Roadtrip in California

Dear followers,

As you know from our previous post, we have been on vacation for the last two and a half weeks. To avoid overwhelming you, I will report on the first part of our vacation in California in this post and Florida in the next one.

On Wednesday evening after work, we flew from Pittsburgh to San Francisco. Right at the airport, we met up with Sven (my brother) and Chiara (his girlfriend). The joy of reunion was, of course, great since 11 months of our year in the USA had passed. Accordingly, it had been a long time since we last saw each other. Once we had recovered from the flights, we started our road trip the next day. We spent the first day in San Francisco. We visited Alcatraz, explored Lombard Street, rode the Cable Car, wandered through Fisherman's Wharf, and finally stopped by the Golden Gate Bridge.

On Friday, we continued by car to Yosemite National Park. We spent two days there and went on a few hikes. We camped in a tent right in the middle of the National Park. Definitely a new experience that will stay in our memories. On Monday we continued to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park. There, we saw one of the largest trees in the world, among other sights.

After visiting the three national parks, we drove on to Los Angeles. Of course, we took a look at the world-famous Hollywood sign, checked out the Walk of Fame, and strolled through Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Since we really enjoyed Santa Monica, we added an extra day there and skipped the originally planned Joshua Tree National Park.

On Wednesday, we set off again and drove along Highway 1 to Pismo Beach. We stopped in Santa Barbara for a Whale Watching tour. We can really recommend this as we saw a lot of whales, and there were also some volunteers on the boat who were very motivated and answered all questions and explained a lot. Pismo Beach was initially just meant as a short overnight stop, but it turned out to be a very charming little town with a great beach!

On our second-to-last day together, we continued to Monterey. Since a large portion of Highway 1 is closed on this route, we had to drive a bit inland. However, we had a very nice view of the mountains on the way. After about 2.5 hours of driving, we arrived in Monterey and spent the rest of the day visiting the Point Lobos State National Reserve. There we could spot some sea lions with pups.

We also made the most of Friday, our last day together. We started the day with the so-called 17 Mile Drive. This begins very close to Monterey and partly runs along the coast with fantastic views of the ocean. After that, we drove via Half Moon Bay to the airport in San Francisco. For Chiara and Sven, it was time to embark on the long journey home, while we spent one more night in a hotel before heading to Miami on Saturday.

Chiara and Sven, we were very happy to have spent the vacation with you and had a wonderful time together! Thankfully, this time the farewell wasn’t too hard because we will see each other again soon back home!