Romy & Jenn

Today we went for a 20(ish) mile bike ride around Lake Chabot.  It should have been about 16 miles, but we took a few wrong turns and instead enjoyed the scenic route!

Romy & Jenn

Jenn, Bob, and I are re-ringing the engine for the off road racing team I'm on.

Romy, Jenn, Marcel, & Nicole

Today we had a BBQ. Filet Mignon and veggies!

Romy

I am supposed to be the Highlander with my hair, and the bat is supposed to be a sword.

Jenn

Jenn, under one of the GG support towers.

Romy

Today we walked part of the Golden Gate Bridge with Jenn's cousins.  The thing behind me is the cable for the bridge!

Jenn & Romy

Happy together picture. Today we went on a bike ride in Redwood Park (and forgot to take a picture while riding), and Lucie and Peter came to visit! Romy is sitting on one of the seats that will be going in the baja soon. For now, they are in the living room.

Romy

Washing the woo in the front. Two VWs in the picture too!

Jenn

I look so tired! I just woke up! The colorful bag in front of me is from Peru.

Romy

Romy is driving the bus to Del Valle! Yay!

Jenn

The sun was in my eyes! Today we got the bus out and about and went camping at Del Valle Regional Park near Livermore, CA with Bob and Linda (they also have a bus and Bob is on the desert dingo team with Romy).

Jenn, Nicole, & Romy

Tonight we tried making a Bacardi Limon and lemon juice drink. We hollowed out some lemons from the backyard for the juice, mixed the drink, and poured the drink back into the lemon peel cups!

Jenn & Nicole

We are cooking some Thai soup called Tom Kha. It is soooo good!

Romy

Working on the bus today! The new exhaust gasket is on, and it finally possible to read the exhaust.

Jenn

Having a yummy yummy burrito at Taco Tree in Auburn. Mmmmm. Taco Tree.

Romy

Standing at the banks of the American River just outside of Auburn, CA on Hwy 49 in the Sierra foothills. We went on a walk after we picked up some new seats for the baja.

Romy

Working on putting all my pictures from Norway on the internet.

Jenn

Cleaning up Romy's backpack he took to Norway, which got a bunch of canned mackerel (fish) spilled all over the inside. It smelled bad!!!!

Jenn

Today we picked our first fig harvest from the fig tree. Three huge ripe and sweet mission figs! Yummy!

Romy

In the junkyard getting some good parts for the Daewoo. We hit up three different Pick'n'Pulls: Fairfield, Sacramento, and Antelope, CA!

Jenn

Working on my research. This week its going really good. I am able to connect to my computer at school remotely, which has 8 cores!

Jenn

A few days ago I bought some taro root (I wanted to try it) from Berkeley Bowl and I made a sweetened coconut milk pudding thickened with taro root, and I put some bananas in it too. Its an Asian dessert.

Romy

A somewhat uneventful (and rainy) drive back to Mark's place on Lake Geneva.

Romy

Today we drove to Paso Stelvio, on 'the greatest road {dramatic pause}, in the world'.  We saw some pricey cars like a Bugatti Veyron, some Ferrari hatchback, a 911 GT3, etc.  But the real purpose was to do the pass and drink a beer at the top!

Jenn & Nicole

Today Nicole and I went on a power walk up in Redwood Regional Park. It was cool and windy and foggy!

Romy

Today, Mark and I drove to Chamonix then hiked up to Lac Blanc for a picnic and view of Mount Blanc.  On the way up, we encountered some locals...

Romy

Climbing at Les Avants near Mark's apartment in Switzerland.

Jenn

Today I made the best fruit salad ever. Chopped up bananas and strawberries topped with thick honey greek yogurt. It was better than whipped cream!

Jenn

I am reading a book all about the great basin. Today I learned about krumholtz trees at high altitude. They are trees that have such a hard time surviving because of the cold and windy harsh conditions at the top of some of the mountains in the desert, that they are only about 3ft high and they don't grow upward. Instead, they literally crawl over the ground and can spread 100s of feet from their original sprouting location!!

Romy

Eating Fondue at a friend of Mark's.  Fondue is tasty!

