For those of you who were following our Great West Coast Loop adventure, you may have noticed that we abandoned you, and the blog, smack in the middle of the California Coast. We were busy making lemonade with lemons in San Luis Obispo and then *poof*, we were gone.
Full disclosure: the sights and adventures along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) were as epic as we’d hoped, but by the time we arrived home, we were feeling road weary and burned out.
Over a period of 4 months, we averaged a new campsite every second night, and most of those campsites were visited during the second half of our trip. Finding affordable campsites along the PCH was a huge struggle, requiring much more planning and research than normal. Driving days from the west coast home to Quebec were long and to top it off, Walter (for reasons we still don’t understand) started suffering major anxiety every time Sally was underway.
By the time we arrived home, we were overdue for a break from the road and that translated into a break from the blog. It was meant to be a short break but… Oops! …suddenly it’s mid-October.
We briefly debated whether it makes sense to pick up where we left off with the blog, but ultimately decided that, Yes! …it does. We’re itching to share the photos and storeys from our favourite destinations along the spectacular Pacific Coast Highway. And for those of you who were hoping to use this information to plan your own west coast adventure, we have so much advice to share!
So, what can you expect from our upcoming posts? We’ll be sharing:
- Tips for Vanlife in California’s Quintessential Beach Towns (Monterrey, Carmel-By-The-Sea & Pacific Grove)
- Why We Almost Skipped San Francisco (And Why We’re So Glad We Didn’t)
- How Not to Explore the California Redwoods – Vanlife Misadventures
- One of the Best Places You’ve Never Heard Of – Lincoln City, Oregon
- Recommendations for an Epic Road Trip Through Idaho
Stay tuned! And you know what they say, better late then never 😉
SLOW SALLY & CREW 
So good to hear from you again! And I’m happy to learn that your adventure did continue on, that you made it home, and that we’re going to hear more from you. I know what you mean about burn-out. After our trip last winter, I realized that blogging about our travels was beginning to become a burden, rather than enriching our experience. So, on our trip this fall, we didn’t write at all (though Sande kept a pretty detailed diary). We may put something together yet, but I don’t know. That said, I’m looking forward to hearing more about your travels. Cheers!
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I was following your Fall trip on Instagram and noticed that you weren’t blogging – it all makes sense now! It’s true – blogging is a lot of work. I often struggle with balancing blogging and travel. It’s easy to get sucked in to too much blogging and missing out on the travel itself. That said, I do love having the posts to look back on and share with others. To blog or not to blog – it’s never an easy decision! If you put something together about your Fall travels, I’m eager to read it 😉
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Yes, being able to go back and look at the blog posts when the old memory fails is one of the great benefits of doing the blogging. We have been trying to recall the details of two trips we did to Texas in 2018 and 2019, before we blogged, and it is very difficult to do. We spent hours last evening looking through digital photographs to try to find what we had forgotten (the name of the pub in Bastrop where I had the fantastic shrimp and grits, for example). So, I’m considering writing up those past trips in some form that will make those memories more easily accessible. And, yes, I will write some posts about the New England/Maritimes trip.
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Bastrop is great! We were also there one year, pre-blog. Wound up there by happen stance as the McKinney Falls State Park was full. First and last time I tried chicken fried steak. It was delicious but I walked around the rest of the day feeling like I’d eaten a kettlebell.
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Like Rick’s above comment, we’re so happy your adventure continued and certainly understand. Hugs for Walter and hopefully he can return to his less anxious traveling self.
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Thanks Ray. Walter has definitely calmed down some since we’ve been back. He’s much happier travelling in the car than in the van these days – less bumpy and noisy I suppose. He loves the van as long as it’s not moving, lol. We may have to adjust our travel days some on our next trip.
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Hey Nat – we were in that same SF park in 2019 – our AirB&B was fairly close to there.
Love Dad
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What a great neighbourhood for an AirBnB stay! The parks and public spaces in SF were next level. xo
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