By now we had settled into the driving, so getting onto the highway wasn't nearly as scary as before and soon we were well on our way to Yosemite. About an hour in we started passing Strawberry stalls and once the temptation grew too much, we stopped and picked up a pack or two - they were huge and juicy and delicious!We arrived at our campsite shortly after lunchtime on Sunday 13 May and quickly made camp. We had lunch, packed the remainder of the food in the be...

Our train pulled into Mountain View station at around mid-afternoon on Tuesday 8 May. Not knowing any better, we ended up walking for almost an hour in the blazing hot sun with all our things :-/ So we were relieved to finally arrive at Vlad & Sonali's house. Sonali studied speech therapy with Jamie (see Seattle post) and have remained friends. They welcomed us warmly into their home and promptly offered us some ice-cold water - just what we needed after o...

Our train pulled into the station at around lunch time on Saturday 5 May. We caught a connecting bus to the financial district and then, since we had nowhere to go, headed for the nearest Starbucks. We spent the next few hours trying to find a CouchSurfing host - still to no avail :-/ Later we got an all-you-can-eat pizza special at a nearby pizza place, before continuing our quest for accomodation at a different Starbucks. When evening came around and still no...

We arrived at the Seattle bus terminal on the evening of Monday 30 April. Our hosts had provided us with super-detailed instructions on how to get to their house in New Holly, so we had no troubles navigating the public transport :-) We would be staying with an old frind of Monique's, Andy, and his wife Jamie and 3-year-old daugher Maya. Monique met Andy years ago on a church camp in South Africa and later visited again after working on a Summer Camp in Americ...

Vancouver Island is quite a large island just west of Vancouver. Our journey there involved catching a bus, ferry, train, bus, ferry, bus and finally another bus to Ben's digs, a CouchSurfing host who had kindly agreed to put us up for a few days. We arrived on Friday, 27 April and were welcomed by his housemates who we chatted with for a while before Ben got home. Monique & I popped down to the grocery store to get some things for dinner, and then the thre...