I expected that today would be a good day and it was. After sleeping a good 8 hours, Will and I departed to Firebrand Artisan Breads for pastries and Royal Coffee for coffee. My banana walnut muffin and passionfruit Kouign Amann were delicious and the coffee place was unlike anything I had seen before. Behind the café were two rooms with large glass windows for walls. One room was the roasting facility and another was a training room with all kinds of coffee making equipment. For each of the coffee offerings on the menu, I could choose between about a dozen different beans. Because I don’t like making decisions, I just got exactly the same thing as Will did: a cortadito. Don’t ask me which bean and roast we got because I don’t remember.

Next up, we went on a moderate 8 mile, 1000 ft elevation hike in Redwood Regional Park in Oakland. The French Trail and Stream Trail Loop took us along a stream and ridge. There were lots of ups and downs and we saw several dogs along the way. It ended up being a good 4 hour exercise and adventure in nature. For most the trail, large redwoods shaded the path.

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When we were done with the hike, we decided that it was time for tacos. After hiking, getting tacos is always a good idea. We went to Cholita Linda in Temescal and ate so much food. We then decided that so much food was not enough to we went across the street to Curbside Creamery for ice cream.

The day ended back at Will’s house, where we had some time to unwind and I did another load of laundry. I decided to break up my trip a bit further so that I don’t have to do any 9 hour drives in one day. Tomorrow, after stopping by REI to pick up some trekking poles, I’ll head north to Point Reyes for an easy hike and to Mendocino to check out the glass beach. I end the day in Fort Bragg, where I am staying for the night.

During my trip, I’ve been asked a variety of questions from people I know and people I don’t know. Here are some of highlights:

• Why the west coast? Over the past few years I started doing more travel in the US, and I’ve discovered how much this country I have yet to explore. The US has a lot to offer for travelers. Several years ago, my uncle, who is from California, expressed confusion as to why so many people are traveling to Europe and Asia instead of the US west coast. I can now empathize with him. I also have some friends out in Seattle whom I’ve promised to visit for the past five years but have as of yet failed to do so.
• Are you planning to move to California and scouting it out? No.
• What dating apps do you use? Uhhh
• “I’m driving the Pacific Coast Highway north.” How far are you going? “To Seattle.” Wow that’s really far.
• Are you Canadian? You sound Canadian. I’ve never been told this before but it happened twice in 24 hours.

I’m now back in Oakland, in a familiar place, the room I spent the first few nights of my trip nearly four weeks ago. I return from the south, this time with a car, for two nights before I continue my journey northward. It feels nice to be in a familiar environment, as I begin a new part of my travels.

I’m excited to spend the next day hanging out with my friend in the East Bay. It will be a good time to slow down and catch up, since when I saw him at the start of the trip it was a bit of a whirlwind with lots of people.

Now I am going to spend the rest of the evening reading and doing laundry, since I am almost out of clothes. Today was good. Tomorrow will also be good.

I spent my afternoon in two parks. First, I stopped by Apple Park in Cupertino, home of the Ring Building, otherwise known as the mothership. In the visitor center, there is a large scale model of the campus, made out of solid machined aluminum with an anodize finish. Employees handed out iPads with an AR app, showing what’s in each building, how it looks at any time of day, and how the cooling and electrical systems work. It was pretty neat. I got a cappuccino at Caffe Macs and wandered around for a bit. There’s not too much to see if you’re not an employee, but the campus is beautiful, full of trees, flowers, and other things green.

In a fanboy fashion, I shelled out $25 for an Apple Park tote bag. The bag came in a box that made it look like any Apple product 10x – 100x the price. The employee taking my payment asked me if I wanted a bag for $0.10. I explained, no…I’m buying a bag already, but he failed to understand the irony.

Next, I departed for Rancho San Antonio Preserve, just west of Cupertino in Los Altos. As is growing more common, there are signs for mountain lions, though these signs provided more information about what to do if confronted. I didn’t see any mountain lions, but I did see lots of wildlife.

On my roughly one mile hike up and around, I encountered birds of prey, beetles, and a hare. There were many squirrels, with plenty to eat and no fear of humans. I sent a picture to one of my nature-loving friends who identified it as a California roundboi. I also saw about two dozen turkeys, some of which were in a group running together on the path. Again I realized the limitation of my iPhone 6 camera in taking wildlife photos, but I managed a few okay shots since these birds and squirrels were so unafraid of me.

I’m not sure if the preserve always looks this way, but it was vividly green with lots of flowers. Some areas were wide open grasses with picnic tables and large paths for runners. Other areas were surrounded by trees, with narrow, less-traveled paths. I could have gone for a longer hike, but I instead decided to sit and read for a while.

Soon, I depart for dinner with a college friend whom I haven’t seen since graduation. Then I’m off to Oakland.

