After an emotional farewell to Ronda – chiefly because we only discovered upon handing her back that there was a ‘free stuff’ section at the hire place that would have saved us a lot of money 6 weeks earlier – we grabbed an Uber and went to pick up our hire car. It was weird being in such a small nippy go cart after so long in Ronda, and Hoff found it slightly disconcerting being so low to the ground. Heading North we stopped off at an REI, a superb camping and outdoors shop we’d heard about from a fellow traveller in Zion NP. There we managed to grab a super discounted tent, after pleading with them to let us get access to the discount sale despite arriving 15 mins late. Then it was back on the road and the familiar search for a place to stay started again.
Having said no to a couple of dodgy looking places and finding another couple closed for the winter (in October!!), we stumbled across a (very) overpriced campground on the edge of a place called Guernville, a weird hippy cross redneck cross LGBT community (don’t ask – the explanation takes too long). We pitched our tent for the first time and then headed into town to see what we could find. After an overpriced beer at the first bar we ended up wine tasting at a place run by a lovely chap called Gary. Gary told us the story of the local town and gave us some good tips about what to see in the area. He also gave us free drinks after I tried to chase down some other customers who inadvertently left without paying (to no avail) and the wine definitely made our first night in the tent more bearable.
We awoke to a chilly and misty morning, and after a rather dank shower during which Hoff and I took turns on spider watch (a big spider was on the shower curtain so whilst one person washed the other made sure the spider didn’t get too close to them), we had our first breakfast in the open. It wasn’t glamorous but it was fun all the same. We quickly packed up our tent and drove on, aiming for nowhere in particular but hoping to find somewhere to stay on the coast.
Driving into a little place called Bodega Bay we stumbled across a small Sunday farmers market. Walking in we both said we wouldn’t blow the budget and only stick to our pre cooked pasta. This resolution lasted about 5 seconds and we ended up troughing down samosas, cheese, pizza and brownie, coming away with a block of very stinky fromage to eat with our remaining cheap Walmart plonk. Feeling both ashamed and happy with ourselves (ashamed at not having the willpower but happy from the sugar and flavour high) we found a place to camp by the bay and set out into the dunes for a walk. As you’ll have noted from previous posts, we somehow manage to get lost on even the simplest of treks and the dunes were no different. Eventually we found our way and got back to the tent where we spent the afternoon in the car watching West Wing, eating cheese and swigging wine from our travel mugs!
The next morning we shook the sand off the tent and drove east, where we ended up in a place called Sugar Loaf State Park just outside of a town called Kenwood. This ended up being one of our favourite campsites as there were very few people and the scenery and wildlife were amazing. Our tent was surrounded by quails, wild turkeys, woodpeckers and deer, all of whom weren’t afraid to come close. The first afternoon we walked the 3 miles back into town and then went wine tasting, wangling a couple of free tastings in the process. These were much more up our street compared to the awful tasting we did in Santa Barbara, and we ended the evening with a couple of burgers at a local restaurant. We couldn’t face the 4 mile walk back so we jumped in an uber. That night we woke up at 2am to try and see the forecasted meteor shower, but although we spotted a couple we didn’t see they spectacular display we were expecting so we turned in again, and were serenaded to sleep by the frogs in the creek behind our tent.
After a quick shower the next morning – the showers here were 25 cents a minute so we went back to the Navy style we’d perfected in Ronda – we closed down shop and aimed for Sonoma, the famous wine region just down the road. On arrival we spent 4 hours walking around the town, which actually has some interesting history for an American town, and grabbed a bite to eat followed by a big scoop of local ice cream. We’d been hoping to find somewhere nearby to pitch our tent but the information centre told us the best place to try was the place we’d stayed the previous night. We had slightly expected this and already warned off the other campground, so we headed back to Sugar Loaf and after setting up camp again (we’d got pretty good at putting up and taking down the tent by now) and doing the bleep test in the car park (much to the confusion of our fellow campers) we endeavoured to eat as much of the remaining stinky cheese as we could, hiding in the car to avoid the mosquitos and watching another couple of West Wings. Pretty glamorous camping (or glamping as the cool kids call it).
We awoke on our last proper morning of USA travels to the sounds of quails and turkeys right around our tent. We packed everything away for the last time and aimed the hire car for San Francisco, where we’d booked an Air BNB before our flights the next day. It was nice to finally have a proper shower and a real bed to sleep in after 7 weeks on the road, and we celebrated our last night in the States with a slap up steak dinner. With alarm clocks set for 0345 we turned in for the night, sad to leave the US behind but excited about what lay ahead.
No sooner had our heads hit the pillows then we were woken up by someone downstairs having a loud phone call on their balcony, and minutes after Hoff had politely told them to shut up, our alarms were blaring and we were off to San Fran airport. We schlepped our kit over to the check in and before we knew it we were rolling down the runway, Miami bound.
5 hours later and we touched down in Florida, where we had time to scoff a burrito before getting in line again for our flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador. We also had the remnants of the stinky cheese to eat, which Hoff had fashioned into a rather posh cheese and ham sandwich. We each managed to get one down the hatch but couldn’t face the prospect of another, nor did we think our fellow passengers would like us eating them on the next flight, so using bio-diversity restrictions as an excuse we sneakily dropped them in a bin then hopped on the plane before we could feel too guilty.
4 hours (and 30 minutes spent using McDonald’s WiFi to message our driver) later and we were in the taxi to our hotel. We were only in Guayaquil for one night as it was back to the airport early the next day to head to the Galapagos, so after a quick shower we hit the hay, looking forward to properly starting the next part of our adventure.
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