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

People may drift apart but friendship will always last

We couldn't have asked for a better welcome to America. The Champagne Express Branched off into Tuscon and visited Nick's old friend Colin and his wife Andria. After a few beers at their favorite brew pub (cool little place by the railway), putting us up for the night and telling us where to visit we hit the road again to find the gigantic Saguaro Cacti of Arizona.

A special thanks to Colin for pointing us towards Uncle Bob's VW garage. Yes Dad I did get an oil change. and I found the best guy in Arizona to do it.

W

Fresh with new oil we were ready to tackle Joshua Tree National Park. The famous Joshua Tree and Skull Rock were some highlights of the park.

The day after Joshua Tree National Park found us rushing to LAX to pick up our friend Dani. The famous Dart decided to join the Express for our time in L.A. Disneyland is our next goal. Stay tuned for an update from thehappiest place on Earth.

Nick & Dru

Ever wonder why Canadians get a bad rep for being overly kind and simple?

Easy .....

These two Crazy Canucks crossed the Mexican/USA border not once, not twice, but a grand total of FIVE times over the course of a few hours.
Cruising down the last stretch of the Mexican highway, lined with chained link fencing and camouflaged snipers in the hills, we were itching to cross. Other than the loss of Dru's gorgeous avocado, the border guards were nothing but friendly.
However, we discovered that we had failed to turn in our traveler's Visa's and our car permit at the tiny little nondescript booth 20 km's back. So we walked back into Mexico got an answer to our questions that we didn't understand and then we strolled back over the line.

Realizing that it was in our best interest to go back and find this unattended booth in hopes to return to Mexico someday in the future, we did. We got X-ray searched by the USA, green light through Mexico, bombed up the highway, did a U-turn over the 4 lanes, handed back our car permit, walked across the highway to pass over our Visa's, and then got back in the Champagne Express and booked it to the border.

With a shorter line up and a decrease in temperature we were more than happy to see 5 border guards laughing as we drove through for the FINAL time. 

We're cruisin' now .......

After leaving Dreams and seeing off the whole wedding party crew our numbers dwindled from three to two. As our chef had to get back home and continue in the real world. Boring. But anyways we must continue. Luck continued to grace the Champagne Express as we were allowed to use the remainder of time leftover from Nick's Aunt and Uncle's timeshare at the Mayan Palace.

What was intended to be a trip of roughing it has turned to a trip of luxury. They even gave the bus the executive parking spot in front of the hotel. Well that's not entirely true..... Speaking very little Spanish and trying to tell the bellhop how to work a very quirky bus found the bellhops unable to figure out which of 6 keys was the ignition. So what did they do? Just pushed it around the corner and left it there.

One of our stay at the Palace was spent going on a day trip back to Sayulita with the Honeymooners. Sayulita Fish Tacos est muy bueno! Just ask Ben...

     

Yes Meghan I think the lime would go well with your Baja Garlic Shrimp Bowl. Mmmmmm.

     

Upon many friends requests and the praise from Doug and Dave we headed south to Melaque. The spot that many snowbirds spend the winters while escaping the dreary rain of BC.

   

Taco Surf. Well what can I say. Probably some of the best street meat we have had on the whole trip. 8 tacos and two beers for under 8 dollars. Nothing wrong with that. And a few days later still no signs of the runs. Two thumbs up for Taco Surf.

How can you tell we went to Mexico in the off-season? Well we once again found ourselves to be the lone campers in the Melaque RV Resort. Right on the beach and very nice.

The search for Nick to find a real bottle of Tequila brought us to the Don Crispin Distillery. Located on the south end of Puerto Vallarta it is that city's only legit distillery.

This is where all the magic happens. The actual stills used to make the sweet nectar of Mexico. Umm yeah those buckets on the ground are Tequila fresh from the still. It was here that we found the only tequila that we actually liked and didn't get a gag reflex from while drinking. So good. Reminds me more of a fine scotch than paint thinner.

Yes we have truly embraced the culture and learned how to make tortillas. You better watch out for the next Mexican night because we now make a mean taco like you've never had before.

Our time in Mexico is quickly coming to an end but one last skim session in San Blas was necessary. Even if it made us late for our destination of the day. Time to show them how we skim up North. REPRESENT!

Today we find ourselves a few hours from the border and getting prepped for the final leg of our Mexico adventure.

The Mexican Border checklist:

Clean and showered-----Check

Clean shaven-----Check

Clean underwear---Double check.

Peace out everyone until our next update from the US of A.
Nick and Dru