United States Continued (Rather late): Oregon

I'm rather late continuing on talking about my US trip, but nearer to the end of it I simply did not have time to blog (you know, Vegas), and shortly after arriving back to NZ Laura and I found out that we were moving. We're just about all done moving now, thankfully.

After a few weeks in Garberville, it was time to go off to Oregon. Laura's uncle, Dan, and her cousin, Alex, came over from Hawaii for the trip. The purpose was an early thanksgiving dinner with extended family of Laura's.

Not wanting to be crammed three across in the back of Laura's Dad's truck, I opted to take a ride up with Laura's uncle. This, it turned out, was a rather good decision. Not only did I manage to have considerably more space than I would have otherwise, but the stops we ended up making on the way were well worth it. I'm afraid I don't have any photos of the trip at this point (will try put them up when I manage to get a hold of them), so descriptions will have to suffice.

First stop was another visit to the Founder's Grove (the redwood forest I had been to earlier). While I was certainly happy to go back for another visit, we didn't end up lasting too long as it was rather cold. It was finally starting to feel like winter there, and being out of the sunlight just got too much. I also (not surprisingly) was unable to make my way back to the albino redwood tree to show Dan and Alex, so there wasn't all that much keeping us there. Still, it was great to go back for another quick look. There really isn't anything quite like it in New Zealand, despite the fact we do indeed have some pretty massive trees.

Second stop occurred when we decided we were all rather hungry. Alex starting searching for good places to eat in Arcata on his phone, and a small taco truck outside a petrol station was settled on. I was a little skeptical, I must admit, even though I've eaten plenty of street food in Thailand, but I was up for pretty much anything at that point and decided to go for it, hoping I wouldn't end up needing to make multiple bathroom stops the rest of the way. Turns out, it was a great decision. The truck was obviously popular, there were a good 8 people at least outside it when we showed up, and another 15 or so would have come and gone in the time it took us to eat. A particularly enjoyable specialty they had was Korean BBQ meat on their food. A little odd for a Mexican place, but it ended up working extremely well. I must say, it's some of the best Mexican (and Mexican fusion) food I've ever had.

The third stop was very soon after the second. Alex and Dan had been to a micro brewery a couple of days previously, and one of the bar tenders there and recommended to them, Redwood Curtain Brewing. We opted to give it a visit, as it was on the way. This turned out to be another great decision. Dan bought us a taster pack each. 11 beers, and cups that held a surprising amount of each. If I'm entirely honest, I have to say that I wasn't a huge fan of the majority of them. However, the four or so I did enjoy made the trip more than worth it. In New Zealand American beer gets a lot of flak, and in all fairness, the mass produced beer is pretty terrible. But the micro breweries really do produce some amazing beer.

After that stop we realised it was getting rather late and decided that was it for the day. Well, other than a quick stop at a beach, but 5 minutes doesn't really count. While the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, the view made it rather enjoyable. The coast line of Northern California/Southern Oregon is some of the prettiest I've seen, and that's saying a lot coming from a Kiwi.

United States of America

And I'm back to blogging. Haven't posted at all in a few months, my second semester of university was really quite busy, and there was a slew of other things going on at the same time that lead to me just not having time for much writing that wasn't uni related. Anyway, I'm back to it.

On the 11th of November, Laura and I boarded a plane to go to the U.S. It's the first time I've ever been here, and has been pretty cool so far, even though we've mostly just been at Laura's house. The trip there was, for the most part, uneventful, although we managed to almost miss one of our flights. Lack of a boarding call can lead to issues it would seem. We ate Mexican food the night we got here and it was amazing. People weren't kidding when they told me about how huge the portions are here.

The past couple of days we've been working on making apple and pear juice. This included picking the apples, and grinding them up into a pulp before extracting the actual juice.

I'll see if I can get some more photos later on.

Today we also went to the nearby town, Garberville. It was very much a small town, with (as expected) rather a lot of hippies. Also got to try my very first burger in America, and I gotta say, it was pretty delicious. Surprisingly enough, I've actually LOST weight since I got here. I suspect that has something to do with the fact that I'm moving around a lot more as opposed to diet however.

What I've found to be the strangest here has honestly been the driving. I've only ever been in countries in which they drive on the left, and even though I've just been a passenger, driving on the right side of the road feels really, really weird.

I've also found the television to be fairly odd, most specifically the adverts. The main two that have stood out are adverts for prescription drugs, and an advert for a class-action lawsuit. Just not things you'd see in little old New Zealand.

The next few days I think will be more of the same. Hopefully going up to Eureka and Arcata with a friend of Laura's on Saturday, which should be fun. Going to tour a brewery and eat good food.