The morning after we did the Narrows, we packed everything back up and sadly took our leave of Zion National Park. But I think we're both planning on going back someday so I'm not too worried about never seeing that park again. We hit the road and crossed out of Utah, through Arizona one last time and into Nevada. Mostly just desert driving except for when we basically drove right through Las Vegas. As I drove, Jimmy called out different names of huge hotel/casinos just so we could say that we saw them. I have to also admit here that I really don't think I'd ever enjoy living in the southwest American desert. Somehow a combination of too much sun/not enough water/and barely any people except for in Las Vegas just isn't appealing to me. But looking at the landscape from inside an air conditioned car is nice:
And then all of a sudden we were in California! And still in the desert. Honestly, by this part of the trip, I think we were both a little sick of camping, worrying about the car and bikes, cooking, packing and everything in between. I know all I really wanted was a shower and to finally sleep in a bed.
Since we didn't really want to do the drive straight to Santa Clara from Zion all in one shot (would have been a solid 12.5 hours of driving) we had one more night of camping ahead of us. So I picked out a campground about halfway there at the southern point of Sequoia National Park. The campground was on this river that fed in to Isabella Lake- which was not only a sight for sore eyes that had been looking at desert and road all day but it was actually just a really cool lake in general. Different coves along the shore had so many trees just popping up (probably because it's the only huge water source for miles) that there were trees just growing in the lake. We had a hard time trying to snap pictures while driving but I also found someone else's picture just to give you an idea of how cool this was:
The campground was one of the most expensive campgrounds we stayed in but we found out that's because they had SHOWERS. I know, fantastic, right? I was psyched. No lie. We both settled in for a quiet night of reading and trying to get some sleep so that we could hit the road early the next day.
The drive the next day was only about 5 hours. And after days of driving through the empty midwest and desert southwest, we started out driving through empty forests and around old ranches wondering where all the people who supposedly lived in California were....
and suddenly found ourselves back in over-populated areas- with malls, restaurants and lots of cars everywhere. Cool things we also found on the road included: TRUCKS FULL OF TOMATOES! And as we got closer there were cherry and corn stands along the side of the road, so we obviously stopped about a half an hour out from Santa Clara to buy a bag of cherries and some corn to cook with dinner that night in our new apartment. I should have taken a picture of the totally packed subaroo outside of the new place, but we were both just so determined to unpack the car as quickly as possible that it kind of happened right away. We then raced off to the first Trader Joe's we'd seen since Massachusetts to stock up on actual food we could put in a fridge and not have to cook or eat right away.
The next day we set out to master the art of the yard sale and I have to say we did REALLY REALLY well. If you ever need help shopping for the best deals at yard sales, you should probably employ Jimmy or me to help you. Because we're really good at finding the best yard sales and getting the best deals. For example within the first weekend in Santa Clara we got:
A two-piece sofa - $40.00
A desk for Jimmy - $5.00
A lamp for the living room - $4.00
A bright red coffee table - $10.00
A small wine rack - $2.00
And since then we've also added:
A desk chair for Jimmy - $2.00
2 small hanging white shelves for the kitchen - $1.00
A set of hanging white shelves for the living room - $5.00
A tall set of white shelves - $10.00
A toaster oven - $7.00
And add in to that a table and stools, a tv, a microwave and a futon & frame that came with the apartment and I'd say we've done pretty well at settling in!
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| cookin' dinner |
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| a little bit messy in the "still unpacking" phase |
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| kitchen and table |
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| hallway |
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| grilling eggplants! |
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| more eggplants! (what's this world coming to?) |
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| like I said, I have 9 billion more freckles, just on my arms |
Which means we're officially in California now! It's about 10am here so I'm going to go for a run and then as I'm cooling down I'll come back and post more about our adventures since arriving.
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