The first week of the voyage!

Our journey began with a one way car rental from Salt Lake to San Diego.  Caitlin, Reuben's fantastic roommate, was kind enough to offer her credit card for us to use because rental places get nervous about their cars going across state lines  using only a debit card. Thank you Caitlin!

Reuben sold his Chevy Malibu before we left, and the 10 year newer version was our rented coach as well on our journey. We left late and 

ended up camping in the Virgin River Gorge. Our first night in our new home, the orange Marmot tent!

So after a quiet night we finished a smooth ride to our starting point and quickly got acquainted with our new mode of transportation, FEET.  This is what we'll look like most of the time for the next 3 or 4 months:

The week has flown by as we've learned to pack our packs properly, take care of our ultra tender feet, figure out where we're going and where we'll rest our heads, seen countless beautiful things, and encountered really great people from all walks of life down here on the coast.  We're going to get more in the blog swing of things, for now here's some highlight pictures of week 1:

We've enjoyed a lot of versions of this view in the first week:

Bethany and her friend John Butterfield and a flower I liked while we visited the Swami gardens on the coast a bit north of San Diego:

John is a great great guy that is currently studying to be a nurse in order to  fulfil his dream of taking care of the Navajo people living in or near monument valley.  He shared a lot of his wisdom and showed us a fantastic time.  An angelic man!  We also made a friend named Matt that lives down in San Clemente this week.  We were in a campground by the ocean on our second or third night eating fish tacos at a picnic table when he zipped up on his road bike in his funny biker shorts and bright yellow jacket.  In as friendly and cheerful way as we've ever heard he suggested that we split the cost of a $25 campsite to help each other out.  A great idea from a great guy.  We've had a ton of fun with him and have spent a few nights camping with him, and then met for food and some walking time together a few times.  He's planning a long coastal bike ride in a few months.  Below hopefully a video clip will work that briefly shows him and Bethany and myself as we awaited our food one evening after we all went to an AA meeting together.  The AA meeting was fascinating and inspiring.  It was really amazing to hear and experience an insider's view of a community of people supporting each other as they tried so very hard to exclude alcohol from their lives.

Well, I'm tired, and Bethany is fast asleep, so I'll add one more video and call it good for tonight.  We've both written some journal style entries  that we might retroactively incorporate down the road.  More likely though we'll just be a bit more prodigious and hopefully consistent in our postings going forward.  Here is a little clip of me playing around in a tide pool at Crystal Cove State Park with my beautiful camera shy girlfriend seen in the beginning.