Strapazen

A little Dutch documentary (about wasting time in Phoenix, AZ)

Immer gerade aus

Dear all,

We're in Arizona! It's some 30 degrees centigrade 24/7, the cities are as uninspiring as I've ever seen them and the gas is about twice as cheap as it was in California.

After Sanders last update two days ago, we drove via the outskirts of LA (still some 60 kilometres away) to Joshua Tree National Park. Along the way, I (Jasper) bought a new tent, as my old 2-person tent which I had bought in Seattle proved way too noisy under windy circumstances, robbing me of three nights of sleep. Now, we have a luxurious 3-person tent with wifi, a bath tub and escalators and the three of us are now able to go on multi-day hikes!

We had found out the location of the free overflow campground of Joshua Tree Village where we could stay the night. However, the navigation system directed us to a very uneven patch of desert which happened to be the property of a beer-drinking, red-neck giant with a very frightening German Shepherd and an equally frightening wife (we've not been able to distinguish between the two). Luckily, we were allowed to spend the night 5 meters away on the other side of the road, outside of the rightful property of this charming gentleman.

The next day, we drove to Joshua Tree National Park and out of fifteen people inside the visitor centre, nine persons were Dutch! After having received warnings about dehydration and the presence of snakes and turtles (yes, turtles, I don't know why either) we set off for the desert. We walked two short, one-mile nature trails which led us to a canyon with completely weathered, yellowish granites interspersed with Joshua trees, some erratic flowers and more rocks before climbing a 400-meters high mountain called Ryan Mountain which gave us a terrific overview of the desert plain. We'd never been in a desert before and it was awesome; it's strange to realize that Indian tribes were able to live off the land where we'd be dead in two days' time.

We had dinner at Jack in the Box because we just had to know what kind of food was being served in a place called Jack in the Box. It turned out to be hamburgers and unlike the McDonalds, these were really tasty! Afterwards, we headed to the McDonalds for an icecream cone which we ate in the Hoff; we were watching two drunk tramps having a fight right outside the entrance while a third one took off with the meagre possessions of one of them.

This afternoon, we arrived in Phoenix where we'll be picking up Kaylee from the airport Friday morning. However, Phoenix is a very, very dull place without any entertainment, culture or whatever, so we'll be spending the next day talking to people at home via Skype, writing cards, shopping for groceries and shorts, repainting the Hoff, eating out of our own and each others noses, attempting to break the world record for wearing the most purple t-shirt and going for a swim in the one swimming pool which isn't open only from late May to early August. Friday, we'll head for the Grand Canyon, where we'll be staying with Kaylee for a week before taking off to Vegas. See you next time!  

Oh sweet Sun

Since Frans wrote our last update, we've been blessed with sun, sun and some more sun. This has yielded some inevitable results. Jasper is already more tanned than I will ever get. Frans seems to be incapable of getting sunburned but he's slowly becoming a pretty blondine. My skin is peeling off.

We happened to be in Yosemite NP at the beginning of National Park Week, which meant that people who normally can't be bothered to go there decided to take there dog for a walk, go biking (or whatever they call biking here) and occupy every single square metre of the park. We managed to find a pretty terrific hike though (pictures on picasa https://picasaweb.google.com/thehoffmeister42), which ended at the video in our last post. Because that was our first really sunny day, we didn't have sunscreen on us, so by the time we got back down, Frans couldn't look at me without laughing. My clowns nose was gone pretty soon, but there is still skin peeling off my arms and neck.

After Yosemite, we decided to go and see some really big trees in Sequoia NP. We found a place to spend the night really close to the park entrance (we got a discount for being Dutch, hurray) where we could hear some horny bulls calling. We never saw any bulls though, and next morning we were wondering where in the world they were when the owner of the campsite came over to chat with us about being Dutch and told us there were no bulls around. We'd been listening to bull frogs all the time.

Sequoia NP was a fairly big disappointment. There were some big trees, but they weren't nearly as impressive as the Redwoods and there was ~3.5m of snow to make sure there was no way in the world we could go hiking. So we drove on and took a shower in the river instead.

