Santa Barbara Sun

Weeeeeeeee, USA I have missed you!

Me in the corner of my
sweet sky couch 

Thankfully no 'ash issues' delayed my flight (good on ya Air NZ!) and I had a sweet ride up here - shared a sky couch with a guy going to summer camp so he got personal filling out US documentation assistance...lucky sod ;p

Have a few days spare before my trek begins so I have spent them in the beautiful Santa Barbara - a coastal area about 2 hours from LAX - with some awesome friends of mine.  I spent the first day sightseeing and drove to the tops of the Santa Barbara hills for a wicked view of the ocean, followed by some reading in the sun (what a lady of leisure :p) and then Mexican for dinner...yum!  A must try for kiwis in the USA, super tasty (and different!).

The view before landing at LAX

On Tuesday a group of us went hiking in a local nature preserve - Arroyo hondo (check it out:  http://www.sblandtrust.org/arroyohondo.html ).  Future CCUSA counselors - I would really encourage you to do stuff like this during your post camp travels as it offers a fantastic opportunity for seeing things outside of the normal 'tourist spots'...and working off your Taco Bells :p Just don't go with people like my friends who make fun of the kiwi that comes from a land of no snakes, mountain lions or bears...which, though there was a sign up warning about them, we didn't run into (oh gee what a shame!).  Being the domestic goddess that I am ( ;p ) I had a cooking lesson for making Mexican food (enchiladas) with my American mom post hike, and I'll have you know dinner wasn't half bad - even if I do say so myself :p

Looking out over Santa Barbara from the hills

Keeping up with the Mexican theme (hey, you only live once!) I had a breakfast burrito (aka fry-up in a tortilla) on the pier the next day which offers an awesome view of the harbour.  Had a shop down State Street (Santa Barbara's main street) afterwards - and with no Glassons or Hallenstines in sight lets just say the suitcase has a few more kilos added to it already!  And as if shopping wasn't hard enough work as it is ( haha ;p) the sun really turned up the heat that avo!

Headed to LA today to spend the night in the Hacienda Hotel (pre-trek accommodation) and then tomorrow morning my trek begins...exciteeee! :D

Holla at you ina bit!

Liz

Swinging in Arroyo Hondon Preserve...weeee :D

P.S.  I forgot the bread here has sugar in it...ew!  WHY!?  Just why!

Packing and Mapping

As more and more of our 2011 CCUSA counselors head overseas for the experience of a lifetime our focus at the CCUSA NZ office turns to making sure next years counselors have the best possible camp experience (amongst other things like all our winter programs of course!).  And so, the challenge has been bestowed upon me...do a Trek America tour, take lots of photos and find out all the best places to tell our counselors to visit in their grace period (gosh you lot are demanding! ;p).

After creating a 'Trek America Live' profile (which is super cool by the way [ Check it out:  http://www.trekamericalive.com/User/?Section=1&UserId=3603 ] - it has a virtual map, blog, groups page for all your fellow trekkies and you can link it to your Facebook to keep all your buddies posted back at home with how much fun your having without them), googling my way through the 'must see's' of the West Coast of the USA and you-tubing trek vids under the code of 'research' I am totally pumped and ready to rock!

And so, the 'Westerner 2' and I are ready to get involved!  Its a two week trek of the West cost - LA, Pacific Coast, San Fran, Yosemite and Sierra Nevada, Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Lake Havasu and San Diego, and back to LA.  Jealous?  You should be! ;p

Totally enjoying that Trek tours involve camping and hiking and outdoorsy stuff (I hope I'm still psyched about that when I'm jet lagged and grumpy...), and they're small van tours so you get to really know your groupies (no coach buses for me, suckers!).

One day to go and I'm still avoiding negotiating the tower of doom (aka my suit case stash).  On the positive I am highly skilled in the area of packing (fitting months of your life into a bag to go traveling regularly will do that to you ;p) and procrastinating (because packing is the most boring task I've encountered in this little project so far - note the sleeping bag testing...say no more!).

Anyhow...assuming all that goes to plan and the volcanic ash chilling over NZ disappears in time for my flight to whisk me away to the USA I'll blog soon on the flip side! :)

                     

    Peace.  Love.  Trek.