20th January: Muir Woods

On our 8th day, the O’Sol guys had to work in the morning, so I had time to sleep in and write another article for you. At 13:30 Enrique, Audrey, Khalid and I headed off to finally see some Sequoias. On our way, we caught a glimpse of the rainbow next to the beautiful Bay Bridge and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time.

A few minutes’ drive away from the entrance of Muir Forest, a sign indicated that there was no phone signal in the forest and that it was our last chance to pull over and make a reservation online. When we arrived, we were all low on energy, but we still managed walk around for about an hour. The trees were quite impressive, really tall and wide. To avoid damaging the nature, we had to stick to the trail, which also meant that we couldn’t take any pictures hugging the trees, like you often see on photos you can find on the internet.

We were incredibly lucky, as it was supposed to rain the whole day yet it remained dry while we were in the forest. As soon as we stepped into the car, it started raining cats and dogs!

Now, not only were we low on energy, but also hungry. I was still craving for my mini-donuts, so we went to Pier 39. Despite the wind and rain blowing into my face, I ran for my delicious mini-donuts with cinnamon sugar, while the others waited for me in the car to go to eat a Poke Bowl afterwards. I felt bad having made that detour just for the mini donuts, but I was so exhausted that I had to give into my craving.

We had planned to go to China Town afterwards to go for a massage, but we were too tired even for that. So we just went home, watched Tarzan and went to sleep.

21st January: Our journey to Hollywood

On the 9th day of our road trip, Enrique and I drove through Silicon Valley in the morning to catch a glimpse of the Facebook, Google and Apple buildings. We were actually pretty unimpressed by the simple buildings, which imagined would look much more spectacular.

At 10:30, Enrique and I left our Airbnb in Redwood City to head off on the direct route to Los Angeles. Audrey, Idriss, Max and Khalid took the other car to drive along the beach. We had a pretty long 6-hour journey ahead.  

At a gas station, I finally got some of the nachos that I had seen some days ago. I added looooots of (artificial) cheese sauce, jalapenos and onion. Enrique found it disgusting how I could eat something so obviously unhealthy, but I responded that I had to try all those things since we were in the US. I couldn’t possibly just fry some vegetables if I was in the country which gave us all sorts junk food.

When we arrived in Los Angeles, we spotted something interesting: on the highway there was a “carpooling lane” for cars carrying 2 or more people. Big US cities suffer from too many cars on the road, most of them carry only 1 person (the driver). Of course, we happily took the carpooling lane and enjoyed that privilege that we wouldn’t have in Europe.

As we arrived at our AirBnB in Hollywood (yes, Hollywood!), we first had to wait for the owner to bring us the key. We figured that some of the flats we had rented in Las Vegas, as well as the one in LA, weren’t supposed to be rented out as AirBnBs. So, the “owners” sometimes behaved dubiously. This time, we were told what the guy’s car looks like and were instructed to follow it when he arrived. Thankfully, he led us straight to the flat’s garage, but naturally we a bit worried by the whole situation.

I managed to take some time again to write an article, and when the other car arrived, the others went for dinner. I decided to enjoy the hot tub instead before going to sleep in Hollywood.

Written by Julia Heuritsch | Uploaded on 30th January 2019