Sequoai was our last view of the high mountains for a while, and we left for Lake Isabella, an artificial lake with a free campsite, where for the first time since the Nightmare of Chillwack we camped on the same site for more than one night. Even though the mountains weren't really high anymore, we could still do some serious hiking and reached some pretty cool  vista points.

Tomorrow we'll be frying our asses of in Joshua Tree NP and then we're on our way to Phoenix and the Grand Canyon!

California! (continued)

Hi y'all! (Genghis Khan, 2001)

I (Frans) shall continue the story at that wet and rainy day, called the day after the Redwood hike. It was a Friday as I recall and we left, after two skype sessions, one for Sander and me and one for Jasper, our dear old highway 101 to stay close to the ocean on highway 1. As the rain continued to batter on the Hoff this nice little highway started winding up and down towards the coast. With a mean velocity of 25 mph (40 k/h) for miles and miles our stomachs (except the drivers) started to disagree. As we finally reached the coast, the weather was too bad to enjoy the beautiful view of worlds biggest ocean. As dusk already showed itself we finally got a camping spot in a desolated forest.

Without the expected bears around our van we brushed our teeth in a cloudy though dry Saturday morning and we let Jack hit the road again. After an hour or so the sun had found a way through the clouds and we enjoyed the scenic ragged formations resisting the incoming waves. At the end of the day, in weather at least 10 degrees warmer compared to Friday, we parked the Hoff in a nice and relaxed small town some 100 km north of San Francisco to enjoy a fresh cookie in a open bar with, of course, free wifi. The overnight camping spot was at the Home Depot in Windsor after having a great omelet in the park downtown.

With a lot of excitement and nerves we drove the Hoff over the good old 101 towards the south. Our first major benchmark was in sight! San Francisco! City of Hippies, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. A city built on an astonishing 43 hills! Yes, that's rigth 43! And above all, our dear Jasper 'Open-minded' van Bruchem would finally meet his equals in San 'Open-Minded' Francisco. The Golden Gate bridge was beautiful, its northern red pillar shining in the sun while the southern one was hardly visible from the viewpoint. Other landmarks like Alcatraz and the Bay bridge contributed to our happy mood as we drove over worlds most famous bridge toward a mist-hidden San Francisco.

The Hoff immediately met a challenge, driving up one of the steep roads, and fulfilled his task with ease and honour. Without knowing it, we parked near the famous winding road, a small road which winds down one block in 3 whole S-shapes. At this touristy hotspot we took pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures! Soon after this historical pictographic event one of the typical trams full of people taking pictures came clinging down the street. We recorded it on picture.

As we had no clue where to go, a Starbucks café helped us out finding downtown SanFran. After having a skype session with our girlfriends we were rudely interrupted, while viewing the city hall, by a cheerful parade. Some of us still believe it was a parade quickly set up to celebrate our unexpected arrival. After searching for a book store way out of downtown, chilling out in the Mac and buying a second phone we decided we were bad city trippers and left the peninsula over the Bay Bridge. That evening we camped at Walmart in Manteca.

It is unknown if it is Walmarts influence or if our brains are decaying but we managed to cook a simple meal in 3.5 hours time, in the process destroying our frying pan. At night the Walmart employees started to vacuum the whole parking lot, which left me (and not my companions) wishing for the nice silence of the interstate next to the parking lot.

Monday morning, a sunny morning I may say, we got on the road again towards Yosemite. Fully packed with enough food to feed Africa we took a scenic highway into the foothills and later on the mountains of the Sierra. Along the way into the Yosemite Valley we were served with some astonishing views of the granite domes. Yosemite Valley itself though is a funpark-like touristy place. We found ourself a nice camping spot, without shower though, where Sander and me witnessed the heroic battle of Jasper versus the river in which he lost his dirt but also one of his just-bought flipflops. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we have planned a dayhike in Yosemite before we will travel toward Seqoiua NP. The higher areas in both parks are inaccessible due to heavy snowfall.

PS: Poor Jasper, we just found hot showers.

California!

Another state, another blogpost! We’re now in California and the weather is great! Well, not really, it’s raining again but we can’t complain because we’ve made two fantastic hikes the last three days.. 

