3901: Day 18 – Destination: California!

We’ll keep this post short and sweet: WE MADE IT!! (Yes, on the 18^th, two days ago). After a long 10-hour drive through rocky Nevada and the fruit fields of California, we arrived in San Francisco! In the car, we added up all the hours we have spent in the car over the past two and a half weeks, and we determined that we have driven approximately 72 hours in 18 days. That is a lot of car time. But pretty awesome.

We are SO excited to be here. It is sweet and bittersweet at the same time – Ashley has finally reached her new home, and it’s time to unpack and unwind. But it is definitely strange not to be planning our next stop or our next adventure. As for the postcard task, we have had a blast over the past 18 days meeting random people and handing out postcards. We can say that doing this simple task has made our trip 100 times more meaningful and memorable. It has allowed us to strike up conversations with gas station employees, local musicians, avid football fans, tourists and natives alike (and even some non-English speakers). We have heard stories about their beloved towns, families, and have received insider tips on local places to eat and explore. While a few people were skeptical of our request, it was generally met with excitement, with many people actually thanking us for giving them a card. People became much more interested in what we were doing and our story when we showed interest in them and their story.

Not to get preachy or sappy on you all, but we’ve learned some valuable lessons on this trip. In today’s world of Facebook, twitter, and electronics galore, our technology has connected us in ways never before possible, but at the same time it has isolated us and made the old form of talking to people face to face and snail mail practically obsolete. You can Google someone’s name and learn everything on their resume, but you will never hear how proud they are of their six kids or how they plan to spend Christmas at the bottom of the Great Canyon.

In the beginning of the trip, we couldn’t wait to start getting postcards back, but ultimately we’ve realized that the true joy in this social experiment is not necessarily what people chose to write on the cards, but rather what they chose to tell us in person. Exploring European churches, visiting Machu Pichu, or seeing the Galapagos Islands would have been an experience of a life time, but these are no better than exploring the French Quarter of New Orleans, visiting the Civil Rights museum in Memphis, or standing in awe at the Grand Canyon (or at least that’s what we tell ourselves…). While all of these were amazing sites, when we think about our trip, we’ll laugh the most when we remember that the first postcard we gave away was to a German couple who didn’t speak English, the musician in Nashville who gave us a copy of his CD to give to the next postcard recipient, or the kind man who fixed our car in the Grand Canyon for free.

As for the post card update, we have gotten 18 back so far. We figure a few more will trickle in…and in total we gave out between 85 and 90ish. So far that's not a terrible response rate, but we hope we still get some more. They have been funny, but nothing too earth-shattering. Several of the cards we got back were the ones that had random questions on the front like “What is your greatest fear?” or “Do you like coke or Pepsi better? Why?” or had MadLibs. The unfortunate part about these was that people filled these out but didn’t actually write anything else in addition. The people who wrote letters were all really nice. Here are a few:

Howdy,

How is the other SF? I met Meredyth on the plaza and she asked if I would mail this card. Yes. (from Santa Fe)

Dear Ashley,

You are our bright future. Enjoy life, be well, be happy, have great adventures, and much love. (from Santa Fe)

Hello again from the New Orleans French Quarter! I hope you two enjoyed your journey across the country! Thanks for stopping by!

Dear Ladies, I hope your journey has brought you lots of wonderful memories – cross country drives have always provided them for me – come back to New Orleans when you can stay a while. All the best.

I live in the 8^th ward of New Orleans. They’re practically similar (she said at the top she was from Ketchikan, Alaska). Both are practically islands in the 1760s inhabited by renegades and good hearted pirates, not those __(unintelligible word here)__ slave trading ones but here It was mostly Indians and feathers not dots.

My name is Michele and I’m from Tillatoba, MS. If you can come back thru stop and see us. Be careful on your road trip.

Nice meeting you. Hope you enjoyed your time in Memphis and the barbeque. Have a great trip to Vietnam!

We also go the post card from the German couple at our first stop!!!! Haven’t translated it yet but that is pretty awesome.

As for California, we both adore it and Ashley is already obsessed. The last two days have been incredible. Yesterday (the first full day) was spent visiting Muir Woods (Meredyth had never been) and then Ashley’s aunt took us to this amazing locally-sourced dinner benefit event. It was at this house with an exquisite garden going down this hill with an amphitheater at the bottom (the house used to be owned by the Hawken half of Smith & Hawken). There was an amazing organic meal followed by a lecture/ discussion about the importance of local, healthy, organic food for school lunches. It was an inspiring evening, complete with live music, interesting people, fabulous food, great weather, and at a stunning location.

Today we explored Berkeley, another must-see on Mere’s list. Ashley renewed her love for Berkeley and Meredyth fell in love with it too! Maybe for future grad school…?

After Berkeley, we went to glean at Star Route farm. It was a gorgeous day and the farm was in Bolinas, a stunning location near Stinson beach. There were about 30 people there and in a little over an hour and a half of work, we harvested 53 boxes of romaine and chard! Each box is worth about $40 so this saved the school district receiving the food heaps of money! Plus, this healthy, organic, amazing food with be part of lunch for about 4,600 students this week. All the gleaned food (perfectly amazing food that would have been plowed under otherwise) is donated. The only bad part about this was that it got dark before we could finish so tomorrow probably twice as much food will just go to waste when they plow the fields. When there are so many people (not only in the Bay Area, but around the country and around the world) who don't have the opportunity to eat healthy food every day, it is a shame to see it go to waste simply because it didn't meet industry standards of what looks good enough to sell. The food we were gleaning from the fields wasn't bad - it just had a few torn leaves, or was oddly wrinkled, or had a hole or two. It is still perfectly nutritious and for the most part still absolutely beautiful (especially the rainbow chard we picked!). It is really, really cool that Marin Organic has been organizing these weekly harvesting opportunities to take advantage of this extra food. Everyone we met was wonderful and kind and passionate about what they do, and it just furthered our love for the area. Obviously, Ashley is more than excited to be here as this is exactly what she was hoping for. The food was beautiful and tasted amazing (we got to snack some out in the fields!). Looking at all the stunning colors of the rainbow chard even made Ashley think that it would make a good wedding bouquet. Talk about a California girl…we both agreed she will fit in here just fine.

On our way home, we stopped at the beautiful Stinson Beach because we had to touch the Pacific ocean. It was chilly but refreshing - Ashley even found a sand dollar! It was a perfect way to end the trip. Meredyth is off tomorrow morning to go to Seattle to visit her sister, and after that have a few more adventures before heading to Malaysia. But she will definitely be back to California, if not to live to visit Ashley who will be completely immersed in her local food eating, green smoothie drinking, biking, layer-wearing lifestyle.

Thank you so much for following our blog – it has been a blast to write and we hope it has been equally entertaining. It has definitely provided us with good motivation to record all our adventures.

Miles to go: 0!!

Total Post Cards Given Out: 85 – 90ish

Post Cards Received: 18

States Traveled: VA, MD, WV, PA, OH, KY, TN, MS, LA, TX, NM, CO, UT, AZ, NV, CA

Here are some of our favorite pictures throughout the trip... Enjoy!

Driving to NM