Our final two days of the trip were spent on the California coastline. The region known as Big Sur is popular for its forest that ends in spectacular cliffs that overlook the ocean. We took on a walk that lasted for a few hours and also stopped at really nice look outs along Highway 1, which weaves through the area. We settled in for the night in the town of Lompoc with a wine maker, Steve who was great fun to spend the evening with. We didn't dare bring him w...

We decided to spoil ourselves and stay in Monterey for a whole two nights in order to have a bit of a rest day and look around the town. We were lucky enough to be staying with Christine, a fun, easy going grandmother with a lovely house, home baked cookies and free passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium was pretty impressive and well worth a visit. We also went antiquing, much to the surprise of the two of us, and checked out the Fisherman's Wharf whe...

Our next big goal for the USA was to do some of Highway 1 so we made our way to the coast via Death Valley National Park and Pinnacles National Park. On the way we stayed in Bakersfield with Casey, another one of our great couchsurfing hosts.

Our last days in The States and with Kevin were spent in San Diego, staying with Matt in an apartment right in down town. We enjoyed just wandering the streets, checking out art galleries and nice back alley social areas. We kept our eyes peeled for anything from the movie Anchor Man and true to form, the weather was hot. With all the art, niche pubs, beaches and Mexican food, we all agreed it would be a nice place to live.

We visited Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks as the final parks on our road trip. We parted ways with our host, Tom, in the morning and took our customary hike to a lookout spot once we reached Kings Canyon. We though the most spectacular parts of this park are drive through areas, and therefore the hike didn't give us anything extra or better scenery wise than we gained from the car. We still enjoyed ourselves, the novelty of hiking as a threesome proba...