Goodbye To An Epic 2024!

Having returned back to Portland after our ~4month US road trip in our camper-van Dora in mid December, we had a week back in Portland to reflect back on our travels, wash, repack and then head off on our final 2024 adventure.

Portland 

We loved being back in Portland for a week, to reset and enjoy some home comforts - the same bed for more than 3 nights, continuous hot water, and a full kitchen to mention a few! Having almost not seen any rain the entirety of the trip, returning to an Oregon Winter came as quite an adjustment. It felt like it rained continuously, but we guess that’s the only way to keep Oregon so beautifully green 365 days a year. We caught up with our friends, completed life admin and made some very rough 2025 plans. Mel's highlight included going to see the Candlelight Bridgerton Strings, listening to the best songs from the Bridgerton TV Series, reimgained by a string quartet surrounded by you've guessed it, candlelight. Ben enjoyed the music, but thinks battery powered candles don’t have the same ambiance as the real thing so is claiming false advertising (even if they are great for fire safety).

Christmas in California 

We spent the holidays on the Californian coast with our great friends Danni, Dan and their two girls. They flew in from Singapore, to meet us and spend the festive season near the beach, living our best Orange County lives... We had forgotten what the magic of Christmas was like with two Santa believers (hopefully we don’t ruin Christmas for anybody who’s reading this…) and my goodness wasn’t the excitement infectious!!!

We spent the first few days exploring some of the sights of San Diego, including a long walk around Balboa Park and a harbour cruise where we spotted sea lions basking in the sun. As we neared Christmas, we traveled up the coast and stayed at a Airbnb in the Santa Barbara area. We found a neighbourhood of mega mansions, and many had enough Christmas lights you’d likely be able to see them from space, and took a trip to Solvang known as the Dutch capital of America but more importantly at this time of year is ‘America’s Most Magical Christmas Town’. These trips got us all even more in the holiday mode.

A big highlight of Christmas Day was a quick dip in the sea (for Ben/Dan/Danni) and a traditional roast dinner with all the trimmings, followed by a ridiculously large cheese board in the evening…. Safe to say any good work we made towards being healthier in the van was undone in about 48 hours!

Outside Christmas Day itself, we watched a pod of ~10 dolphins on the coast (hats off to Dan for not having an accident when Mel yelled ‘STOPPPPP’ at the top of her lungs) and we hiked to Sandstone Peak which was a 3.5 miles round trip, climbing over 1,000 feet of elevation to a mountain top with ocean views! Hats off to Thea (9) and Alex (7) who absolutely smashed the hike even if we did have to help with a little piggy back as we got almost back to the car!

The only part of our holiday that didn’t go to plan was our trip to the Channel Islands National Park, which was cancelled due to poor weather conditions. I guess we did need to save some National Parks for future trips... this meant we got more time to explore the coast - both Santa Monica and Malibu piers, lots of coffee and snack stops, as well as a trip to Balboa Island which had a holiday decorating competion for all homes facing the waterfront. All in all it was a beautifully fun and festive week, and we were lucky to get to see the area in all its glory before the wildfires that are raging around this part of the LA coast started.

What’s Next?

Ben’s Gran is having a very big birthday in late Janurary. She is turning 100!!! A hugely inspiring lady who still lives alone, FaceTimes the family and emails Mel back quicker than Ben does… We are really excited to celebrate with her and the wider family. So we headed back to the UK for a few weeks and plan to see as many friends and family as we can while we're back.