Fragabond

It is officially Thanksgiving (read: Christmas) season. Yes, I am one of those. I write today happily from a Starbucks outside of Los Angeles – not where I expected to be this morning, but nonetheless delighted by a peppermint mocha and the sound of Bing Crosby dimmed only slightly by the hiss of an espresso machine. You can judge me, but you would be wrong ☺︎

Today, I bring you a download of the last two weeks of Fragabond adventure. A little tapped-out on wine tastings (it is possible, believe it or not), our last weekend “in Napa” we actually spent in Yosemite. We drove the 3 hours from Napa to Yosemite on a Friday night after work and enjoyed two days of National Park hiking again – it felt like the health scales were rebalancing. That Saturday, we hiked a tough one: 16 miles, 4,500 feet of elevation gain, panorama views of waterfalls, Half Dome, and the whole Yosemite Valley. We actually set out for an out-and-back of ~9 miles, but some folks along the way convinced us the panorama loop was worth the extra miles. They were not wrong!

On Sunday our legs were pretty shot from the unexpectedly long trek the day before, so we settled for a drive through the park and a very short hike to the base of El Capitan to watch the fearless climbers who scale the massive rock face. The Lyles gave us the tip to snag a pair of binoculars, and that was an A-plus get. These people are insane! They camp for DAYS on the face of this rock trying to reach the top. Seems terrifying, but we enjoyed spying on them from the ground.

Then, back to Napa to pack up and prepare for the next leg of the journey. We have been sort of puddle-jumping the last 6 days…

• 2 nights in Half Moon Bay – not much in the way of highlights here except for a good Himalayan restaurant – never passing one of those up again after our experience in Golden, CO, and this one didn’t disappoint either.
• 2 nights in Monterey – AMAZING! We hiked in Big Sur on Saturday, and on Sunday morning we laughed at the DOZENS of harbor seals in the Monterey Bay – such odd and goofy creatures!

• Yesterday we drove slowly down the beautiful Pacific Coast, stopping many times along the way for some seriously insane vistas, until we arrived in Santa Barbara hungry. Tacos, some wine (ok, we aren’t completely tapped out), a good night’s sleep, a seaside morning run, and a peppermint mocha…ahhh…☺︎

After Zack gets some new hardware from the LA Blue Origin office (tech issues: the culprit of today’s detour), we will be headed out to Joshua Tree for a few days, officially turning our headlights back east. Christmas in Jupiter is calling!

-Katie