Our first night we made it to Twin Falls, had the first shower in about a week – it was amazing – and checked out the falls. The next morning we were off to Oregon where we purchased some legal marijuana (can I say that?) It was very surreal, just walking into a store and seeing shelves full of all different types. Obviously we didn’t actually do it…

Day three of the roady was Portland. We had stayed just outside of the city the night before so headed in to start 24 hours of pretty much just eating. We had donuts at two different places (Blue Star is the best), the best pork crackling sandwich from a British food truck, insane Indian streetfood style for dinner and four scoops of ice cream from Salt and Straw – an amazing ice cream shop. We AirBnB’d the night with a sweet couple who we never really saw but were lovely nonetheless. We woke the next morning, lazily walked down Alberta Street, got breakfast, did a little vintage shopping and begun the next leg to San Fran.

We spent that night in a cool beach side campsite and continued the next day down the Oregon Coast which is one of the most beautiful stretches of road I’ve ever driven. It is very rugged, a bit like NZ’s West Coast, with dramatic cloud rolling through and sharp jagged rocks jutting out of the sand. That afternoon we reached just outside the Redwoods and spent the night in a funny little deserted campsite.

The next day was our last day of driving 😦 so we had a massive clean out of the van because we couldn’t really do it in central San Fran and left our camping neighbours with an eclectic mix of leftovers including camping chairs, everything you need for s’mores, and a cigar. The first few hours of the drive was spent cruising through the Redwood forest which was quite breathtaking. It was still morning and the light coming through the mist in the trees was other-worldy. Seeing this forest has been something I wanted to do for a long time so I was very excited.

We stopped for lunch in a day campsite in Sonoma Valley using up the last of our cheese toastie ingredients, and headed in to the big smoke.

The next two nights in San Fran we spent with Soph, Tom, Rob, and Kate, friends of ours from home. Kate and Rob live in San Fran in a beautiful apartment and took us to the baseball and out for literally the best pizza I have had in my life. I’m not being dramatic. I do not say this lightly. There is one guy cooking the pizzas and there are five to choose from. Apparently him and another guy had been vying it out for best pizza in New York for the last 10ish years and one day he couldn’t be bothered with all the drama so he packed up and moved to San Fran. Seriously, the pizza is unbelievable. It’s called Una Pizza Napoletana. We also ate at Tartine and walked the lovely waterfront, but honestly, the pizza. Both nights we slept in our van on one of the few flat roads we could find and early on the second morning we drove to the Jucy depot, did one last clean out, said goodbye to our trusty van (Bruiser), and Uber’d to the airport for our flight to New York.