The recap continues!

From here we head back to San Fran and Santa Cruz, to Yosemite, and then up north through the States to Canada again.

Click read more to come along for the ride and experience my awesome ability to fit over a month of adventure into about two minutes of reading time!



So Mark arrived amid much fanfare (there was an airport arrival sign and a disco ball man made purely for the occasion), we hung out in Sacramento for a couple of days then hit the road to San Fran.

San Fran mk. 2 turned out to be as wicked as the first time, with early highlights including a pub crawl with a free bar (ouch) and then $1 drinks for the rest of the night (ouuuch), and a wicked bike ride across the Golden Gate:

Mark cruising:



The gang in front of the Golden Gate:



The Golden Gate:



From the outside:



Don't jump!



After that, Mal arrived from San Fran and pretty much rocked the hell out of our trip, getting us into Flight of the Conchords for free at Berkeley. I should point out at this stage that Mark did spot Bret on the street in SF the day before, and then thought he also spotted David Bowie a minute or two later, before realising that the guy didn't actually look much like David Bowie at all.

Check out Jermaine's wings:



Oh and yes, Arj Barker did come on for a 20 sec solo rap and then left the stage, never to be seen again. Awesome.

After the Disco we went to Santa Cruz to stay with Mal's friend Rachel, and I have no pics. I should point out here that I got pretty lazy with the camera. SC round two was awesome in so many ways, we played Bocce at a bar, hung out on a dog beach where I saw the coolest dog in the universe, Mark & I had some serious Street Fighter showdowns on a 25c machine, and we soaked up the Bro culture of the Cruz for four or five days.

On the last day there Mark & I went up to the uni campus, searching for the fabled Tree 9 - a magical tree that is perfectly designed to be climbed, with big branches spreading out all the way to the top. Turns out that so many people have climbed it that all the branches are smooth, and the top is a REALLY long way up. Regardless, with some trepidation (moreso from Stu than Mark) we climbed the tree, clinging for life to each branch.

Here is the tree (it looks so small in photos!):



Once Santa Cruz was done, we hit the road for Yosemite, which I dedicated a post to because it was too awesome to summarise quickly!

Next stop from there was in Northern California, we headed to the Redwoods after hearing a rumour Forest Moon of Endor scenes from Return of the Jedi were filmed there.. You know, with the Ewoks:



Aaaand I think we were right. Check out Mark on his speeder:



In related news, we camped on the beach and a woke up to an Elk chilling near our campfire:



We found a Crows beanie and a banana slug - fun rumour about banana slugs, apparently if you lick them your tongue goes numb, but you may also contract hepatitis. So you've really got to weigh up how badly you want a numb tongue..



And we also went to a place called Fern Canyon, which is a Canyon covered in ferns. Oh and apparently part of Jurassic Park 2 was filmed here, but it was a crap movie so who cares..




Aaaand from here there's pretty much a time-warp. We crossed the border into Oregon and took a grand total of zero photos while we were there, but Portland in particular was awesome. Eguene was memorable for our first (and last) Taco Bell experience and the fact that we climbed through a moving train, but Portland was where the fun was to be had.

Our most awesome Couchsurfing host Sarah made sure we had a rad time, always coming up with fun things to do (many of which involved beer or vodka slurpees), and we spent much of the time there watching World Cup games, crying after the dirty Germans pumped Australia.

Fast forward, Mark went to NY, I went to visit Jesse in the yurt for a few days and continued on my merry way towards Seattle, stopping by Mt St Helens on the way.

For those who were alive in 1980 (I'm talking to you, people over 30), you may remember a giant volcano that went crazy in Washington and killed a bunch of people and did its best to destroy itself. Fast forward 30 years and it's freakin amazing, this enormous volcano looms out across Washington, in all its snow-capped, half-destroyed glory.





And then Seattle. Mark came back for four days of glory, we played lots of Jenga, we both fell in love with the supermarket girl, and we learned about tennis from a 1960s book:



Seattle is wicked, there's stuff going on everywhere, including stoners trying (in vain) to get weed legalised:



There's penises with moustaches:



And sometimes the little guys get a victory:



And Seattle, the home of grunge, was Kurt Kobain's home. Despite it being 17 odd years since he killed himself, well, he's as popular as ever. So the Seattle Art Museum decided to put on a display about him, which, as Nirvana fans (like uh.. everyone) we decided to go check out:



Now I don't claim to know a great deal about Kurt Kobain personally, but walking into a wanky art gallery, where all the walls are white and they play elevator music and fat rich people walk around saying 'oooh' and 'aaaah' all day, I couldn't help but think if Kurt was alive and he saw the display about him, he'd take a guitar and smash the shit out of it. It was so against everything he represented - it was neat, clean, ordered, sophisticated and stuck up (like most galleries), it was - I thought - a really shit way to use his image.

Anyways, this post is really long and as Seattle was the last stop on my US adventure, I'll end it here and look out for part 3, which - if I may say so - has some of the most mind-blowing pictures in the world. And that's no props to the photographer (me!), the scenery is just so awe-inspiring that as long as you have the lens cap off it's pretty much impossible to take a bad shot.