Wednesday, February 25, 2009

i love graeter's

Just wanted to let y'all know we survived the trek through the midwest and we're staying in Lexington with the Sizemores to give the Mav a bit of a break. A cold front followed us into town and left a nice blanket of snow that we 've enjoyed the past few days and we've also had a great time catching up with friends and family in the area. Sister Sarah and Roommate Sarah even made it up for a quick visit so it's been really nice to be close to familiar faces and places again. We plan to hang around til the end of the week and then hit the road to finish up the last leg of our trip. I suppose that's all for now and thanks again for keeping up with our travels!

- Sarah and Jer

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Driving through Kansas

(This post is now a day and a half late...sorry)

Besides our stop in Colorado to hang out with some family, the last week has consisted mostly of driving. Lots and lots of driving. We are currently in Russell, Kansas and hoping to make it to the St Louis area tonight before being back in Lexington on Friday. We have some more film we are waiting to get developed and since nothing very interesting happens while you are driving through Kansas (although we did get pulled over for the first time yesterday...always adds some excitement) here is a video from last week on the Northern California Coast.

You may want to make sure your volume is turned down because the video consists primarily of really loud wind.



More soon...

- Jeremiah and Sarah

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Snowboarding

We ended up calling my Aunt/Uncle/Cousins yesterday on our way through Colorado and, despite the two hours notice, they invited us to come stay with them for a night or two. If you know Greg, Tammy, Lydia, and Caleb, it will come as no surprise that they had just finished a day of snowboarding and wasted no time convincing us that we needed to give it a shot. So this morning Sarah and I joined Tammy and Lydia at Arapaho Basin for our first attempt at snowboarding.

We even have pictures to prove it -





(Thanks for the pictures Lydia!)

Right now we are all sitting around the fire eating Creme Brulee. The plan is to get back on the road tomorrow and be in Lexington this weekend.

Hope all is well.

- Jeremiah

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Maverick Onward

Well faithful readers, our western wanderings have come to an end and we are officially headed East now. I know you're all probably wondering about the half-dozen locations on our map we've left unvisited but basically the deal is it's winter and the farther north we went the more miserable the weather got... unbelievable, right? So after a couple disappointments involving various remote national parks, unexpected road closures, and a lack of tire chains, we realized the time had come to maneuver the Mav from the beautiful west and begin our return trip home. Tonight we are outside of Arches National Park in Utah and over the next several days we plan to make the journey over to Lexington, KY to spend some quality time with the Sizemore parents.

So there's the update and hope you all had a pleasant Valentine's weekend! Oh and a big "well done" to all of our loved ones that participated in step sing... we hated missing out this year but we're so proud of all of you :)

Eastward bound - Sarah and Jeremiah

Friday, February 13, 2009

Sunset in Big Sur

Here is one last video from our drive last weekend up the coast. It was a pretty great sunset.



We are leaving Napa Valley today and headed for Yosemite this evening. Also, we sent away more film last week so look for that soon.

Hope all is well.

- Jeremiah and Sarah

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Waves and Rocks

During the same drive through Big Sur, we walked out to a point near a lighthouse where there were some huge waves breaking on rocks out in the ocean. Below is a quick video. I was pretty obsessed with watching the waves crash over and over.



Tonight we are just north of San Francisco at a campground near Point Reyes. It's raining and we are both just reading/researching in the comfort of the Maverick. The trip is still great although I would not recommend driving Highway 1 over Mt. Tamalpais (at least not in an rv)...that was pretty rough.

Also, I think we decided on some of the details if anybody out there wants to use the Maverick sometime later this year. I will post those, along with a calendar, later this week if we have internet.

Love to all...

- Jeremiah and Sarah

Elephant Seals

Ok, here is our video from our first stop on the drive from Malibu when we ran into some Elephant Seals. I don't think I can explain how much Sarah hated these things...I really thought she might throw up just by looking at one. It was a bit drastic.

The first video is from when we arrived.



This one is just a few seconds long but gives you a better idea of how much Sarah enjoyed this encounter.



That's it for now...

- Jeremiah and Sarah the Elephant Seal Lover

Monday, February 9, 2009

Seal Cove Inn

I promised a video of some elephant seals, but since I don't have internet here and can't upload videos with my wireless 'connect card' I will have to save that for tonight or tomorrow.