I continue to get excellent daily Aayla updates. She is doing quite well and enjoying the sights and smells of spring. Here are some of my favorites.

This morning I slept in again until about 9. My appetite, which disappeared about a day ago after being uncharacteristically voracious, has still not returned, so I nibbled on some leftover skillet vegetables and an orange. I’ll have some nuts and a granola bar later before lunch to keep up my energy.

Occasionally I get tired and lose my appetite like this, but it’s not happened in months now. Over the years I have seen some doctors about it but they can’t seem to find a source. Typically removing stress, eating well, and exercising solves the issue. The best case takes a couple days and the worst case has taken weeks or months. I found that trying to determine a root cause is a not helpful exercise and the best thing is just to understand that my body sometimes behaves this way and to work through it.

Having said all this, I would say I’ve been eating well and getting a decent amount of exercise. Though I have only been to two yoga classes in the almost four weeks that I’ve been on the west coast, I have done my fair share of skiing, walking, kayaking, biking, and hiking. I don’t have any typical stressors in my life right now. I am not working and I haven’t been too alarmed at seeing my bank account balance steadily drop.

Often, I’ve found stressors come from places that I’d least expect it and at times when I’d least expect it. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been packing a lot into my days and I haven’t really had too much time to sit back and reflect. I’ve maybe read two chapters in my book since I left San Diego. My last several posts have also morphed into pretty uninteresting descriptions of my day with little interesting commentary. It would not be surprising if there is something stressing me out right now that I haven’t spent the attention to discover.

Let’s take a look at the next few days. I am meeting with friends for lunch and dinner today. Tonight and tomorrow night, I am staying at a friend’s house, and we are spending the day together. On Wednesday morning, I depart north with no plans. I haven’t booked any hotels or even looked up what to do. By Sunday I’d like to be in Portland, where I will be staying for three nights in a Yurt that might not have electricity or running water. I’ve been on the move for coming up on four weeks now, staying in one place for no more than three days.

There is something about not having a place to be settled that I find a bit discomforting. I sometimes wonder whether renting a camper van would have been a better choice for this trip. I could park it basically wherever and I would have had a constant place to retire to whenever I wanted. Right now, I really only feel grounded at night and in the early morning, so my day is always a blur. Renting a camper van probably would be about the same cost as what I am doing now. On the other hand, I am meeting new people and discovering new places the way I am traveling, and I much prefer driving a smaller car. So I think I overall prefer things the way that they are now.

Knowing that I have control over the next few days can be comforting. I know that it is about 8 hours to get from Oakland to Eureka on the coast. I found a cheap and comfortable hotel in Eureka that I can book today. I know that it is about 4 hours to get from Eureka to Grant’s Pass, where my uncle’s brother lives. I need to call him up, but I can do that later today. From there it looks like there are several towns before Portland on the coast, but I don’t want to book any hotels yet as that would impose too strict a schedule.

I also know that writing things down like this is a good way to diffuse stress, whether I know its source or not. Normally I would just write this all down in some note on my phone. As I am writing this travel log, I figured that it is useful to publish it. It seems that many people think that this kind of travel is non-stop glamorous, but I know from close friends who have done it that it is usually not. And that’s fine.

When starting this trip, I wanted to know what it feels like to not have to do anything, and I have realized that I don’t really know how to do that. With empty time, I just fill it with something, usually too many things. I think I just want to relax, but usually I don’t. I get stir crazy easily. And I get overwhelmed if I do too much. So I need to re-strike the right balance. I have the opportunity to do just that over the next few days.

Once I get to Portland, I will be spending a few days with my old roommate, who has been living a semi-nomadic life for the past four and a half years. He and his girlfriend have some fun things planned, including hiking Mount Hood. It’s 30 miles and 6000 ft in elevation gain over two days, which is a bit more than double what I can typically do. It sounds like a lot of fun, though I might suggest that we find a mountain that is half as big.

OK, I need to get going for lunch soon. Here is a picture of some dinosaurs I saw this morning:

I rolled out of bed just before 9 after sleeping nearly 9 hours uninterrupted. Packing so much into my days and always being on the move for the past few weeks is catching up to me quickly. I decided it was time for a low key day.

I’m staying at a friend’s parents’ house in San José and they have been wonderful hosts. We were going to either visit the Filoli Gardens in Woodside or visit my friend’s sister in Half Moon Bay. As I’m going to the Berkeley Botanical Gardens on Tuesday and as I saw a bunch of signs for Half Moon Bay on my way up from Monterey, I opted for the latter. More, my friend’s sister’s cats are Instagram famous and I was very excited to meet them.

