessions – sometimes being towed behind the bike. It’s hella fun, and I’ve already learned some lessons from it that I took to the surfboard. Thanks Nutman for reminding me I should get a skateboard.

Patricia and Stu's boards

Dave and Stu on our Bike and Board

Towing behind the cruiser

Stu cruising around the car park

Dave cruising around Mission Bay

Dave's beach cruiser, hooked up by Kevin haha

Blue, just hangin out

Bluey, drying things for us

Riding on the (very thin) beach cruiser handle bars

Trying out the youtube video embedded link, thought it might be nice for you all to see me and say hiii. hiii!

Stu and Carmen, Dave's Swiss friend

Marathon girls - Kim, Raquel & Shannon - outside the best mexican joint I've ever tasted - La Playa

Patricia, Stu, and Dave - La Playa

The boards

Patricia, right after her staccident

Skatin in La Jolla car park

Post Skate Nap

Playing the Skate song on my newly acquired travel guitar. You don't wanna hear it.

Dave’s Marathon

I met Dave in San Francisco and we were traveling in the same direction so we’ve been hanging out ever since, sometimes going separate ways, sometimes meeting up for weeks. He’s been riding his motorbike, so it’s been easier for him to leave his stuff in my bus and park the bike until we split up again. His reason for coming to San Diego was to run the Rock N’ Roll Marathon on the 5th of June. He ran it, and Patricia and I were at the finish line to see him win! I was proud to see him finish, after he’s been training so often on our trip, taking it easy on the partying, and just being so focused on the marathon – it was awesome to see him finish. He was a wreck afterwards though, and so Patricia and I helped him move along by pushing him on the skateboard, a trick Patricia and I perfected along the Ocean Beach Pier the night before.

Dave running the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon

Wheeling Dave back home on my Skateboard after his Marathon

Dave was ready to celebrate over the next few days, so we had many celebratory drinks here and there, campfires and guitar singalongs, bars and all sorts of stupid Tom Foolery around Ocean Beach.

Camp Fires and Music

I’ve been playing a lot more guitar lately. Since I arrived in San Diego I’ve been busting out my electric guitar a lot and getting some practice in, and with all the campfires that we’ve been doing I went around to find a $100 travel guitar which I found. It’s nothing super special but it doesn’t sound too bad. We celebrated Patricia’s last night around a beach fire and a nice campfire cooked meal – we played guitar for a while around the fire when some guy came up to me and handed me a bag and said “Happy Tuesday”. I thought he must have thought I was a bum, handing me food scraps or something, so I gave him a puzzled look. Then he walked away and I realized he had just bought us a full bottle of Spiced Rum (my favourite) a bottle of coke, a bag of pretzels and a full pack of cigarettes, straight from the store and seemingly specifically for us. We don’t know what the story was but I saw someone creeping around listening to our tunes, I like to think he heard our rad tunes and decided to sponsor us for the night of more music.

The Beach Bum Club - Dave, Patricia, and Stu.

Some guy around the camp fire, with the most monstrous feet you could imagine.

Jens hangin by the beach fire

Dave around the beach fire

Trish aka 'Olivia' & Stu

Saying goodbye to our lil San Diego Sis Trish

Byeee

Kristin and Chris

I organized to meet up with a couple who did the South America drive just recently – they just arrived back in San Diego in January. We met up for pizza at Solana Beach, a little north of San Diego, and just hung out all night chatting about various stuff. Chris ended up coming out for a surf with us, and remembered how much he enjoyed surfing. I feel like we brought out the kid in him a bit more. Spreading the Silly Julian, Spreading the Silly. Turns out he’s a software guy too. After a few days of surf they invited Dave and I round to stay at their place – which is where I am now, writing blogs from the comfort of their living room on a no-surf-swell day. They were a little surprised, after looking at us and spending a few days hanging out and realizing we’re such free spirits, that we are ex-Microsoft Engineer and ex-Tax Consultant – just aimlessly vagabonding around the globe. I think we all have a very healthy respect for each other. I went indoor rock climbing with Kristin tonight, which was raaaad fun – I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it, how much I like the agility, how long my arms are (they go round thee woooorld), etc etc. Kristin and her friend are really good climbers and I was well out of my league, but it was f-ing rocking fun none the less. Dave showed us how to grill properly, geez those damn Texans have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves – he did it well. We hung out in the hot tub, I gave them a bunch of guitar lessons, exchanged stories about their travels – I learned a lot about that. These guys run the website DriveTheAmericas, so they get a whole bunch of information from all the other travelers on that site, on top of their own recent experience. A wealth of knowledge, and top notch people.