Sanders last post was from Tillamook where the local police now has produced a series of ‘most wanted’ posters featuring Sander with beard (he has shaven it off now) and Frans in his chill-pants, a pair of pants in which he practically lives; he sleeps in them and on ‘drive days’ he wears them all day as well. To avoid scenes with the law enforcement of Sea Side, we decided to take a trip to the countryside of Oregon and climb the highest mountain in the Coastal Range. After driving 80 km inland, we slept at Philemat County Fair, a place where bull-fighting is the main business in summer. The next day (the 12th) we drove up the mountain and got told by a park ranger (old, with a white beard!) that only last week the entire mountain was off-limits because of the snow. We decided to start walking anyway and within half an hour we were walking through a beautiful forest on the slope of the mountain where it had been snowing only the day before. After climbing ~400 meter, we arrived at the parking lot at the top of the mountain; luckily, the snow had covered all traces of civilization. When we arrived at the peak (~1360 m) we were amazed to discover that Mary’s Peak was the only mountain high enough to be still snowy. 

The next day, we drove all day because we wanted to reach Redwood Forest National Park. Fortunately, the 101 is as beautiful as ever, running parallel to the rugged coastline of Oregon. All along the coast, there are weird rock formations which rise tens of meters from the water up to a kilometre from shore. Obviously, driving along such a coastline is a treat J. We reached Crescent City late in the afternoon and we stayed at a State Camping in the Redwoods. For only 10 bucks a night, we could park the Hoff and I was able to pitch my new tent for the first time and sleep in the forest. 

Yesterday, the weather forecast was very gloomy; we felt like it would be a great waste not to take a hike in Redwood NP and we planned a tour of some 25 kilometres despite the impending downpours. Our courage, determination and enthusiasm paid off: the sky stayed clear all day! The hike was wonderful, we first walked down in a valley which was covered with streams, ferns and enormous Redwoods, trees which live up to 3000 years, can grow to 80 meters and have a stem diameter of several metres. After a while, we ascended a ridge which ran above the landscape and we had wonderful views of the Redwoods on either side of the crest. Eventually, we reached the ocean where the forest gave way to steep cliffs and a wide beach where really large waves reached the shore. We met a local Earth Sciences teacher who had lost his flock of children and we got some tips for our further journey. When we reached the Hoff at 6 pm, we could even take a shower (yay!) and after having a gorgeous meal of pork, rice, carrot and onion we drove for another hour to deliver Sander to the McDonalds for his skypedate with Kaylee. Today we’ll drive another 200 km and hopefully, we’ll be in San Fransisco tomorrow.

See you next time! 


PS: For all our pictures we decided to put online visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/thehoffmeister42



 

 

Busted!

Beloved readers and mussels,

We made it all the way to Tillamook, Oregon. Is this a landmark? No. Is there a Starbucks here? Obviously, yes. The North-American policy regarding coffeeshops requires there to be a Starbucks within a 5 mile radius of any geographical location that has been visited by at least one person in the last 42 years. Thank goodness.

Driving down Highway 101 is fantastic. Every ten minutes the view seems to change completely and today even the weather is holding up. Yesterday, we were completely swept away by a storm which tried to blow us over the Rockies. Because we had no intentions of crossing the Rockies just yet, we decided to call it a day and parked next to a large (as if they have small ones) grocery store in Seaside (a lovely little town). Sheltered by the huge building, we were sleeping blissfully until at 2AM a police officer decided to bash the side of our van with his flashlight and told us to open our van. After inquiring about the amount of fire arms we were carrying, he decided that his back-up officers he brought might have been a bit too much, but he kept them around anyway. He looked at our passports and asked if my last name was Amsterdam. After explaining to him that Amsterdam is a city, and giving him some clues, he figured out the layout of Dutch passports, which did not stop him from guess both Jaspers and Frans' last name wrong. He seemed to be appreciating our help a lot, or he had just realized he could correctly pronounce the word, because he tried to use it in every sentence. This is probably why he appreciated the fact that I was born on the 18th of May and that Frans' last name was Aben. After appreciating the hell out of us, he told us to leave the parking lot or he would have to give us a 700 dollar fine. We decided that was quite expensive for a night of camping and drove for almost an hour to find a new spot.

