80 Days in America

Because I went to bed early last night, I also woke up early again. Around 7.30AM I woke up in the back of my car, happy that no one else woke me up during the night 😉 I have to say that it’s a nice and exciting experience to sleep in the back of my car and brush my teeth somewhere at the parking place. Before I hit the road today I wrote the blogpost of yesterday, because I didn’t know when I would be online again. I also went to the local market to do some grocery and then I continued my journey.

Following Highway 1 I suddenly saw a sign with the text ‘Horse renting’. Of course I was immediately interested so I turned of from the highway and a couple of minutes later I arrived at a big horse ranch. I asked if I could join a ride and lucky enough a group ride would start in less then an hour. But even better, while I was waiting for the group ride I met a lady who was about to take a private ride of an hour. I asked her if it was ok if I could join her and she liked that. She was an advanced rider and we were just with the two of us and a guide, so we weren’t limited by other beginner level riders of the group. We hadn’t left the ranch yet or we started to canter (slow gallop). Although it was only a ride of an hour, it was so much fun to go canter through the hills. I really enjoyed it and was very happy that I could join the private ride instead of the group ride. The time passed by way to fast and before we knew it, we were on our way back to the stables, but we totally enjoyed it. Back at the stables I said goodbye to the lady and the guide and I continued the journey.

After about an hour driving I turned of the highway and followed a sign with the text ‘lighthouse’, not expecting that it would be another 20 miles driving. Fortunately it was a nice drive through beautiful coast landscape and when I finally arrived the lighthouse, the view was very beautiful. There also was quite some wildlife around the lighthouse. I saw big birds, sea lions and some deer. It was still quite misty, what I heard is normal for this time of the year, so the view at the ocean wasn’t really wide. Till last week I regretted that I took so many clothes with me, but these days I’m really happy that I did. It’s quite cold at the coast, especially after many weeks of hot weather. I’m in particular very happy with my Harvard hoodie which I bought in Boston, keeps me warm these days.

Last night Dawn texted me some directions to go to and I was very happy with that. The directions lead me to a really nice place at the coast with huge rocks and a nice small beach with big waves. Although the sun wasn’t shining when I arrived, it was still very beautiful. I walked around at the beach, climbed some rocks and enjoyed the view till I was getting cold and got back to the car. Dawn also had texted me directions to a rv park (kind of a camping place) where I could stay for the night. That was really nice and the place even had some public wifi connections so I was able to go online again. I had diner at a local fast-food place (trying not to make a habit of that, but sometimes there is no choice) and finished the day by watching a movie in the back of my car.