Stu, Dave, Chris & Kristen

Chris suiting up

 Surf Racks

One day I was hangin out in my bus, right about to have a nap – when some guy pulled up next to me and asked me if I was playing guitar. He played me some of his electronic music, then it somehow ended up with me giving him a real basic guitar lesson. While he was there I had two aussie guys come check out the bus (I have probably 3 people every day come check out the bus) and tell me they can help me with any mechanical problems I have. Then another two blokes rocked up in a VW Eurovan and wanted to see how I had mine set up. They were just about to go on a trip around the USA themselves in their van, but they’re doing it to promote their new business. The number one thing on my shopping list was some parts to make a surf rack on the ceiling of my bus – and they pulled up and showed me their new invention – custom mounted surf racks. They needed a staple gun, which I happened to have with me, so they hooked me up with a surf rack and we hung out all afternoon and watched Basketball and cooked great food. I stayed at their place and went for a surf with them the next day – they took us to Black’s beach, down this crazy fun cliff trail (you know I love rock hopping, well this was exactly that). Walker and Aaron were their names, and their company is A-Frames. Now I have a ceiling rack in my bus which holds my surfboard out of the way. Ta’veren.

Aaron and Walker - our identical road twins. A-Frames Surf Racks

I saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean – damn I love those movies! We had a bunch of BBQs, hung out, played with Austin – Danny’s 9yr old son, watched his baseball game, and just generally relaxed in a comfortable home for a while. It is nice to relax along my travels in comfortable places – and especially when you’re hanging out with rad people – but in the end I really don’t feel the extra ‘comfort’ of a home is actually much more comfortable than life on the road. Being able to wash clothes and clean dishes and have more space really doesn’t mean that much in the end. And when I stop in a comfortable place I don’t do as much, I don’t see as much, I don’t meet as many new people, I don’t expose myself to new situations. Instead I fill my time with all sorts of silly things like computer time, emails, facebook, organizing music/photos, etc etc. Every time I stop to do that it seems to be an endless task. Yet if I don’t stop to do these things while I’m on the road – life still goes on and I’m just as happy without them. It’s a good reminder to me that we don’t really need to do all the little organizational things in our day to day life, and that they can be postponed in favour of other more interesting things. At work we used to use the analogy of filling a jar with rocks to help prioritize what work we wanted to do. If you fill the empty jar with sand, then you’ll never fit anything else in. Whereas if you fill the empty jar with big rocks first, then pour small rocks in after the big rocks, then pour sand in after the small rocks to fill the cracks, then fill it with water etc, you can fit much more in. Not to flog this horse to death, but the big rocks are the things we value in life – and if we don’t plan/aim to do those things first in our day-to-day lives, then we waste our time doing the little things that don’t even matter. These little things I mentioned – these should only be done to support the big rocks in our lives, otherwise they become the only thing left and we’d end up being boring as bread. Or wet socks.

In the end I never actually went into Los Angeles. Danny lives in La Verne – so after driving through all the traffic of LA to get there, seeing the surprisingly small city centre, the rolling Hollywood hills, seeing the Hollywood influence of clothing and makeup and bling and vanity everywhere – I did not mind skipping the city tour at all. I caught up with old friends, met a bunch of new cool people, then was happy to keep trucking down to San Diego.

On the way to San Luis Obispo we stopped off at Hearst Castle, back along the Coast Highway, but unfortunately it was one of those places where you have to pay $30 or something ridiculous to take a tour. It was cool to see photos of it anyway, and to see it on top of a hill in the distance. If I owned a castle like this, with a big bath house and common pool, zebras on the lawn etc, then I would definitely make sure there were always people living there. I’ve seen some big houses on my travels – but never seen anyone living in them. Why do people with big houses like to be lonely? I like the concept of lots of people living together, a community of people all contributing to the living situation. It makes me think of The House up in Seattle – Hi Guys!! No photos of the Hearst Castle sorry, we could barely see it with our own eyes let alone my terribad phone-camera. Sorry, I still don’t have an actual camera yet either.

I picked up those two bikers that we met in Andrew Molera along the way, loaded their bicylces into the bus and drove them down to San Luis Obispo. They were happy to take half of the Mary-Iguanas we picked up along the way – and we were happy to be entirely generous with it. These two crazy guys crossed the landslide that was on Highway 1 by foot. They carried their packs across, then carried their bikes across – they had to do about 5 trips to get across. For each step they took across the slide, they slid downwards another step and filled their shoes with rocks – for the few hundred feet of the slide. They said it took an hour and a half to cross.

