31st August, Day 7 - Paradise

On Wednesday, we pack up our tents again and continue towards Paradise, the hometown of Franz's host parents. We set off around noon and were supposed to have a performance in Sacramento - unfortunately, we can't attend that anymore.

But this makes things much easier for us because we can relax and settle into the new campsite and set up all the tents again. Whether there are raccoons there in the national park that sneak around the tents at night and help themselves to our rice cakes remains to be seen.

The further north we travel, the warmer it gets. In the next few days, we expect temperatures around 40°C, and at night it should still be around 25°C - twice as much as the night before near San Francisco. So we won't be freezing. On the contrary, the heat is oppressive, and without a proper air conditioning in the bus, it's almost cooler outside during the pee break than inside.

At the campsite, Franz's host parents Pete and Shelly join us right away. They will accompany us for the next few days and offer their help and support if we need anything. By the way, we have the campsite all to ourselves. In the middle of nature with an incredible view that we can still enjoy before the sun goes down.

Instead of raccoons, there are apparently real bears here. And rattlesnakes. But the bears are more interested in our food than in us, and as long as we don't provoke the rattlesnakes, we are safe from them as well.

As it gets dark, Aaron, Freddy, Franz, and Basti give us a little private concert, and then we finally have the one-pot pasta by chef Baur.