This morning the storm had passed and we were greeted by blue skies and a beautiful village next to the Pacific where we enjoyed coffee and breakfast. Life is smiling down on us again. Even The Hoff seems to having a good time in Oregon. That's it folks (and mussels)!

~Ciao~

https://picasaweb.google.com/107134396081770385975/11Apr2011#5594446586039113730

April 8th:

Hi folks!

This is my (Frans) second contribution to this blog and to keep the mums in touch of our adventures on the North-American continent. All you facebookless people will wonder how our car trouble adventure ended. Stop worrying because: the Hoff is up and running again! The second day in Chilliwack looked a lot like the first, only another mechanic of Midas decided to look at our car. Unfortunately this guy had some trouble with his pronunciation, which left us wondering what he was doing to our van. Besides, this guy seemed to take a big pleasure in having three hour lunch breaks, because after a whole day Starbucking, chillin' out in the McDonalds and bathing in the leisure centre the van still wasn't finished. A second night outside the shop followed and around noon the following day (wednesday) we finally could move again. Around 550 dollars less in our pockets, though with a new starter, ignition and some minor adjustments we finally hit the road again after another quick return to the Midas because our friend the mechanic forgot to remove the bypass in our fuelsystem...

Anyhow, around 3-ish we crossed the border at Abbotsford. A nice dude with the Dutch last name Van Dyke, interrogated us for half an hour with interesting and challenging questions as: 'Did you ever use pot?', 'You have any groceries in your van?', 'How much cash do you have?' and 'Sander, do you have a bad hair day?'.

In Olympic National Forest, we did a hike of ~14 km and we finally dried our tears after so much car trouble. The weather was gorgeous (we wore shorts!), the forest was amazing with a 60 metres high spruce tree and moss growing from the trees and it was fantastic to finally stretch our limbs after 7 days in a car. Pictures will be posted. Right now, we are at Kalaloch, a sort of resort along the highway 101 and we´re watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. After the dishes have been done, we´ll drive for another hour and go to a more northern site of Olympic National Park to go hiking for another day. Then, we´ll make our way south along the 101 to Redwood National Park and San Fransisco.

Bye!!

Van Trouble Inc. 2.0

Beloved blog readers,

I will start with the most important news I've got to share with you: Jasper is pregnant. It seems he has a very rare and previously even completely unknown condition called PIMP (Precipitation Induced Male Pregnancy) caused by the amazing weather we've been experiencing. He will be delivering first thing tomorrow morning and Frans and I have been appointed godparents.

On a completely unrelated and (in the light of Jaspers situation) minor note, The Hoff has once again decided to test our patience and break down. We have decided to skip Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Depression and get on with Acceptance, which brings us to the Starbucks in Chilliwack, where we are currently enjoying tea and abusing the free internet.

We originally landed here on a 15-minutes-customers-only parking space of a convience store near the Starbucks to have Skype-dates with our girlfriends. Realizing our mistake, we tried to start The Hoff to move him, but without success. After Skyping in the Starbucks we got our heads under the hood and tried to figure out what was going on. Our relative peace was disrupted by the reasonable Chinese owner of the convenience store who kept shouting "15 minutes!". After trying to explain that The Hoff could not be bothered to start on sheer will power and trying to comfort him by obtaining a candy bar from his store we resorted to ignoring him for a while, which did not stop him from cheering "15 minutes!" on every occasion he had (which was, unfortunately, all the time). After a while we shut him up by pushing The Hoff to the middle of the parking lot and found a mechanic to look at our car. The Hoff was towed over and people started crawling around it to make it work but, being German, The Hoff did not give in easily.

Back in the Starbucks, the mechanic just handed us our keys and left for the day and we'll be spending the night on a mechanics parking lot once again. Hopefully the bill won't get out of hand, because our budget only stretches so far... As long as we're stuck here, we've got time to waste (Chilliwack isn't really worth visiting, the weather is horrible and we have no means of transportation) so feel free to send us long emails and Skype us. The second The Hoff is on the road again, we'll be sure to post on this blog and let you know.