San Luis Obispo is one of those college towns – I felt like I was in the movie Van Wilder – trashy college bars and people aching to play beer pong everywhere. We hung out with Dave’s cousin who he hadn’t seen in years – and he was happy to take all of the mushrooms we had acquired along the way for a camping trip they were about to go on – and we were happy to get rid of them. We didn’t encounter anything very special in San Luis Obispo.

The next morning we made it down to Pismo Beach and had a delicious road-side lunch that we’re oh-so-good at preparing by now. Explored the cliffs and beach a little bit – caught some shade and chilled out. Then we kept trucking east along the Santa Monica Bay road towards LA. We weren’t going to make it all the way there, so we started looking for places to camp. All the camp grounds we saw around the Santa Monica area were concrete jungles filled with RVs and cost $35 to camp. No Thanks. But we did run into a fireman who suggested to look around for abandoned roads along the highway to park on, and from there to hike down to the beach and camp.

We eventually found a sweet area near Refugio, right off the highway, so we parked next to the railroad then went exploring. We were walking down along the rail road and ran into some kids throwing rocks at a sign. Without even speaking we joined them and spent about 45 minutes throwing rocks at a sign and keeping score of pole hits versus sign hits. We explored for hours, walking along the beach and climbing the hills around it – gathering firewood for an amazing beach fire with no one around for miles. We ate S’mores and lay on the beach under the stars. I really liked exploring the area, there was a huge concrete wall built along the beach covered with graffiti, it reminded me again of that post apocalyptic genre that I like thinking about so much.

The next day we hauled along the bay towards LA, through Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and through several hours of LA traffic. The problem with slow moving traffic and the bus is that it’s got an air-cooled engine, and so without speed it doesn’t get enough cooling. So I had to pull over several times just to let everything cool down – that Oil Temperature Gauge I installed during my first week on the road has already paid for itself. We eventually arrived in LA at my friend Danny’s house, where Dave and I were greeted by his family and a birthday cake for me. It was lovely to have a family dinner and get to blow out candles on a cake – I cannot remember the last time I got to blow out candles for my birthday. Yessss! I made it to 25 years..

After Andrew Molera, Samson went back up to Santa Cruz for a few days, hung out with friends, checked out the surf one last time, then decided to meet up with Devan down in San Miguel. San Miguel is a big winery area, kind of like Napa Valley, about 2 hours South-West of Monterey. There was a landslide on the Coast Highway so they were forced to drive inland, which was convenient because Samson’s bus had developed a fuel leak while they were camping – so he was keen to get to LA to fix the leak with his buddy who lives there, Dante.

They were a little indecisive about what to do once they met up, so they decided to let the decision ferment over a few winery tasting sessions. They cruised around the vineyards looking for some wineries, rows and rows of crops and dry blue sky. It turns out that Devan knows a lot about wine, and had the wine-tasting-host pulling out the wine notes to confirm those subtle citrus flavours he was describing. Devan’s special power is his gift of speech – he can chat to anyone, so he chats to everyone. So basically the wine dude was mega impressed and loaded them up on all the wines he could find. They exhausted the J Lohr wines but shortly found another place to taste where the Cougar-Hosts were very interested in feeding them every wine on the tasting list, then all of their favourite reserves from out the back. Samson and Devan were pretty lit up by this time, there was no chance they were leaving town that night – so they went to the only bar in town and played pool with the locals.

Within 5 minutes Samson and Devan had found themselves a place to stay – some local dude was like “Hey fellas, y’all wanna comes have a shmoke? Jump in my truck we’ll go for a drive.” They loaded into the biggest truck you can imagine, and drove out to this farmer’s vineyard. The farmer, whose name was… Brent… was showing off his property, lighting up a pipe, talking shit etc while racing around the local roads. That was Brent’s special power by the way, a really garish aura of manly bravado. They arrived at his farm where he disappeared inside and then reappeared with a pillow case sized bag of Mary Iguanas. He showed the boys his dirt bikes, quad bikes, guns, clay pigeons, offered them a place to stay in his fifth wheel trailer, said he’d take them riding in the morning, go shooting etc, all sorts of man activities you know. But he was in a real hurry to get back to the bar cuz’ his ‘Old Mama’ would be waiting, and he seemed to be scared of the wrath she would inflict if he kept her waiting. That was her special power by the way, ultimate power over him via a Warder bond. So they raced back through the fields going ridiculous speeds in a ridiculously overpowered vehicle, lighting up his ridiculously sized pipe again, so that Brent could get back to his ‘Old Lady’. They arrived back and Samson and Devan wanted to get some food, Brent ushered them into the best mexican restaurant in town where they had a lavish $100 meal and a few drinks, all of which Brent covered for them.