We are in Half Moon Bay this morning just a bit south of San Francisco. We were talking about how we had originally planned to stay in hotels occasionally just to change things up and how we hadn't actually done that a single time in the first 7 weeks. So last night I started looking for nearby Bed and Breakfasts and found the Seal Cove Inn.



They have a special where the rooms are half price(ish) if you call the day of and make a reservation so we are headed there in a couple hours. It should be pretty awesome.

Also, we were headed to Yosemite yesterday when we suddenly started feeling weird about it and changed our minds. I don't think we were ready to drive East yet. 'Don't drive East' has pretty much been the only rule of this trip so far and we weren't quite ready to violate it. So I think we are headed towards Oregon now.

I've thought a lot lately about how blessed I am to be living the 'life I always dreamed of' at 26. It seems so unfair yet it's just so much fun. Oh well...

Thanks for keeping up...

- Jeremiah and Sarah

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Big Sur

We spent the day (now yesterday thanks to no internet...) driving through the Big Sur area of the Central Coast and it was incredible. The weather started out a bit overcast, but by sunset near Monterrey it was gorgeous. We took a few videos along the way and here is one from about mid-way through the drive.




Tomorrow we have some great videos of elephant seals...so look forward to that.

- Jeremiah and Sarah

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Quote of the Day

Continuing the theme that Malibu is just a weird place to be...Sarah and I were getting yogurt today and we were sitting outside on the steps eating it when two guys stopped behind us. They had just met each other and were exchanging business cards. The biker-looking guy handed the other guy his business card and said -

"Remember, I'm the one that got bit in the a%$ up at Hugh Hefner's place. That d*$% llama got my entire right cheek!"

After overhearing that conversation, I came to the realization that Malibu may not be the place for me to settle down. Also the fact that I was getting groceries yesterday and was waiting for the guy in front of me to finish paying when I realized he had a really familiar voice and looked up to see Tony Danza just chattin away with the checkout clerk.

Oh well...it's still gorgeous here at the RV park.

- Jeremiah and Sarah

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

More Medium Format

Here are a few more pictures we haven't posted yet. These are all from the Grand Canyon...





(This last roll I loaded really tight so every shot had vertical lines on it...)









That's it for now...

- Jeremiah

Monday, February 2, 2009

Oh Famous People...

One thing about being in Malibu, is that you are always around famous people...it just depends how hard you want to look at everyone to see if they are 'famous'. Well, here are our two celebrity stories from the last couple days.

First of all, shortly after arriving at this RV park, we took a walk around and realized that the Airstream parked down the lot from us actually is Matthew McConaughey's...so that was kind of funny. It was featured in Architectural Digest recently and it definitely is the same one. So we now take a look everyday just in case he has showed up to hang out for a bit.




The other 'run in' we had was this Saturday when Sarah, Jas, James and I were walking down the beach in front of all the celeb houses. We were headed back towards the car when a girl in a bikini ran down the stairs from her house with a guitar and just stood in the ocean with the guitar over her head and then started playing it. She then sat down on a rock and started singing some song...it was Pink (this girl).



If you don't know who that is, don't worry, it's really not that exciting. But it fit with the theme. Famous people.

Anyways, we're still here. Life is good.

- Jeremiah

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Almost A Year Ago

About 10 months ago, I was in LA visiting my sister Susannah and I drove up to Malibu to spend the weekend with Jas, Katherine, and James. That Saturday night, we went to a restaurant across from the beach called Malibu Seafood and met Katherine's sister Amy and her friend John David. It was a great little restaurant with an amazing view and we had a lot of fun talking and laughing and getting to know each other.

Yesterday I found myself back at Malibu Seafood. About 300 days had passed but I was once again there with Jas, Katherine, James, Amy and John David. The strange thing is that I also had my wife, Sarah, with me this time and due to the crazy and unexpected events in Jas and Katty's lives over the past year, the rest of the Arnold family was with us as well (Brooks, Kim and Grace) along with Sarah's cousin Johnny.

It was such a weird feeling to see how drastically life can change in such a relatively short time and it really made us both stop and think. The Lord has been so good, but these last 10 months have rarely been easy for most of that group. Here's a quick video of us there.



Thanks again for keeping up. We are certainly treasuring this time and it has definitely made us even more thankful for those back 'home' (wherever that is).

Love you all...

- Jeremiah and Sarah