The day we had Yosemite on our schedule was combined with becoming one year older. We stopped for lunch at a real American restaurant and enjoyed it. Because of our laidback start in the day we arrived late at the park and started for a hike to the Vernan Falls. After about 2 miles we went through all of Carmens “exercising moods”: joy, frustration, complaining, anger, anger against Axel. TripleA is my favourite. My fault is that I can’t stop teasing her while she is in a bad mood.

Joy

Doing the Duck-Walk in Pregnancy-Style…

But finally everything was perfect. Carmi enjoyed the hike (after I stopped making her angry) and we returned to the car before darkness. Then the best part of the day started - a 40 mile switchback road to Fresno. I wanted to celebrate my birthday at a Hooters (Kiefs&Carmens idea) and so I speeded a little bit. I think a melted our brakes because they rattled from one moment on…we didn’t make it to Fresno in time, but at least I had fun to drive even Carmi and Thomas were close to ralphing.

On our last day we wanted to see the Golden Gate without fog so we went there early in the day. After chatting 20 minutes with another photographer it turned out, that she was German too. We even found a German bum there…we are everywhere!

We drove over Richmond Brigde to Oakland and visited Berkeley Campus what was also very pretty, but the city of Berkeley looked actually like a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. We closed the day in a Motel hot tub with Dale and his wife talking about the universe and Yosemite - our next goal.

The first night was pretty damn short because parking lots are expensive. Our free parking spot was only valid till 8am. So Kief and I, we went to the car…and we found a ticket again. Street cleaning??? This city has never been cleaned before! Those b****rds were waiting for us.
From 8am till 11am I keep moving the car because Kiefilein “didn’t sleep one second”.

It’s 9:25am on the picture…

Later that day we walked downtown and then Chinatown. I had the great idea to have lunch there. I asked a Chinese looking lady for a good restaurant. We ordered from the Chinese menue and tadaaaa Kief got something with lots of egg inside…(insider, he hates eggs). I got something with something they called beef, but I am sure it was rat, dog or cat. Carmi liked the food there. Kief was starving so we headed up to find a Starbucks and Subways. Check! At Starbucks I made the mistake to buy an Orange Creme Frappucino and Carmis immediatly was addicted to it. From that moment on I have 2 guys crying “Staaaaaaaarbucks” every other moment. By the way the Japanese Garden is great!!!

Be careful in what area you book your hotel. But let’s start at the beginning.
On the way to San Francisco we stopped in Palo Alto and visited the Stanford University. The campus was just WOW.
We were much faster then we thought and arrived San Francisco on Wednesday. We did not book in advance so we started again digging through all our TravelCoupon magazines. And yep we found something in the Art district. The hotel was pretty cheap but parking was about the same price because I didn’t see the “No parking” sign - fuck. We were pretty hungry on that evening but everything was closed…finally we found a Carl’s Jr. that was open. Our happyness didn’t last too long - have you ever been downtown in a freezing cold city inside the only open store. I think we were (except the the guys on the other side of the checkout) the only ones who haven’t peed in their pants recently. That was the first time ever that I bought the SuperDuper XXL beverage just not to need a refill…

BTW: Carmiii is doing fine of course. Give me the robot, babe!

The HEDP summer school was a great event for me. I enjoyed the introduction in a field I can imagine to work in later. We picked up Jens on Saturday and gave him the full San Diego package in one day..San Diego Zoo, Coronado, Gas Lamp Quarter at night, Black Beach, UCSD campus etc.

We left San Diego on Sunday and stopped in Newport Beach. Regarding to the travel guide book a place full of millionaires. We were pretty disappointed the everything closed at 10pm or before…boring!

Next day we reached SlumCity ehrm L.A. Jens guided us right to the closed Griffith Park - damn fires…
We cruised the whole day through LA stopped at a restaurant above the city and walked the Walk of Fame.

I will add couple more pictures later…need to organize ‘em.