80 Days in America

Around 8.30 this morning I arrived in LA. The weather was absolutely perfect. Not to hot, not to cold and fresh air. The first thing I wanted to do was to go to the beach. Again I made a mistake by underestimating the distances. All excited I took the metro to Long Beach, but instead of a short ride that turned out to be a metro ride of an hour. The most ironic thing was that Long Beach is one of the few beaches without waves. So that was a little disappointment. Fortunately I had something to look forward too.

Before I came to the USA a good friend of mine brought me in contact with her sister who lives in California (@Debbie: your sister rocks!). Two days ago she wrote me an e-mail that they planned to go camping this weekend at a big lake somewhere and they asked if I wanted to join them. Of course I was all excited about that immediately. So I called her from the train and told that I arrived in LA today. Fortunately they lived relative nearby (six hours traveling) so I booked my train to them in the afternoon and a couple of hours later I was traveling again. The first part of this ride was with a touringbus what was nice for a change. Then a couple of hours in the train again and in the evening I arrived at a place called Modesto where Dawn picked me up from the train station.

I was completely overwhelmed when we reached their house. It was so huge! They even have a jacuzzi in the garden 😀 I met Dawn’s husband, Steve. He is a real cool guy who once was with the Air borne and is a federal officer now. It’s a long time ago since I met people so welcoming as Dawn and Steve. They gave me my own room with my own bathroom! After they showed me around in their house we went for diner at the local Delly’s and get to know eachother. Back home, later that night I was so happy to sleep in a real bed again after two days sleeping in the train. The bed was huge, even for a tall guy like me. Really thankful and with a big smile at my face I felt asleep.