Umm now what?

Yes the rumor are true the Champagne Express actually made it home. We had a close call not a hour away from the US border with a tire exploding while doing 110 clicks on the freeway. It almost kept us in the States but Canada was calling and we persevered and made it home.  But by no means is the Champagne Express over now that we are home. There is still the final leg of our journey to finish. The drive to Savary is still to come. Stay tuned for more...

Nick & Dru

The Final Frontier?

Before hitting the Memorial day highway from hell we had one more pit stop before heading back towards the coast.

Palmer's Persuit

Every Paintball geek's heaven! 

   

Wine country!

Who knew we would come across the steepest most windy road of the journey, Napa valley to Sanoma valley?

     

These photo's show only the good times which were few and far between on our Northern journey. Mostly the coast brought us foggy rainy weather that wasn't worth documenting, it's only purpose was to depress us.

Stopping off in Trinidad California we camped in the damp forest and got

down to some REAL camping.... i.e. BBQ and beer

and then ...

the real rain came!

What better time to experience our first flat tire of the journey. Pulling into a gas station an exacto blade fit nicely in our tire, on the rim in minutes. Nick, being the good man he is, changed the tire in the torrential down pour. 

    

and then the wipers went! 

Tell me, what better way to warm up than with a fresh bowl of 'bus' made soup?

After a a bottle of Chocolate Stout and a Dead Guy Growler we were on the hunt for this Oregon brewed beer.

We found it. 

We sampled it.

We fell in love with it.

A stop in Seattle took us to EMP and a wonderful visit with family and friends 

   

 

Looks like we're almost home!

BUG-O-RAMA

  

After a highly stimulated week of F.U.N. The Champagne Express reluctantly said good bye to it's second guest.

What's next on the list of things to do?

Head towards Sacramento for the ultimate California experience. 

 

Camp in a field with a whole lot of other crazy VW folk. 

America's longest running VW event, Bugorama fulfilled all of our expectations with a few key elements:

  

Enthusiastic campers

   

Drag Racers

   

Good ol' Hippies

 

Beautiful classics

&

 

a fantastic Swap Meet 

packed with everything the avid VW enthusiast could dream of.

Dishing out a few bucks, even Fritz (the bus) maximized on the experience.

 

Obviously the detour was a hit!

The Happiest Place on Earth......

Yeah we did it? Disneyland was essential in our plans. With a night of meticulous planning we hit the park and we hit it hard. Map in hand we forged through the crowds and hit everything on our list. Some multiple times in the day.

Dani was on her A-Game you could say. Not even a bit of cotton candy stuck on her fingers slowed her down from getting on the next ride.

A chance meeting with Goofy deserves a photo opportunity. And none can go to Disneyland without hitting up the Teacups. There's only one way to do them... spin the cup as fast as you can and try not to barf until the ride finishes.

The Mad Hatter got a treat when we decided to have a fashion show of every hat in the store.

Frozen chocolate coated nut encrusted bananas. The title may sound bad but the product tastes good.

Space Mountain was a unanimous #1 ride of the park. Front row = Crazy.

After leaving Disneyland Big Sur was our next destination. Next thing you know you're living in a van down by the river!!! And yes we were.

Believe it or not another VW Bus showed up. What, are those BC plates? Yup. We camped next door to a posse of Whistler bums who were on a road trip to celebrate finishing the winter season. A hippy party at the bar next door also added to the fun of our camping adventure.

The road North from Big Sur found the Champagne Express beach side for a KD lunch stop. Mmmm... Tastes so much better when it's cooked in a VW.

Oh excuse me but I think the beach we happened to stop at is flat enough to skim. So what would you do? Yeah we did and it was sweet.

The only way to top this off was to have a good ol' fashioned game of Cherry Pit.  The rules are pretty simple. I think you can figure it out from the pictures.

To summarize the last post:

Disneyland = Awesome

Camping in Big Sur = Awesome

The Road North = Awesome.

Nick  & Dru

The places where people cross paths .....

It's incredible how loose plans can lead to amazing experiences.

While cruising around the Santa Monica pier, oblivious tourists, we stumbled into a good friend. Out of context and stunned, we were invited up for a quick visit in the most spectacular beach front condo. Which led to the generous offer to crash for a couple of nights.

With this is as our view we have nothing to complain about.

   

Living like ROCK STAR'S our activities have included :

Long walks on the never ending beach

People watching out the window (freak flag's flying high)

Shopping like the rich 

Eating like the rich (coffee and croissants to go) 

YEAH WE DID!

Laughing like children we were infectious. Cheers and high fives by all.

Luck continues to grace the Champagne Express.

Tomorrow ......

We Conquer DISNEYLAND