Three Days on the Road...

This blog has to be quick because right now we are being timed by a librarian who seems to be very strict about the time limit (20 minutes) she has given us for internet privelages.

On Saturday morning we left Kelly's house (Kevin's cousin), and she drove us all the way to Malibu to give us a headstart on catching a ride away from LA. We stopped along the Pacific Coast Highway near a lookout spot where the water was green and dolphins were rolling playfully through the waves. Our first ride north came from a pair of German guys who said they wanted to go to San Francisco. In the car we talked about politics; the differences between driving privelages and drinking privelages in our two countries; and anything we could think of talking about. After riding in the car with them for several hours we became friends and ended up taking pictures together at various stops including a beach filled with hideous looking, lazy, bloated elephant seals. Near dark we had the Germans, Bastian and Christoph, drop us outside Point Lobos State Park. We hopped the fence and hid out a little ways from the ranger station till morning, terrified of bears and "black eagles".

The next day we started trying to get rides early but didn't have any luck until almost 10:30 when Ernesto gave us a ride to Seaside, CA where he recommended we get money from Western Union to head home. However, we spurned his advice and after charging our phones and buying a map, we received a ride from Lisa to Gilroy, CA (the garlic capitol of the world). We waited in Gilroy for a little bit and met a strange man who made us leave the sidewalk where we were soliciting rides because he said, "We own the sidewalk". After about an hour of waiting we switched up our signs (one read: San Francisco or North, and the other read: 2 College kids from North Carolina). We made a new sign that read: We brushed our Teeth This Morning. That did the trick. We scored a ride with three college girls on their way to Santa Rosa (Which scholars say means Rose Killer) and ended up getting a guided tour of San Francisco with Meg, Stephanie, and Erin. After the tour, Meg took us to her house where her parents showed us immeasurable hospitality, allowing us to shave with their razors, use their shower, do our laundry, eat with them for dinner, and sleep in the guestbedroom.

The next day Meg dropped us off on Highway 12 headed east. We were only by the road for maybe an hour when Matt from North Cal picked us up and took us east almost a 100 miles to Sacramento. He was a good guy who had dreams of being a farmer, a man after my own heart, and he even gave us "lucky crystals" that his friend collected from a cave in Arkansas. In Sacramento we really had a struggle finding a ride and thought for a little while we might have to sleep in Wal-Mart, a movie theater, or Barnes and Noble because it was raining and we were in a bad part of town. Luckily, Beauty school student Tess and her friend Brenden gave us a ride to Auburn to escape Sacramento where we ended up in another sketchy part of town. Luckily two highschool girls took pity on us and gave us a ride out of the bad part to an area where we could definitely camp but probably not catch a ride on the Interstate 80 since it was so rural. However, our lucky crystals pulled through and within 30 minutes our new friend Teddy came up to us in his car for the second time (The first time he was only going one exit east) and offered to take us to Lake Rawlins. After 10 minutes in the car his offer changed and instead he took us to Taco Bell where he treated us for dinner then drove us all the way (nearly 80 miles) to Truckee, CA where we are currently staying with our new friend Soren. Soren has an awesome house and has been so nice and interesting to get to know.

Our internet time is about to be revoked so I will sign off and later, Kevin will upload videos and photos and tell you about them. Follow us on twitter or facebook too. We are trying to update those sites as much as possible from Kevin's phone.

That's all for now.