Emily and Mitchell in the USA

Hello friends! Another week, another blog. This one has had some small trips and we went back to San Diego for a short visit. After our big camping trip the week before we weren't feeling very adventurous and the tire pressure on the car needed looking at, so we did a lot of walking to get to work. That week at the gardens I was working in the orchard and volunteers are allowed to go through and pick whatever fruit they'd like to take home. I took a backpack full of oranges and citruses of all sizes and some other fruit growing there like a pomegranate. What I thought was a big grapefruit turned out to be a huge lemon though! I was ready to eat it with my breakfast later in the week and had to turn it into lemonade instead. It tasted very good with some strawberries and some mint I weeded out of the herb garden on my other day in the gardens.  Tiny oranges! Haul from the day On the Wednesday that week we went to a new restaurant in the little town centre by our apartment. It wa...

Hey it's Mitchell! We've been on another wild camping adventure and this time I'm writing the blog. We left very early on Friday morning to go camping (I took a day's vacation, incidentally not a day's holiday which apparently gives the confusing impression I've booked a public holiday to Americans). We drove for six hours and after a switch around at a Starbucks at the halfway point, I drove the last three hours. While I'm not especially fond of driving I would definitely do it more if most of it was like that; driving downhill on empty mountain roads without any junctions. Emily's note: This was the first time I've heard Mitchell singing away and actually go woohoo while driving. The road through King's Canyon We arrived at the campsite and set the tent up while hearing ominous thunder rumbles in the distance. We managed to get the tent up without any rain and went for a walk to find the ranger station and some maps for our hikes the next day. ...

Morning campers! We've had a good week, some days out and our first sighting of a snake! Saturday morning we were up early to beat the heat and take a hike across the nearby Box Springs mountain. There are a few trails which stem from the car park (which we didn't see at first because despite the car park being huge and empty, everyone had parked along the road for some reason) and we just did the one trail that day.  Views!  We'd started halfway up the mountain already, so as we set off we immediately had some fantastic views of Riverside on one side and more mountains on the other. There were a few farm structures in the area and donkeys wandering freely all across the wilderness.  Our walk took us about 45 minutes to get to the peak, although the trail wasn't very clear in places. we thought we'd be able to do a loop and come back down via another route, but when we got to the top, we couldn't see any other way down!  I made him stand on this rock specificall...

This week, as the title suggests, we had a plan which did not quite come to fruition.  The plan for Saturday was to go to Laguna Beach again, but take the mountain road and stop off at a number of spots including the cafe with a view and a short hike to see a waterfall. We got to the cafe fine, it was about 15 minutes along the mountain road and had amazing views. We'd passed it a few weeks ago when we drove up, but hadn't stopped. This time we got some lunch and admired the view before setting off for the next part of our journey.  Stopping for some lunch Charlotte enjoying the view Unfortunately, as we got close to the stopping point for the waterfall the road was closed and we couldn't go any further! We tried to find away around, but it seems there is only one road through to get to the beach and we couldn't drive on it. We thought about going back and taking the highway, but that would mean going almost all the way home just start the journey again so we had a look...