Driving to California... we had dreamed of this since our very first day in America. But unfortunately, it was just a dream. To be honest, I didn't fully believe this plan was realistic. California just seemed too far away. But as the end of summer approached, everything became more real – we had a car, I had a driver's license, we had saved up a little money, we were being paid well, and I finally received my insurance payout. Although it was very difficult to achieve. I, all by myself, in a foreign country, without a lawyer, had to 'fight' for the money from the insurance company. I spent almost half the summer 'fighting' for it. And I won! I sent them all sorts of photos, scans of my bills, they didn't like the quality, etc. But in the end, a miracle happened, and they sent me a check for $3500, which I think was already a pretty good achievement. Of course, I could have gotten much more. But I was happy with that. This money allowed us to talk about a trip to California quite realistically.

And we started planning. First, who would go – we settled on 4 people: me, my brother, and we decided to take 2 friends of ours, so it would be more fun and to help cover gas money)) Then the route – since we had to pick up the girls from Myrtle Beach (South Carolina), we decided to go through Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Interstate 10 ran right through there (the fastest roads in America are the interstates). We decided to take this road. We planned to reach California with only two stops to sleep, and the second one for a very short time. We planned to drive from Myrtle Beach to Los Angeles in three days. A difficult undertaking, I tell you. We wanted to make a long stop in Houston (Texas) to sleep, then a short stop somewhere in the mountains, and then drive non-stop to Los Angeles.

We planned to stay with people from the couchsurfing.org project. For those who don't know what it is – a few words. Couchsurfing.org is a social network on the internet where people are registered who are ready for new contacts and acquaintances. These people are ready to host other people from this project in their homes completely for free, they just like it. I am familiar with this project, as during our last trip with my brother hitchhiking through Europe, we stayed with exactly such people. So it was decided to look for accommodation there.

In America, finding accommodation on couchsurfing.org turned out to be much easier than in Europe. We easily found accommodation for one night with some guy and accommodation for 3 nights in Los Angeles with two girls (that's what we thought at the time :)). We decided not to plan beyond Los Angeles, or to plan it on the way. Honestly, we were a little afraid that something might happen to our old clunker – it was a bit old + over the summer we still had to replace one fairly serious part ourselves. So we decided that was enough planning for now.

We packed our suitcases, finished working, asked our friend Alex to lend us a spare tire and a large suitcase for the roof of the car to put the small ones in, and drove to Myrtle Beach to pick up the girls. We arrived there calmly by evening. We had dinner, drank some beer (which turned out to be a tradition in America), and went to bed, because at 3 o'clock in the morning (or night?) the longest and most exciting journey of our lives was about to begin...