Jasper, reporting from Kamloop

Hi all!

This is my (Jasper) first contribution to this blog and to keep the mums in touch of our adventures on the North-American continent. Or whatever that sentence means. Frans' last entry ended Wednesday afternoon when we had gone shopping. Since then, much has changed; we are in Mount Robson Provincial Park now, we have had the pleasure of listening to Frans Bouwer on a local Dutch Canadian radio station and Frans' goatee has frozen off during the night. Wednesday morning, after waking up at half past five I had a talk with my mom via Skype at half past six. Sander picked us up at 11 am to go and fix several things on the van (change the oil and airfilter in the course of which we destroyed Hope's ramps, using silicone kit to make the windows airtight and installing carpet on our beds as not to destroy our air mattresses). We stopped at Kaltyre to ask where the oil tank was located and a really nice guy of some 60 years of age entertained Frans and me with stories of his roadtrip across Europe in the 70's.

Thursday evening we had dinner with Frans' aunt and cousin who live in Canada at a fantastic Greek restaurant. The day after we picked up some pillows and sleeping bags at Frans' aunt's house and we bought an apple in the Safeway. But the most notable thing about Friday was a performance of the band 'Maria in the Shower' which we visited that evening. They played in a local bar and the band consisted of drummer, a guitar/trumpet player, a bass guitar/ double bass player and the main singer of the band who could play accordeon and trumpet at the same time while climbing onto the double contrabass! One weird thing about Canada is that, in the spirit of the promotion of sober driving, non-alcoholic drinks are free or at least very cheap in bars!

We originally had the idea to start our journey to Jasper National Park early in the afternoonish on Saturday. However, the weather forecast for the Rockies was very bad (~25 cm of snow was expected to fall, and that's vertically!) so we decided to take no risks and try to get as far as possible before evening. Therefore, we took off at 10 am after saying goodbye to Hope, Bill, Kaylee and Art, the ugliest but also sweetest dog in the world. On the way we incidentally turned on the radio and (chance would have it) we received a local Dutch Canadian radio station. The dj who hadn't been to Holland since the seventies judging on his way of talking was first telling us of the problems ING was coping with in Holland and after this, it only got better! Next up was Frans Bauer with an incredible performance singing the world hit 'Heb je even voor mij'. Needless to say, Frans, Sander and I couldn't help shedding some tears while listening to this sweet memory of our home country (videos are online). Then, on a more serious note, the rubric 'Heaven and Earth' followed, in which Psalm 374.83cll was used to explain the dissimilarity between the extinction of the caste system in the Flevopolder in the 90's on the one hand and the intensity of the Japanese winter monsoon on the other hand.

Anyway.. at 5ish we entered Jasper National Park where the snowfall was very severe. Luckily, this lasted for only half an hour and the rest of the day the weather was fine. We stopped for the night in Mount Robson Provincial Park and made some dinner (macaroni, courgette, onion and beef) after which Frans and Sander set to sewing the curtains which we needed in the van while I did the dishes. At 10 pm we started to prepare the van for the night, an activity which included covering all windows with curtains or towels, fold out the bench in the back of the bus, covering it with carpet, inflating the air matress, letting Frans undress and climb into the coffin which is the top bunk, unpacking the sleeping bags, finding out that the van was parked in such a way that we would wake up from the sun shining into our eyes, moving the van on a dark parking lot with all windows covered, having a really, really good laugh about it and letting Frans tell us some stories about the lifestyle of a typical mussel. The night was extremely cold, a fact which became especially apparent when I needed to take a leak outside. However, when we woke up, the sun was shining and not a cloud dotted the sky and we had an amazing look on Mount Robson (3954 m high). After having some bagels for breakfast and cleaning the ice from the inside of the windows with underpants we were ready to hit the road. We're off to Seattle now, where we hope to arrive sometime tomorrow. 

SuperPaleozoic (sorry world, I'm doing this for Nienke) bye! 

Pictures of Jasper and Frans' trip and their first two days in Canada...

...can be found on https://picasaweb.google.com/107134396081770385975/3132011?feat=directlink#

We're officially leaving tomorrow, so from now on blog post will be post at a fairly regular basis!