It has been a long time since we have blogged, but we are back on it again, gearing up for the next leg of our year of travels! We will be heading to Quito, Ecuador on December 25th with plans to work our way down to the edge of the South American Continent. In anticipation of traveling to South America for at least the next two months, here is a brief summary of what we have been up to since we arrived in Los Angeles on Sept. 30th, 2010.
October 2010
We literally got off the plane from Spain and packed up the car to drive to Tucson, Arizona for JJ’s first Med School Interview at the University of Arizona. We took our bikes and went hiking and biking around town, caught up with some friends and then made our way back to LA. JJ took off next to New Orleans for his interview at Tulane and I made my way back to Los Angeles. After the first week in October, we settled in at JJ’s Dad’s house and began to find our stuff, our taste for Trader Joe’s, and dealt with our desires to just be “taken care of”. We are lucky to have family and friends that did just that. JJ continued his interviews at Vermont and one here at UCLA/Drew. Meanwhile, we hiked, surfed, biked, and relaxed. Who wouldn’t love this? We packed up the car once more to head back to Tucson at the end of the month for our friend’s Andy and Wig’s Wedding and to tour the National Parks of Utah for the next 2 weeks in a giant loop. On our way to Tucson, we stopped at Joshua Tree National Park for a day of hiking and car camping. We went all out since we were not backpacking and had the XXL tent, air mattress, camping chairs, marshmallow skewers, 2 stoves, huge cooler, etc. ensemble. We had a great time. The wedding in Tucson was amazing! It was so great to see all of our college friends in one place! Everyone seemed awesome and it was truly a beautiful day in so many ways. We spent Halloween dressed up as Superman and Superwoman, playing in an alumni Frisbee game alongside other superheroes, rockers, and Julia Childs.
November 2010
We made our way from Tucson to the Grand Canyon and spent two nights camping there, checking out other parts of the park we had not seen. We swiftly avoided hitting an ELK head on and enjoyed getting breakfast at the El Tovar Lodge. Next, we drove Northeast to Canyonlands National Park. We did not really know what to expect at this park and were incredibly surprised with the awesome hikes we did, the beauty, and our fantastic campsite. We will definitely be back to Canyonlands for a backpack. We then did the same two day car camping and hiking at Arches NP where the highlight was walking over the rock fins, viewing huge arches, and our makeshift outdoor shower. JJ said Delicate Arch was one of the coolest things he has ever seen, which made me really happy. Next up was Capital Reef NP, where we took an awesome scenic drive, hiked through unbelievable rock formations with every shade or rock color you could imagine, and avoided a crazy storm. After Capital Reef, where we only stayed one night because we did not love the campsite, it was really cold, and a fox tried to harass us, we made our way to Bryce NP. To get to Bryce we drove through a few snowstorms and decided not to camp. We slept in a cozy motel and JJ cooked our dinner in the bathroom on our stove! We enjoyed hiking through Bryce the next two days, battling the cold, and happily made our way to Zion NP where we planned to camp again. After the gorgeous drive, we were craving a hike, so we quickly set up our tent and literally ran up Angels Landing. We were the last ones to get up to the top and enjoy all the views of Zion Canyon. We hiked back with our headlamps on. The next day, we hiked some other parts of the Canyon and reminisced about the backpacking trip we did there a few years ago. All of the hikes we did were really spectacular and we just had a really great time, even though we braved the cold and woke up with frost on our tent a few times! It was a great time to see the National Parks.
After driving back to LA, we made our appearance at Justin’s Mustache Party and then flew to Texas for the Thanksgiving Holiday. We rented a car and drove to Shreveport, Louisiana to be with Julie’s Grandmother, where we enjoyed good food (discovered creole mustard), scrabble, and had a very nice visit. Thanksgiving was a Julie’s Aunt’s house and we had a good time visiting with her cousins, aunts, and uncles. After Thanksgiving dinner and visiting with her second cousins, everyone went out for drinks and dancing. In Houston, we spent the remainder of our time visiting with family and friends, running Memorial Park, and relaxing. Thank you Mom and Dad for making time in Texas wonderful. Jamie, Jessica, Clay, and Nick it was awesome to see ya’ll, cant wait until next time. And – if we didn’t see you this time, lets make a plan for next time we are in Texas!
December 2010
We got back into LA the first week of December and have been enjoying our time. We had several very nice family Chanukah parties, made our way over to our local dive bar (the Barrell), and have spent some time with our friends. We are almost done hiking all 70 miles of the Backbone Trail through the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles (which we began on a crazy idea almost 2 and a half years ago). Right now, we are sitting at the kitchen table on Milaca Place trying to plan out the next two months in South America. We leave on Christmas Day (less than 2 weeks!) and need to get a few more things done, but are happy to have our batteries recharged, and to have been hugged by our family and friends. More updates from Quito in a few weeks!
