Our Volksvegan Adventure

It’s good to have friends spread all over the place. We have discovered this wonderful fact during the course of our trip. We’ve even made a few new friends in the places we’ve been to, so now we have even more people to visit. Thank you to all our friends who have let us stay with them (usually with very little notice), fed us, and let these dirty hippies finally get a shower. You all rock!

We headed to Santa Cruz, a mix of the NorCal and the SoCal. The weather was hot and beautiful, and we met Josh and Cori and went to a fabulous vegetarian Indian restaurant called Asian Rose. We were told upon entering that it was a set menu, a five course meal, all vegetarian, and we could simply pay what we thought it was worth at the end. I couldn’t believe Josh found such an awesome place; the food was delicious! We hung out with Josh and Cori for the night, then stocked up at a natural food store and played a round of disc golf at a really unique 27-hole course. After that we were on our way toward the Bay to see our buddy Jake.

We met up with Jake in Berkeley and continued the awesome veg food trend by going to Herbivore, an all-vegan organic place Jake frequented. The next day while Jake went to work, we got the muffler on the bus fixed for the umpteenth time and had lunch at Pyramid Brewery. We randomly ended up parking near this house where we noticed two cars on the driveway with “Powered by Recycled Veggie Oil” stickers. When a third veg car pulled in, we had to say hi and ask where to get some oil. The guy we met ended up being the owner of PlantDrive.com, a grease car company! Unfortunately the veg oil hookup wasn’t possible without a membership and a wait, but it was kinda cool to randomly meet a very important greaser!

We crossed the Bay Bridge and went to Golden Gate Park to ride our bikes and give the pooch some exercise. Then we picked up Jake and went to Cafe Gratitude, a live organic vegan cafe that my friend Crystal worked at last summer and we’d been dying to check out. All the food is vegan and raw, and each dish is named with an affirmation. We ordered “I am rejuvenated,” a wheatgrass sparkling lemonade, and I had a sampler plate called “I am abundant.” We played the game the restaurant was based on and then hung out at Jake’s place where he performed some of his music for us.

The next day Jake showed us a grove of oaks on the UC Berkeley campus where a group of activists had been tree-sitting for ten months. Sen and I had read an article about the tree-sitters in a magazine we picked up in Eugene. The University wanted to cut down the beautiful grove of oaks to build an athletic facility. Activists continue to camp in the trees, many of them there since January, to press the University to build elsewhere. The grove is on a fault line, not a good place to build anyway! We talked to some of the supporters and donated some food for the “tree people” before heading up the hill for a hike on campus. Jake showed us a trail with a great view of the entire Bay Area, which was a great way to end our visit. If anyone in the Bay Area needs a good voice actor, ya gotta ask me to get you in touch with my buddy Jake. He’s hilarious and very talented.

After leaving Berkeley, we’ve been on a fast track North, stopping in Eugene to stay with a friend for a night and driving long hours to get to Boise in a hurry. We’re getting ready for the barter faire and making soap to sell at our booth while we’re in Boise, then we’re heading to Moscow to pick up friends to go to the barter faire. Speaking of which, I need to get busy making jewelry for the faire. Ciao for now!