On the way there, we took my hosts Tesla Model 3. I’d never been inside one before and it was unlike any car I’d been in before—and not just because it was electric. Tesla truly rethought from the ground up what and how a car should be in today’s world. I can’t say I agree with all of the decisions that they made, but I can certainly say I was impressed with their boldness and often streamlined way of designing.

There’s no regular dashboard—there’s just a giant touchscreen in the center console. The controls for temperature control and other settings are designed around this kind of screen. It has auto-pilot for the highway that includes changing lanes, merging, and using on and off ramps. It’s clearly a car designed by tech nerds, so there are some cool features and also some dumb UX choices. On the screen, it shows an realtime animation of the car with lane markers and other vehicles around it—vehicles are actually rendered as sedans or trucks or motorcycles. The button to open the door and adjust the window are right next to each other and look the same.

Enough about Tesla; let me tell you about cats. They are adorable. Mister is basically a dog trapped in a cat’s body. He likes people and he craves attention. He’s also a great jumper capable of backflips. Moo is a bit shier, but she is incredibly photogenic. She also likes getting pet but she doesn’t really want you to know it.

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Before leaving Half Moon Bay, we took a walk along the beach, where we saw bicyclists, horses, and many beachgoers. Just a few miles up is a big surfer spot that’s known to get waves as high as 60 feet. It’s a quaint town on the water, that feels more remote than much of the Bay Area but really isn’t that far away from San Francisco or San José.

My next stop was Palo Alto, where I was meeting up with several college friends whom I hadn’t seen in five years. Originally, we were planning to play board games, but we were just catching up talking so we never got around to it before heading out for dinner. We walked to University Ave nearby Stanford for dinner and, of course, ice cream. It was great seeing them and learning what’s new and what’s the same. We all seem to be at different points in our lives—finishing up a PhD, joining a startup, Googling, learning web development, engineering, vacationing—but it felt just like old times.

Of course, I failed to take a group photo and instead just took several photos of my friends’ cat Viola. She reminds me very much of my cat, though she is a bit lighter (both weight and color) and more docile than Aayla.

Because the others have work in the morning, we wrapped up reasonably early. It worked out well for me because by 9pm I was already tired. Very tired. More tired than I recall being in a long time. I’m hoping a few more calmer days will bring back my energy.

I’m back on the grid again. I spent the night at the Historic Landmark House in Seaside, just east of Monterey.

The day started off cold and rainy so I went first to the Monterey Aquarium to visit the cast of Spongebob.

After I left the aquarium, the rain stopped and the sun emerged from the clouds. I had a quick lunch at Happy Girl Kitchen, a great healthy vegetarian place a few blocks from the aquarium. I rented an electric bike and rode the 17 Mile Drive. It’s basically this scenic route through the beaches, expensive houses, and golf courses. If you take a car, you have to pay to get on the road. I’d never used an electric bike before, and it was a cool experience. You set a “passenger assist” level to between 0 and 6. Since the bike weighed 80 lbs, I rarely used the powerless setting. Most of the time I cruised around on 1-2, reserving 3 for steep hills.

At some point on the way back, I stopped along a beach and stared into the ocean for a bit.

After returning for the bike, I guess I wasn’t tired enough, so I walked a few miles along the coast. I was craving fish and chips and some quick googling pointed me to the London Bridge Pub. It was pretty good, but not as good as the ice cream I got afterwards at Revival. I missed one day of ice cream yesterday, so I’ll need to get an extra ice cream in at some point.

Before I leave for my kayak wildlife tour of Moss Landing, I will leave you with some pictures of this wonderful bed and breakfast. The place was extremely clean and well decorated with art painted by the owners. I highly recommend staying here if you’re in the area. They provided a delicious breakfast and gave some good lunch suggestions.

At breakfast I got to meet some of the guests and staff. A woman and her mother-in-law were in town from Fremont for a quilting show. Charlotte, one of the staff members, has been living here for a few months now—originally from Kentucky but using this place as an artist residency. Annemarie, one of the owners, created many of the paintings hung around the house. While my 3D printed snail didn’t compare, they appreciated it and left it next to their guestbook. I met the cat and dog and chickens too.

I’m back at the cabin for night two. It’s about 8pm. I left my iPad in the car. It would take me about twenty minutes to get. And I’m already in my pajamas. It’s okay. I’m exhausted. 

After not eating much yesterday, I started the day today with a big breakfast. In the cabin, I made three scrambled eggs and earl grey tea. On top of that I had a banana, a clementine, and a Clif bar. It was pretty cold—high fifties—so I turned on the propane heater after some tinkering. 

My first stop was Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. It was maybe twenty minutes north from the cabin. I had two destinations there: Whaler’s Cove and Sea Lion Point. Whaler’s Cove was a fairly short, flat walk, so I went a little further to Granite Point. The hike to Sea Lion Point and around Point Lobos was gorgeous, but there were no sea lions. 