“So how do you know Gary, Devan?”, asked Brent.

“Oh, I don’t. I just met him today actually, chatting at the bar over lunch.”

“… Oh..” Brent massaged his forehead.

“Ohh I see what happened.. did Gary say something to you about me, that I was a good guy and to look after me or something?”

“.. Yeah he said you were his boy”

“Oh shit I’m sorry, does that change anything?” said Devan

“… No no, nothing at all”…

Needless to say they were very surprised and appreciative of the scrumptious dinsies. After dinner they mounted up the stallions and made the trek out to his vineyard. Brent showed Samson and Devan into his trailer, which was a five-star man-cave. He bustled up an armful of guns off the couch and bed, and cleared away some knives and tools (apparently he makes his own custom gun parts and sells them on ebay). He reached into his pillow case of Iguanas and threw a huge fistful of it onto the couch for Samson and Devan to have. Then he unravels a bag full of mushrooms and gives them that too. Then he left for the night after saying “what’s mine is yours, have at it.” So Devan and Samson are laughing at how random the situation is, and at their lucky fortune, how they were going to ride bikes and shoot guns in the morning. In such a good mood Devan showers up and donned a robe he found somewhere, then proceeded to search the cupboards and fridge for all sorts of food, delicious meat from local farmers, whipped up several rounds of tacos. Ballin’. They went out wandering the vineyards, walking miles and miles of new born grape vines under the moonlight, me in one lane and Dave in the vine lane over. And then f-ing Trollocs jumped out of nowhere!

Brent woke the boys up in the morning with a rifle in one hand, and a pipe in the other… He was shooting Gophers while waiting for some business meeting. He was no longer in the mood to go on a motorbike ride, nor shoot guns with them. So Samson and Devan cleaned up, ate a little food and got the Stallions oiled and warmed up, enjoyed the vineyard sunshine and talked shit while waiting to roll out. Then some local cleaning van pulled up and a woman bought $1200 of the Mary-Iguanas from Brent, several pillow cases worth…

So eventually they bailed out of there and cruised through the vineyards of San Miguel in the direction of San Luis Obispo.

Please note that these images are not real – they are recreations of the story by Stu and Dave.

And so that is the story of Samson McKenzie and Devan Johnston, just another one of the everyday encounters they have on their road. They always see new places, learn new things, but never knowing how things are going to end – they just always seem to work out. That is Samson’s special power by the way, these encounters occur and always work out because he’s Ta’veren.

Drive The Americas

• This is a website for people road-tripping through the Americas, where they can share their stories, photos, words of wisdom etc with other like-minded travelers.
• I guess I’ll have my name up there eventually… maybe?

The Darien Plan

• This is the first website I found when I was researching how to cross the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia. These guys led me to the first site.

Bodes Well

• These are the travelers I just stumbled across today when reviewing the DriveTheAmericas, I saw some travelers with a 71 bus – check out their site and their bus, they look great!

Hunk O' Junk - Before

Read for Road Trip - After

These are great reminders about how possible it really is to make it through the Americas safely, and to have a blast at the same time… Nudge nudge, Mum and Dad, and all those other skeptics ;P Maybe by sharing this it will help to inspire other people to do the same, to help them realize that it’s not so uncommon as they might think, and that even with kids and a job you can still live your crazy-ass dreams. See, I’m not the only crazy one out there!

I’ve added all this stuff to the resources page for future references.

I left the surf town of Santa Cruz, (‘The’ surf town of the USA), to go camping for a few days at Andrew Molera State Park with those peeps I mentioned in my last post. The drive down was really spectacular – amazing cliffs and beaches illuminated by the sun and waves, uninhibited by any major development. Just a small part of the most amazing drive of my trip so far – the coast highway from San Francisco to LA.

The Pacific Highway 1 - Big Sur

I thought I was meeting a big group of people at the camp site but it turned out to be just the two sisters I met, Courtnay and Liz. As you can imagine I was thoroughly disappointed… But all was well because shortly after I arrived we had a few visitors come to our campsite who stayed with us all evening. In the afternoon we went exploring the beaches around the area, waded through streams, admired the stick huts that countless visitors contribute to. The refreshing thing about this campsite was that it was a camping only site, no RVs, not even your vehicle near your tent. So we had to carry stuff from the car park along a nice trail to the campsite about half a mile away.

