Back to California

Kirsten and I made it to Carlsbad California from Janesville in only 2 days of hitch hiking. The ride almost killed us twice. One driver ran a stop sign out on a rural highway when we came to a crossroad and we just barely missed getting T-boned by not one but two cars, one from each direction of the crossroad. I was pissed at the driver. From that second on I paid full attention to his driving. He claimed he was just too tired and missed the stop sign because of that. The other close call was with a different driver that approached a larger highway T intersection from a smaller one and also ran the stop sign. This time we didn't almost get hit but we went flying up into the air and off the road on the other side because there was a grade like an Evil Knievel launching ramp that sent us flying. We landed hard off the road on the other side. The car was damaged but it got us the rest of the way to Carlsbad. These were just about the only two close calls I ever had hitching rides. I was lucky I guess.

When we arrived in Carlsbad I went to see Hiroshi my employer and set up my job start time and then we looked for a place to stay. We went to a friend's house and he let us crash on his sofabed. The next day he sold us his Volkswagon van and we lived in it for the next few months while we saved up money for our trip to India. Kirsten got a job working at a Long's Drug store. We were able to save a lot of money quickly this way.

The Carlsbad/Oceanside area was a lot of fun to be around. We slept in the van near the ocean many nights. I love the ocean. We would sit and watch the sun set and walk along the beach or sit and watch the surfers ride the waves. There were some dolphins playing in the surf many nights. I used to whistle to them and they would respond. I always liked that interaction. After a few weeks we had quite a two way conversation going between us every night. People watching me whistle at them and them whistling back at me could not believe the interaction.

We did a lot of day trips around the area. We would drive out into the desert and sleep under the stars watching for shooting stars. One day we went out into the desert and it had just rained. I could not believe the overnight change in the place. The explosion of flowers, plants, insects and animals was really awesome to see. It only lasted a few days before it went all brown again. We went to Los Angeles to see Disney Land. Kirsten was not impressed by the place and neither was I. We always checked out the zoos. San Diego had the best zoo. We drove down there once in a while too. We started to go to Mexico with some friends that worked with Kirsten. We would caravan down and swim on the ocean beach or we would go literally cross country to get to the upper tip of the Gulf of California near San Felipe. In San Felipe we would camp on the beach and hang out drinking, smoking pot and swimming all weekend. Some of us would go diving and collect lobsters, fish, scallops and other ocean delicacies to roast over an open fire. We had some great times with some delicious food there. There was not a road to get there and we literally had to get there by using a compass and driving across the arid deserts of northern Mexico to get there and back. We carried guns in case of bandits. We always did target practice when we saw other vehicles in the area to let them know we were armed and dangerous. We were never confronted by bandits on any of our trips down there.

One of our friends was arrested down below Ensenada Mexico for some stupid behavior on his part. The police thought he came from a rich family so they demanded a ransom sized "fine" to get him out of jail. He called his dad, an officer at Camp Pendleton the Marine base we lived near, and his father took care of the problem. He did not pay the ransom fine but instead took a bunch of his black ops men in black SUVs and they broke him out of jail just like in the old cowboy movies by putting a chain around the window bars and pulling the wall down and then they fled to the border with the Mexican police in pursuit. At the border the special ops vehicles just drove straight through both sides and the Mexican Police were left stranded at the border. It helps sometimes to have friends in high places.

Kirsten and I were pretty frugal with our earnings and in a few short months we had a good sized savings account to travel with. We bought a new camera to take with us but otherwise did not spend much money at all except for food and gas for our van. We enjoyed nature and the world around us instead of going to bars and night clubs so we didn't have many expenses for walking on the beach.

When we felt like we had enough money and when the farming season ended for the farm I worked on we again hit the road. Our plan was to fly to Europe, visit her family again and then fly to India. Our original plan was to take the Orient Express train from Paris to Istanbul then go overland from there. One of my friends however was killed along this route and I promised the man's family that I would stay out of Afganistan. So instead we decided to fly to Bombay India and start our trip there without the dangers of going through the war zones in Afganistan and Pakistan where my friend was killed.

We had saved about fifteen thousand dollars in just a few months. That was enough with the strong dollar at that time to stay in a place as cheap as India for a long time. We found a charter flight from Los Angeles to Copenhagen for a really low fare and we took off for the next leg of our travels.