Time to relax…

After a while in the van, it was time for some real relaxation and we found ours in the form of a 3 night retreat at Sparks. We kicked back and relaxed in a 4 star hotel and I enjoyed the fact that I didn’t have to cook for 3 days. I went swimming almost the whole day while Seb was busy on the laptop sorting things out…the right order of things! We both just needed this time to reload our batteries after sleeping in the van for 4 months.

After our well deserved rest, it was weird and nice at the same time to get back on the road. We drove towards San Francisco because I wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge and we were lucky because it wasn’t swallowed in clouds that day. We also enjoyed a stroll through the local market at the Warf and we were lucky to find a parking spot where we only had to pay 25 cents per hour to park! All the rest of the spots in the neighbourhood were 5 dollars per hour.

Some of the cool old trams that drive around in San Francisco.

The seals just relaxing in the sun.

After a few hours in the city we were glad to get out of the busy life again and we headed towards the coast again to drive the famous Number 1 Highway. In the windy roads and numerous curves Seb was dreaming of the motorcycle again and we both had a very similar feeling of Tenerife while driving there next to the ocean. We were glad that the tourist season was over by then because I think the roads would have been packed otherwise and now and again we could find some tourist free places so we were very lucky!

Looking out over the ocean and dreaming away!

At one point we could go and watch some elephant seals up close and in the wild, so we went down to the edge of the ocean, sat down with the camera and ended up with some real cool pictures of playing seals.

Catching some sun on the beach.

After a few days along the coast we were longing for the mountains again, so we headed back inland towards Kings Canyon.

This time, on one of our hikes, we were very lucky to see another bear up close. He was just sniffing the ground, looking for food and he had no interest in us what so ever!

The sceneries we saw when we were hiking were so beautiful. At this waterfall, I went down to stick my toe in the water because it looked so inviting, but I quickly pulled it back out after feeling the freezing temperature!

This pictures just show you a bit how huge mother nature can sometimes be!

At least it didn’t fall on my head!

In Mariposa, a small town near the Yosemite NP we spent a few days for the Horizons meeting. We had to give our presentation twice and the first time we did here in Mariposa was the best ever! We were both so in to the story and the crowd couldn’t have been any better. We loved it and so did our audience apparently. We had an awesome weekend, we had good (free) food, met a lot of new interesting people and met up again with a lot of other fellow travellers on the same route as ours. In the end we stayed as one of the last ones there before heading out to Yosemite NP.