After lunch, I went to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park to hike Valley View Trail to Pfeiffer Falls.  Unfortunately the trail to the waterfall was closed, but I was able to hike up to the top to get the good valley view. There were even people there to take my picture. The hike itself was about an hour and was mostly uphill. 

At the start of the train, there was a sign warning about mountain lions. It said not to travel alone and not to be quiet so as to not surprise the cats. I was alone and I am not good at being loud. Thankfully I was not eaten by a mountain lion.

For dinner I went to Nepenthe, a restaurant with a view. More people recommended this place than anything else for my whole trip. I got a rum spiked cider and some spicy vegetable dish. I sat on the ledge and got to watch the Pacific while eating dinner.

I didn’t pay too much attention to the couple sitting next to me while eating dinner, but I did catch this part of their conversation:

Tracy: It’s broccolini, not broccoli—you don’t like it
Dana: It’s a stupid vegetable
Tracy: You’re an idiot

You may wonder how I learned their names. It turns out that Dana and I wanted the same dessert—the four layer dark chocolate cake—but neither of us wanted to eat the entire giant dessert. Tracy has just started a diet three days ago and wouldn’t be tempted. So Dana and I split the cake. 

We got to talking and I learned that they were visiting Big Sur from Santa Cruz for a concert. He’s a lawyer and she works in the restaurant industry. The two seemed well read and gave me some suggestions for my trip. They also thought I looked exactly like their friend’s son who is twenty. The waitress, who had worked at the restaurant for twenty five years and was maybe in her mid to late fifties, said that I would make a cute stripper. Sounds weird, but it made sense in the context of the conversation. So I took it all as a compliment, especially as I had been hiking all day and was in desperate need for a shower…and that shower will have to wait until morning since the bathroom is semi-outdoors. It’s cold and the light attracts moths, so I will remain gross for another twelve hours. 

Tomorrow I depart north, first hitting up the 17 mile drive in Carmel-by-the-Sea and then the Monterey Aquarium. It’s been a blast, Big Sur. 

Today was another whirlwind of a day. I am off the grid, with no cell service or access to Internet. For the next two nights I am staying in a cabin in the woods—Lotus Blossom at the Jewel in the Forest. It’s just north of Big Sur, about two miles up a long and windy road. The cabin itself is a ten minute hike up a very steep muddy gravel path. 

This morning, I woke up in Denmark. Kind of. I spent last night in Solvang, a Danish town about 45 minutes north of Santa Barbara. The town itself looks like you’re in another country. The architecture is remarkably Scandinavian. There are street names like Atterdag Rd and Elverhoy Way. There are more Denmark flags than US flags—though there are a lot of both.

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In the morning I went to a yoga class at Bloom Solvang. It wasn’t quite a yoga class but it wasn’t not a yoga class. Called “evolution”, it focused on opening up the chest t combat slouch inherent in today’s world. We used props I’d never heard of and I felt muscles I never knew existed. It was exactly what I needed. Everyone was friendly, and the dozen or so of us talked during class, since we weren’t focusing on breathing. As I was the only male and newcomer, I got extra help and questions. I really had no idea what I was doing to start and the people there were interested in my travels.

I left Solvang shortly after 1pm, bidding farewell to the tiny Airbnb dog and getting some coffee and toast at Good Bean coffee. Next up was Hearst Castle, a massive estate in San Simeon. William Hearst built the complex over 20+ years in the early 20th century. It had relics from ancient Egypt, exotic animals from all of the world (zebras still roam the property, though the lions and polar bears are long gone), and art and architecture from all over Europe. The view was amazing. 

My tour of Hearst Castle wrapped up just before 6, as I continued north on the 1. Entering the Big Sur area, I passed through indescribable landscapes. I’ve been all over the world, but nothing has yet to compare to the beauty I saw today as I drove up the coast. I cannot capture it in words and pictures do not do it justice. I stopped several times along the way as the sun set.

It was dark when I reached the Jewel in the Forest. Thankfully I had a headlamp and packed a light bag for tonight. As soon as I arrived, I met Sofanya, the property owner, who gave me a big hug. She’s been here since at least 1995, which surprised me because she looks younger than I would have expected. She let me know that there was no electricity in the cabin but that it had been fixed just before I arrived. So far so good. 

Sofanya has an art studio and a beautiful home at the base of the property. I couldn’t see too much in the dark, but I did get to meet her dog, who was very tired after a busy day making a new dog friend. I hope to see more of the dog tomorrow. 

In the morning, I hope to sleep in and make some breakfast in the cabin. Then I’m off to Lobos Point and Big Sur, followed by Nepenthe for dinner. 

Click here to see a video of the hike up to the cabin at night.