Jenn

This afternoon Nicole, Marcel, and I went to a BBQ at the Little River airport, a small town on the California coast, which was a fundraiser for the volunteer fire fighters. We saw a painted sign on Hwy 1 advertising it, and we were hungry after our hike out of Volcano camp, so we got a plate of BBQ and shared it. Then we went to the beach, and met a guy who was having a fire, so we joined him for a while before heading back to Fort Bragg to taste some beer at the North Coast Brewery.

Romy

More driving!  This is an hour or so after taking the ferry from Goteburg, Sweden, to Frederikshavn, Denmark which left at midnight, and arrived at 3:30am.  Onward to Deutschland!

Romy

More driving.  Driving back to Switzerland from Lofoten is a bit of a haul.  Same distance as San Francisco to about Des Moines or so.

Jenn

This weekend we went hiking around in Jackson State Forest, in Mendocino county near Ft. Bragg. It is near the coast in the redwoods. We hiked 5 miles to camp at Volcano camp, which was the highest point in the whole forest!

Jenn

Tonight Nicole and I made spinach couscous with chicken and a tomato side salad for dinner. Nicole also made yams in a curry sauce as a side dish. The couscous was really easy to make and it tasted good.

Romy

Driving back down taking the inland route, we came upon the officious 'arctic circle center'.

Jenn

Tonight we went to Zachary's Chicago Pizza cuz N&M never tried it before. We had a summer harvest vege pizza. It was good!

Romy

Some sweet 1am driving!  Yay sun!

Romy

Waking up the next day, on our way out of Klavika.

Romy

Two pics for today because the day is 24hrs long!  We backpacked into a secluded beach called Klavika, then hiked up to one of the surrounding peaks to try and watch the sun 'set'.  It doesn't really ever set, it just kind of dips down in the sky a little.  We got up to the top around midnight, and hung around up there until 1am when it became just too cold and windy for our fleeces to keep us warm.  We got back to the tent around 2am (3hrs up, 1hr down - figures) and had a feast of smoked salmon and Belgian Trappist beer that Mark had brought.

Romy

Near Nordvalle (in Lofoten of course!).  The water wasn't terribly cold for being in the arctic circle, but I still only stuck my feet in...

Jenn, Nicole & Marcel

This morning we made strawberry and banana whole wheat pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast. Happy Fourth of July!

Jenn

Today I got a really bad sunburn on my shoulders because Marcel and I were weeding the front, in the sun!

Romy

Mark brought food from Germany (because Norway is way too expensive!) including this blood sausage.  It was .... pretty gross.  Neither of us could finish the sandwich, and even the gulls didn't know what to think of the stuff.

Romy

A sweet beach near Flakstad on Lofoten.  The metal thing near my feet is a country boundary marker which we saw all over the coastal areas in Norway.  We had perfect weather; not only were we above the arctic circle which meant 24hr sun, but we actually had 24hrs of sun for the whole time we were on Lofoten!  No rain, no storms, just awesome sun!

Romy

We took a hike near Henningsvær, a small little fishing village turned climbing town.  We were trying to find the wall in the area that was bolted (since most of Lofoten is climbed in the traditional manner with anchors and protection you place yourself, as opposed to anchors bolted to the rock face).  We completely overshot the climbing area, but had a sweet hike instead.

Jenn & Nicole

We went to go hike part of the Pacific Crest Trail where it meets Hwy 50 near Lake Tahoe. The only problem was we couldn't get very far (only one mile) because there was still a LOT OF SNOW on the trail!

Romy

And we've arrived on Lofoten!  After a solid 24 hrs of driving, we made it from Trondheim to Lofoten.  It could have been quicker if it wasn't for the quite scenic coastal road involving ferries.

Romy

Glacier!!!

We (we = Mark and I) took the coastal road up to Lofoten from Trondheim.  After driving through the night (Day?  The sun can play tricks on you when it doesn't set) we came upon this glacier, so stopped for pics and some much needed peeing!

Jenn & Marcel

We went camping for part of the July 4th weekend to the Eldorado National Forest. We found a camping spot overlooking a small canyon and made a firepit by a stone sanctuary.