San Fran photo diary

Finally here

After an eventful 12 days we have finally reached San Francisco, the destination i was most excited about visiting. Driving down the idilic highway 1 today with a newly fixed car was suppose to be a relaxing drive, I don't know why I was surprised when it turned out to be anything but. 150 miles into the journey the exhaust started blowing and it only got louder and louder, so loud I couldn't really hear the conversation in the front. We're not really sure what happened, but we do know that the exhaust pipe has split in two and it doesn't sound too happy! Anyways we're here all the same and for now I'm happy.

I've learnt one thing from this trip... if your gonna treck over 1000 across the country makes sure your cars up to it.

The perfect travel accessory

The new I Pad. I want it. Its small and compact and perfect to fit in your handbag. Rob and I have decided it will be perfect to travel with instead of hauling an expensive and bulky laptop around.They're not currently out in the UK yet but they've been a massive hit here so I guess they'll follow suit at home.

Bishops Peak

Today we all went on a 2 hour hike up Bishops Peak, which is one of the seven sisters of central California... all of which are old volcanos, they're pretty cool and look stunning. It was a nice hike, actually easier than I expected, it looks huge from James' house, but climbing it it didn't seem so huge. It gave us an awesome view of the area for miles around. I felt pretty good for doing some good exercise again...

Morcheeba - "the sea"

Take me away and let me dream.... The sound to my week. A dream i feel like i'm living.

More of Cali Road trip...

Today...

We're still in SLO today and will be for the next few days. We finally got the car into the garage and after this evaluation the guy thinks he can fix it for $350, which is a hell of a big difference to $850. So I think Andrea is very happy with that. It should be fixed in a few days. Anyway, today we went motor biking with James' house mate Zac, he's an insane rider and lives out on this ranch in the country side near San Miguel. The ranch is enormous, it has like 9 horses, countless acres and even enough room for 2 dirt bike tracks. Its a pretty sweet set up. I think Rob would be entirely happy there. We didn't really do much biking as it started to rain pretty hard, but we went to see the horses which i thought was pretty cool. One tried to kiss me...

... as for the rest of the day, we're just chilling out and taking it easy.

San Luis Obispo

It was such a relief to arrive here in one piece and actually have a bed to sleep in and be able to shower. I was really happy to arrive with James. Central California is so amazing too. Like nothing I have ever seen, its so beautiful. Its kind of like an over exaggerated England. I guess everything seems a little more refined and more perfected and bigger too. I thought southern California was the place to be. I was so wrong. This is definitely it. It has the best of both worlds, lots of lush green and fantastic sunshine. James is half English, and lived in Yorkshire for a big portion of his early life... arriving at his house was like walking into a traditional English home. It was so bizarre. So being surrounded by these rolling hills, the ocean, lots of green and tress and then arriving at this very English house i felt so at home and to top it off... it RAINED!!!! Mental!! I haven't seen proper rain in almost 6 months. I enjoyed every bit of it. Its all made me a little home sick. They have also been feeding us marmite. Brilliant!

On our first day here James was itching to take us kiting, so thats what we did. He is totally awesome at it, like stupidly fantastic. Its honestly like his life, if something doesn't fit with kiting then it just doesn't get done and that includes work. I didn't end up actually trying kiting but the other did and they really seemed to struggle even though they had put tones of effort in. I guess there is so much to take into consideration.

(James Kite Surfing)

Santa Barbara.

We ended up stuck in Santa Barbara for a couple of days, this was really annoying. Basically on the way there the brake light had appeared on the dash board, and we hadn't really thought anything about it. That was until we arrived back from the gig to the car park and realized that the car no longer had any brakes. This was pretty scary but at least we'd had figure out what the problem was... the brake fluid had been leaking due to rushy old lines, so for the time being we could just top up the brake fluid. I didn't really think this was a massive deal at the time. I was wrong, for several reasons. 1. we'd broken down on a Saturday night, so garages weren't open again until the Monday morning. 2. Santa Barbara is one of the most expensive places on earth so we couldn't afford to get a hotel room and we couldn't really afford the cost of garages there either. So for the next 2 nights I would sleep uncomfortably in the car, scared out of my brain as I didn't know what weirdo was going to brake into the car and steel all our stuff. It wasn't fun. Although we did have a lovely day at the beach, which was dog friendly. It was nice just being able to catch up on sleep and relax. When the garage open on the Monday morning, we immediately sent the car in for an evaluation and repair, the thing is, is that it never got to the repair stage. We had been quoted $850+ to fix the car. This was not good. Andrea certainly could not afford this. In the end we decided just to bite the bullet and drive to SLO (where our friend James lives) and top it up along the way. This was a little sketchy and maybe one of my most least relaxed drives. We got there safe and sound, so all was good.

