For this post, I used original diary notes to make you part of the real world roundtrip experience. 🙂

 

 

30th of March 2017

Arrival in San Francisco. 7th visit in the states. 5th road-trip to come. Picked up the black Mustang! Life is good. 🙂

But, f**k it! I can barely walk as of ache in my knees and foot joints. Additionally, my hand wrists ache. What’s wrong? Lucky me, USA is a country of minimum walking but fast cars. 🙂

 

31st of March 2017

Went for a job interview at a start-up company. Afterwards, Arra and I met for lunch. Nice conversation with one of the coolest guys I know. Awesome man!
Keeping up the meeting pace, I met an Oracle Licensing Partner CEO for an interview.

Golden Gate Bridge. Drove south on Highway 1, starting the road trip to L.A. Stayed overnight at a light tower hostel close to Pescadera. They had a jacuzzi, where I watched the stars and listened to the pacific waves at night.

Need food and nutritions – the American way. 😉

 

 

 

Forza Horizon Style:

 

The hostel, yes it’s true, it’s a hostel. 🙂

 

 

1st of April 2017

Headed further south early morning. Highway 1 was closed due to mudslides. So I took a small country road on the backside of the mountains. Just the right roads for the all-new Mustang. 🙂 Drove down to Santa Barbara where Sarita organised a birthday BBQ with excellent food! Amazing!

Still, I am not Anke to move as I wann to. Hate to have some f**ing pain in my leg joints. 🙁

In the car, all was just perfect. 🙂

Killer on the road… 😉

Sorry, I just love that car. 🙂

 

2nd of April 2017

Sarita and I hang out in Santa Barbara, we did some sightseeing and had some excellent ice cream. Some of her friends from LA joined us and we drove up to the hills together. Pizza and sandwiches at Lucky Penny filled us up.

Meeting awesome people! Mo, you are especially awesome! “It’s taking a video!” 🙂

 

Thank you so much for the awesome American experience in crazy Santa Barbara, Sarita! 🙂

 

3rd of April 2017

Left Santa Barbara in the morning to make my way to the Premium Outlet. I developed this aversion towards shopping. Watching this people buying stuff to make themselves happy for a few moments. However, I need  new short pants and someone underwear. Washing every week by hand is getting so boring. Who would have thought. 😉 But before that, a good IHOP breakfast should power me up. 🙂

After the shopping tour, I headed further to Joshua Tree National Park. Beautiful! But I did not made any reservation for a camp site. It’s April. I thought it should not be an issue. It became one. All camp sites were fully booked. Some “Overcrowding Campsites” outside of the national park were outlined. No, I want to camp in the park, I told myself! Wild! So I parked the car in front of one of the bigger camp sites and walked inside. I did this kind of evening camp ground walk that I was well trained by my dad. Our family went camping for years and I always loved it. It goes the following: Walk in a slow mode, greet the people by looking in their eyes, be easy, and analyse the way they answer. Is the person sympatric or not. If so, talk bullshit with them (others call it small talk). Just be open. Doing so, I met a guy, who was sitting alone on a quite big camp ground behind his truck to protect himself from the wind. After testing his sympathy, I asked a question – different this time. “Hi there, may I ask you one question?” “Yea”, he returned. “I see you have some space on your campground and I’m wondering if you would be up for sharing it with my tent?” The man answered, “You wanna share my tent?” I had to laugh, “No, no, I got my own tent.” He returned, “Yea, sure, no problem.” “Thank you, I’m gonna get my car over here. And by the way, I’m Alex.” “Bill, nice to meet you.” I was happy since I managed to get a space and will make this wild nature experience. After sunset, I set up my new one-man-tent with the headlight on my head and gave Bill three of my Coca Cola cans. I had no beer with me. Some short stories and songs on the guitar should get us to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

4th April 2017

The night in the tent was ok. The ground was kind of hard, I bought a very thin sleeping mat. I remembered, I had great pain in my knees while I wanted to turn my body at night. Walking in the morning was again a challenge. Pain. I headed down to San Diego and enjoyed the view on the water-side at Seaport Village. They have an aircraft carrier (one of these big big ships) for exhibition. Crazy. Some sightseeing from the car through the Old Town Historic State Park. Stayed at a hostel in a town close to the sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Highway gas station: Hey bro, no probs, tyre still workin’! 😉

 

5th of April 2017

Made my way back north to LA on Highway 1 and drove up further to Santa Monica. I was about to fly to Fiji that night. On the way, my sister Diana called on Video WhatsApp. Just before we were about to finish our conversation, Diana said that, at home, they don’t quite understand why I should have only a four hour stay on Fiji when I leave on the 5th from LA and later leave the 8th from Fiji. That’s what I calculated and communicated to her earlier. I said, “May I explain again?” “I’m leaving today on the 5th at 11.30 p.m. So it will be the 6th on the plane just after lift-off. The date border adds one day which will make it the 7th… . ….Hää, there is something wrong! Have I calculated it wrong previously? Let me check again!” I started to realize… “Yes, I must have made a mistake. I will have about 28 h hours on Fiji! …Whoop, haha. What’s the impact? Will I require a visa and where will I sleep? Haha!”….good we talked sister heart! Thank you! 🙂

I hang out at the pier of Santa Monica for some time. No visa required, hostel booked. Flight to Nadi, Fidji… See you later my friends in the states! It’s always a great time with you!

 

 

 

Read next: Quick stop over on Fiji.

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