From the country side to the Ocean

Driving from the country side to San Diego: A big adventure! We drove through Phoenix, that city is like an oven.  We arrived there with 120°F and went straight into a mall to escape the heat. The next day, we had to leave; we couldn’t stay longer there… So we took the road again driving through the desert. Unfortunately, our van and the traffic didn’t help us! We broke down 3 times and stayed 4 hours in a traffic jam! Luckily, strong soldiers help us to move the van at a safe place…

Once in San Diego we met our friend Silvan with who we spent our winter skiing with in Canada. It was perfect to have a friend as a tour guide and who showed us all the good surf spots and the city!
In Pacific Beach, we met another guy: Colin. He just moved in his new apartment and he still missed a lot of stuff in house. So we found the solution, we traded him our 2 bikes for a shower and the restrooms every day! And that’s what we did… This gentleman hosted us for our two weeks in San Diego for the trade of our 2 bikes! We spent two amazing weeks in the area: surfing, biking, golfing, the zoo, museums, Coronado Island, chilling on the beach, partying and enjoying our time there!

Unfortunately, we feel the end of our trip… We had to sell our van… Yes we did! Our beauty is not anymore in our hands, we sold it but for a good price. We can be happy because it is not easy to sell a Canadian car in California. Luckily the dealer agreed to do all the paper works to register it.

Lake Powel and Grand Canyon!

When we left Monument Valley and checked on the map with the road we had to  take to go to the Grand Canyon, we saw that there was a huge lake “on the way”! It’s was still a detour from 250miles but we really wanted to jump in a cool lake and hang out one day next to Lake Powell. Actually we were thinking about renting a small motor boat. Afterwards, we saw that it wasn’t in our budget so we used our arms as a motor, and rented a kayak! We paddled for hours through the huge lake between all the big boats and jet-skies… Fortunately we had our kayak to discover beautiful small islands and cliffs from which we had a lot of fun…Now let’s go to the natural Disneyland “Grand Canyon”! We did all the overlook points to enjoy the scenery of the crazy canyon, but yeah: it’s like if you are in the middle of nowhere but at the same time you have 100 people who surrounded you! You have to fight to be at the front against the fence to have a picture without cameras, cell phones or even Ipads on it!

The second day there, we decided to go hiking into the canyon and escape the crowd, and that was way better! It was hard not only because of the heat but also because we are not use to hiking like that. “Usually” when we hike on a mountain, it gets cooler progressively when you get higher. When you are tired you can always walk down… In a canyon when you walk down, you are not really tired, but it get’s warmer at the bottom! Once at the bottom you have to walk all the way up again! Luckily we saw a lot of wildlife: Male Elks, Condors…