Just Like Thelma & Louise

In two weeks, we will take off on a road trip through the Western states of the United States. Annelien’s brother will be our house-sitter. He is coming over to make sure that there is someone in San Francisco to watch the summer fog roll in. We will be in our little Thunderbird Convertible – ahum, sort of – conquering the Far West.

We started by drawing up a packing list. We haven’t quite nailed it down yet. For one, we keep losing our list. Secondly, there is no way we will be able to pack all of the stuff we want to bring with us in our car. Today, we gave it a try. We organized a picnic with two friends and we nearly had to put stuff on the roof to make it work. I am not making this up. So good luck when you leave on a picnic trip that will for last a month.

We have decided where we want to go though. So once we have figured out what the convoy needs to bring, we’re good to go. We will drive to Portland, Oregon and to Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, Mojave Desert, Los Angeles, Big Sur and then back home. We will stop in LA to visit our friends’ little baby Samwise and in all the other places to hike and bike. We will sleep in tents, motels, hotels and in a human nest. In Big Sur, there is supposedly a nest that is high up in a tree and that has a view of the Pacific Ocean. Annelien let me choose where I wanted to sleep on our way back to San Francisco and I picked the nest. She made a reservation so that for two nights, we will be human birds freezing to death up in a tree, Annelien claims.

I can’t wait to stick my head out of the tent in the morning and sniff the fresh morning air and to ride my bike through national parks. Also, I am very curious about many things. Will we see a bear in Yellowstone? I am a little scared of bears so I bought a bear pepper spray in a special holster. I’ll keep it with me like geeks keep their BlackBerry on their belt so they can fire it quickly when the need arises. The instruction says that you have to be very careful because “if not handled properly, it can disable the user, rather than the bear.” We should probably heed that warning.