Sunshine Highway

Golden Gate Bridge.

San Francisco, CA.

June 2009.

It seems like the chances are good that this summer will see me returning to the United States for my first visit since 2009. It's far from likely that me and my best friend (one of the guys with whom I drove around France last summer) will visit Norway and Sweden this year. We had a great route planned which would've lead us from Denmark's capital Copenhagen over to Malmö, along the coast to Göteborg, Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen, all the way across Scandinavia to Stockholm, then driving down south to Norrköping and finally Ystad. We're still hoping that if we really don't find a way to make it happen this year, we'll be able to go on that trip once Freddy's graduated, which would be 2013.

I don't have a route for my trip yet. The names of the national parks / national monuments I would like to visit for the first time are Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Death Valley, White Sands, Yosemite, and Zion perhaps - in addition, I want to visit Grand Canyon and Joshua Tree again - aside from the national parks, I'd love to visit Antelope Canyon, El Mirage Lake, Havasu Falls and Horseshoe Bend - last but not least, far away though they are, Crater Lake and the Teton Range are both high up on the list of temptations I might not be able to withstand. 

These are my favourite links of the past week: The world's largest rope swing; an awesome cover of an awesome song; a beautiful cottage; a smart design for a small apartment; nature paintings and sketches by Cathy Johnson; some great Flickr photostreams (#1 - #2 - #3 - #4); a series of photographs of vans; the five best things about returning to civilisation, according to several adventurers.

Is anybody else employed in gastronomy? Maybe as a professional barista like yours truly? Even if you don't work in gastronomy, you might enjoy watching this video of a professional barista at work.

Blog post title taken from the song by Dropkick Murphys.

Have a nice weekend!


- Dom