Almost 2 months in and I’d say the most surprising thing about living our vanlife is how easy the transition has been! It really feels like home with plenty of space. The biggest challenge has been missing friends and family back in Seattle.
Speaking of Seattle, we made the tough decision not to go to Seattle before heading to Colorado for June and July. Based on the pace we’ve set we decided it would just be too much to try and get back to Seattle and then over to CO by early June. As a result we’ve already started heading east.
It’s been over 3 weeks since my last post and I have a lot to cover, so I’m mostly going to do it in pictures, many of which have been taking on my runs. It’s a fun challenge to try and get good pictures without stopping, although some of the views recently have been worth stopping for. We’ve visited some incredible places over the last few weeks, and my iPhone photos really don’t do them justice, but hopefully give some small sense of the beauty of this part of California.
Ojai California is a beautiful town that we’d love to go back to and spend more time in. I left off my last post half way through our visit, so only have a couple of photos from a foggy, wild flower filled trail run to share.
From Ojai we made our way back to the coast and spent a night in Santa Barbara. We love SB, and really wished we had planned more time there.
We left SB and stopped in Solvang briefly before heading to Morro Bay for a couple of nights. Mia LOVES the beach. Mia actually knows the word beach, and will start getting uncontrollably excited if you mention it. As we drove into Morro Bay Mia started sniffing the air vent because she could smell the sea air. And she was beyond excited to actually go down to the beach. She had a blast digging in the sand and chasing rocks.
After Morro Bay we spent a night at a winery in Paso Robles (we needed provisions for the long drive), then explored Big Sur and Point Lobos.
From Big Sur we spent a night in Monterey where Mia got some more beach time. From there I went for a run in the Forest of Nisene Marks on the way to San Jose, where Jami was schedule to catch a flight back to Seattle for work.
With Jami off on work travels for a week, Mia and I drove over to Yosemite. I had never been, and it exceeded my expectations. Most days I ran and or hiked at least twice, and I still feel like there is so much that I missed and want to go back to see.
Walking with Mia!
Incredible waterfall and rainbow that I caught just at the right moment. This looks better as a still image, but is pretty cool as a GIF as well (see the still in the gallery below).
We met Jami back in San Jose at the end of the week. Unfortunately she was flying out again to Miami and then to Seattle, so Mia and I had another solo week. We decided to stay closer to civilization and catch up on some RV maintenance and upgrades in Sacramento. Jami joined us again at the end of the week and we met up with our fabulous Seattle friend Daisy, who was in town visiting family, for dinner. On Sunday I ran some trails with Daisy in Auburn CA before we started east. Our first stop is Lake Tahoe - stay tuned for those pics.
[Note from Jami: it’s still not a van!]
Thanks for reading!