Liz, our Campsite Mother

Me on the beach at Andrew Molera

The three guys that joined our site were some pretty wild kids – they were cycling down the coast on fixed-gear-bicycles, wearing the most hipster clothes you can imagine. No tents, barely any food, no planning – but they managed to get by. It was an interesting reminder to “Simplify, Simplify” as Thoreau says, and made me question my whole trip with the bus. It made me consider ditching everything and continuing my travels with just a backpack. Well, throughout my trip so far I have been jettisoning as much unnecessary stuff as I can – giving stuff away as gifts, trashing stuff, and pawning some of the bigger items. 

We all hung out around the fire, ate delicious camp food, Shared Some Slivers of Some Super Special Space Sbrownies, some roasted marshmallows with Oreos while three of us passed around Courtnay’s travel guitar and kept the songs flowing until the fire died down. The music and the fire were amazing.

Sweet Serenades by the Camp Fire

I slept in the bus back in the car park, and was awoken by the Park Ranger knocking on my door in the morning. I ignored him and he went away, I knew he couldn’t see through my limo tint windows with mega curtain backing. Stuzor 1, World 0. So far on my trip I have probably slept in my bus about 6 nights out of 7, and the thing about sleeping in the bus is that you get woken up by the sun, the other car traffic wherever you may be, garbage trucks at random hours, and just other early-riser people that are going about their daily business. It’s a good thing though, and actually I wish I naturally woke up that early anyway – I don’t much like the concept of sleeping in.

We packed a little bit of lunch and went on a 10 mile hike through the beach trails (which were littered with Poison Oak plants), during which Courtnay dazzled us with some soulful songs of the road. It felt great to be walking and listening to her sing out in the middle of nature – her voice yodeling and blending soul and folk music together, unaccompanied by other music – just the wind and ocean. 

Stu the Gazelle

We reached a secluded beach at the end of the hike where a river gully met the beach, with countless dead logs that had been washed down to the mouth of the river. Being the me that I am – I love rock running – I was ecstatically and joyfully prancing around from log to log. Bounding from one log to the next without taking time to make sure one foot is stable, knowing you have to figure out the next footing while in mid-leap, the exhilaration and adrenaline rush from the potential to very very badly hurt yourself if you fall, but pushing your balance and agility to the MAX to stay in tact. I love rock running. 

When I first arrived at Andrew Molera Courtnay was talking about her Spirit Animal, and then she asked me what mine was.. Then while we were on this hike Liz mentioned that I was like a Gazelle, and Courtnay exclaimed that a Gazelle was exactly what she was thinking for my Spirit Animal when we first met. So apparently that confirmed the fact that my spirit animal is indeed a Gazelle. Hah! I guess it kinda fits the way I like to bound around from perch to perch when I go hiking… or even walking down the street for that matter.

Sam and Courtnay hiking

Liz and Courtnay

Stu, Courtnay and Liz

Andrew Molera, Big Sur Coastline

Fun path

Courtnay on our hike at Andrew Molera

Sam, Stu 'the Gazelle', and Liz - Log hopping at the end of our hike

David, my friend I met in San Francisco who accompanied me to Santa Cruz, came and joined us on the second day after our hike. The second night was a little wilder – we had about 10 people around our campfire all playing instruments and having fun, and were bombarded by another 10 people later that night. A bunch of us took a long walk through the wilderness to the beach at 3am – insistent not to use flashlights. It was wild.

The next day we left for the nearest small town and ran into some fellow campers from the night before – we decided to join them for a hike after coffee. The hike was a stark contrast to the previous day’s hike – steep Redwood forest hills as opposed to the open beach hills. It was a fun hike and at the end we rope-swing-jumped into a crystal cold stream for funsies.

Morning coffee while sitting in the town stream near Andrew Molera

Liz and Courtnay

Angelica climbing a tree on our hike

Stu, Angelica, and Dave at the top of our hike

Me and Chris, a fellow surfer we met at the campsite

Me and Dave - my travel companion of late

Post-stream-swing wetness

After the hike we had a rad lunch with our new friends by throwing together all the remnants of our food stores into a pot of deliciousness. There’s something special about a meal that everyone contributes to, and that has been scrounged together from whatever is left from everyone’s food stores. No one can have expectations for these types of meals, and thus they’re always surprisingly scrumptious.

Post-hike luncheons

Sorry the photos are very inconsistent – I still don’t have a camera of my own so these are a culmination of everyone’s photos and photos from my phone.