Atoms for Peace...

Atoms for peace were totally awesome. It was amazing. We saw them at the Santa Barbara Bowl, which is an old open air amphitheater... it was pretty crazy. The acoustics were really great too. It was weird because I don't usually enjoy seeing bands when I don't really know much of their stuff (which i didn't), but this time it didn't seem to really matter. I found myself rocking out regardless. It was a lot of fun and also the band were kind of new and innovative, doing things in ways that I hadn't really seen or heard before. I'm so glad that Robs uncle was able to hook us up with some tickets. To top the night off Robs uncle had also thrown in some after show tickets... I was too excited, and for good reason. It was Epic. I wasn't really sure what to expect. What I found was cool though, we were in this swanky back room that had oodles of wine and beer for the taking and an array of random people whom were probably wondering who the hell we all were. We were scruffy, dirty, un-showered and my hair had definitely not seen a hair brush in a few days. All the same I was really excited to be there. We tucked into the wine straight away. It was good. I was pretty drunk by the end of it to say the least. Half way through the night we realized that we'd been sharing the room with some pretty high profile people... I forget the name of many, but the guy who played Johny Cash in Walk the line was there, Joaquin Phoenix. That was pretty surreal. I also realized that Flea from the chilis and Atoms for Peace was there as well as Thom Yorke himself. I felt a little intimidated. It took me most of the night to pluck up the courage to go over to them and thank them for an awesome performance... once I did, I wished I hadn't. They were honestly some of the rudest people I had ever met. Kind of ruined it a little for me. All the same I met them so I guess thats pretty cool.

(Atoms for Peace)

(thats flea from the chili peppers behind Sophie and I, wearing a hat with blue hair)

(thats Thom Yorke in the hat behind the blonde woman)

San Diego.

It was Good. It was lovely weather and nice and chilled out. Although it wasn't very dog friendly so we were pretty limited to the places we could visit. A short and sweet visit. We also went back to visit Point Loma again. It was much better this time as the weather and visibility was a vast improvement than on our last visit in June. This was the last the day if was all five of us traveling together...

...having a few issues with the layout and order of these events. Sorry.

THE SEA... (well Pacific Ocean)

Today we saw the Sea (ocean) for the first time in 6 months. It made me happy. It also made me realize that this is the longest period in my entire life that I have gone without seeing the sea for. Bonkers!!!

(San Diego)

(San Diego)

(San Diego)

Thrown with Love...

This is what i left Utah... The famous shoe tree in park city now has a new addition, a pair of crappy old burton boots. All the same they're mine and thats what i've left behind.

A little piece of me in Utah, Park city...

Good Bye for now, i've loved this place.

"OH SHIT.... "

Rafting... what can i say!? It was truly epic, epic in the true sense of the word! When we arrived at West Water and we were having our safety briefing I was a little worried to say the least. We were being taught all these commands and warned about possible situations and outcomes. To be honest my biggest fear was having 'summer teeth'... its a rafting thing. Apparently on a regular basis people have their teeth knocked out by people letting go of the T grip of their paddle and when all shit hits the fan it usually ends up straight in someone's mouth. I wasn't sure if i was more worried about having my teeth knocked out or actually knocking someone else's teeth out... all the same i was worried, and so was everyone around me. Luckily no one had any teeth removed.

The trip started off a little random as it had been a while since any of our guides had last rafted this particular river and the water level was much lower than it was previously. A few miles down the river we did a variety of insignificant rapids, at the time everyone thought these should have been the big rapids but because the low water level they just weren't happening. How wrong we all were. This became a reoccur theme to our rafting trip, people were getting a little confused about which rapids were which. So when we thought we'd already done the really gnarly stuff... we hadn't even really started. Thankfully the rapids started off fairly tame (kind of) and got gradually more and more extreme, so at least i felt like i wasn't thrown in totally in the deep end. The last 3 rapids were almost definitely the biggest and most scary rapids on the trip, and without a doubt the most exciting. On the second to last rapid (although at the time we actually thought it was the last rapid) shit totally hit the fan. I think the rapid was called 'sock it to me' (i might be wrong) so we came through the rapid over this enormous wave and everything seemed to be going ok, until the raft starting heading towards this enormous rock which seemed to be the size of a house. This was quickly followed by Ryan (our guide) shouting... 'oh shit.... HIGH SIDE', this is when i realized that there had been a serious fuck up and this could be bad. The next thing i know the raft is rising up the side of the rock on its side and i'm struggling to stay in the boat. With that i grab hold of the first thing i can find which is Ryan and end up pulling him out of the boat with me, eeek. By this point the boat had flipped over and landed on me and everyone else was in the icy waters. I was really worried. I'd lost my paddle and for a few seconds i couldn't see anyone else. Easily some of the scariest moments of my life. Eventually Rob emerged from around the corner of the raft and Ryan and Andrea quickly starting hurling people on top of the raft. At that point everything seemed ok, our whole team were on top of the boat and everyone was safe and unharmed. It became quickly apparent that this wasn't over yet as the upside down raft we were all sat on was floating closer and closer to the next rapid. A rapid that we couldn't afford to go over upside down, there would be pretty much no way we could have done it. Thankfully there were several other rafts around that had made the last rapid which were able to help us and pull us into an eddie (an area of still 'safe' water) just before the next rapid. Without the other rafts who knows what would have happened.

This was such an amazing trip i wouldn't have changed a single moment of it. Not even the flipping of the raft or the horrendous state i got into on the final leg home... which i blame entirely on excess red wine.

So Andrea and Ryan and everyone else who helped to organize this trip, thank you so much for a wicked trip and something i will never ever forget. I'd do it all again tomorrow.

Thank you

xxxx

p.s. Also thanks for saving us.

Thats it: thats all

Today was end of the winter season at the Canyons. It was both a sad and happy day. I've had an awesome time, I've met some amazing people, people I will be friends with forever, I've rode some sick powder and done a few other pretty crazy things. I'm a happy girl... I will miss this place but look back with very fond memories.

To everyone who shared this with me...

Thank you xxxx

One way to ruin your life...

Never ever get a contraceptive implant. What ever anyone tells you, its more likely not to work out then go to plan...

The end is near

Vegas

Vegas was totally awesome. Honestly had the best time ever. We spent quite a bit but not as much as we could have done. Our friend Gemma blew over $300 in slot machines, if that were me I would have cried. But I guess it was her birthday... The bargaining tool we heard many many times. It was even used to get me on a roller coaster, which I wasn't happy about. The hotel we stayed in was really nice and 6 of us comfortably crammed into one room. The weather in Vegas was amazing too, a world away from Park City. It was shorts and T-shirts weather all the way... awesome awesome trip.

Our Return

On returning to Park City from Vegas it was insane. We had left Vegas at a lovely 25 degrees totally ready for summer and when we got back to Park City it was well and truly winter again, it had snowed around 3 foot when we were in Vegas and continued to snow for the next 3 days. We had over 7ft in 7 days, it was truly epic. I have literally never worked so hard in my entire life and have definitely never seen so much snow... but it was 100% worth it for the powder runs. They were crazy. I've never been so determined not to fall over, as the one time I did i was digging myself out of snow that came higher than my shoulders for what seemed like a life time. The lifts were totally buried and we failed to open on time for several days in a row.

Only one more day to go...

This is the final week of the ski season for the canyons this year... its come around so quickly. I remember at the beginning when I couldn't imagine the whole resort being open, where as now I can't imagine the whole resort being closed. I think I'm going to miss this place. So Sunday is our last day. Well actually its the last day the resort is open (so the last day of proper work) but we actually have to work the monday and tuesday following the sunday for shut down. I'm still excited all the same.

I'm Excited...

Today we go to Colorado white water rafting. I'm stupidly excited. Its going to be so awesome. I am a little nervous, but I guess thats because I've not done proper white rafting before were I actually have to raft and also I know its going to be freezing and I really don't want to get cold. But it'll be wicked so all is good. I'm also excited because on the 15th April we're going to California (thats if all goes to plan) for 2 weeks, so that will be nice and I'll also get to go to San Francisco, which I have wanted to do for a long time. After that we'll be heading to Lake Powell to start our new jobs!!! Its going to be a very very busy month. I'm looking forward to every single moment of it.