Back to California

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So here is our final installment, back in California.

With only 3 days and about 1000 miles to cover we had to put our foot down and race to Death Valley. We drove for several hours through utterly empty desert. We were planning to stop in Death Valley Junction (the only town for several hundred miles) to get some food etc. before heading into the national park but when we got there all we found was a handful of abandoned houses and a boarded up shop. Bizarrely there was also an opera house! This ghost town in the desert was very creepy, so we changed our plans and ploughed on, reaching Death Valley National Park in the later afternoon.

Death Valley is one of the hottest/driest places on earth and the lowest point in the USA (282 feet below sea level). We passed through some seriously unfriendly looking mountains and onto Zabriskie Point, where we took a short trail to a viewpoint over the sand dunes. The dunes are solidified and they are muticoloured; brown, yellow, cream and orange. They look cool but also very uninviting! During the late 1800s they mined borax there until they decided it was too unprofitable so turned to tourism instead. Even in late October it was seriously hot! When we got to the visitors center we could see that the whole structure had been designed to provide the most shade possible. I dread to think what it would be like in high summer. The park is huge, the biggest national park outside of Alaska, sadly we only had a few hours before sunset so we drove on through the park reaching our campsite just in time; where we camped side by side with some French hippies in vintage Citreon vans (God knows how they got them there!)

Unfortunately, or probably luckily I should say, we’d overheard a ranger in the visitors centre saying that Tioga Pass in Yosemite was closed due to heavy snowfall. This was disastrous for us. The following day we were going to be driving up to Yosemite and the fastest route was north and over the Sierra Nevada mountains at Tioga Pass. These mountains are obviously quite impassable because the only other road through was a good few hundred miles further south. So this left us no choice but to re-plan a route that took us almost down to LA and over 100 miles out of our way! Bearing in mind that at this point we had gone over our mileage limit and were now paying 25¢ per mile. It is fair to say we were not happy.

Sooooo, the next morning we set of at 5.30am, witnessing a beautiful sunrise over Death Valley several hours later. We drove for 10 hours! Finally reaching Yosemite National Park in the afternoon. We entered the park from the south and our first view of the famous granite valley was worth the drive! It is awesome.

Expecting crowds we’d booked a site in one of the campgrounds in the valley, so we set up camp almost at the foot of half dome (one of the more well known monuments) which was very cool! That evening we walked to Yosemite falls, the highest falls in North America and the 5^th tallest in the world, however California is in drought so the falls weren’t actually falling…

The next day we did a bit of a mish mash hike, making up our own trail from several different ones that crossed each other. It was hard going but we ended up on the top of a granite cliff with cool views of half dome and several slightly more watery waterfalls. The sun was shining and it was warm but we could still see the snow around us at the top, reminding us that it was in fact late October and not summer!

That evening we took the fantastic free shuttle bus over to The Ahwahnee, which is a historic lodge built at the beginning of tourism in the valley. It was a beautiful wooden lodge type building with several open fires and sofas in the lobby (which we happily sampled) and a dinning room that wouldn’t look out of place in a medieval castle!

Sadly Friday arrived all too soon and we headed back to San Francisco to say goodbye to our trusty old van. After 7 and a half weeks camping with the van we could hardly believe we had to give it back! However, the hotel room and ensuite bathroom waiting for us cushioned the blow significantly.

We made a quick trip into downtown San Fran for the evening. Then the next morning we flew down to San Diego, on the USA/Mexico border, for some chilled out sunshine.

San Diego is very cool! It is sunny and warm all year round so everyone looks happy and tanned. The whole city is super laidback and you can just wander down to the seafront from downtown. Our hostel was in a great location, right in the Gaslamp district, which is full of bars and restaurants. However, it was Halloween weekend so the whole area was full of dressed up, rowdy students! Needless to say we did not get a lot of sleep that night!

After a few days of checking out the city we jumped on the coast train to Oceanside, a small seaside town that is almost a suburb of San Diego. There we’d rented a little cabin right on the beach for a week to chill out for a bit before coming home. We were both exhausted from our weeks of non-stop travelling so it was a welcome thought to be in the same place for a whole week!

Oceanside it exactly what you expect of a SoCal town. Everybody surfs, the weather is sublime and there are plenty of palm trees. The first couple of days weren’t quite warm enough for beach-ing so we wandered around checking out the area and went in the sea to catch the waves. But this weekend has been hot! So we hired body boards, sunbathed and ate ice cream! Pretty awesome. Also Oceanside has the longest wooden pier on the west coast and there is a diner at the end of it, so naturally we had to try it…



We hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventures is the west, we will definitely be coming back. We really appreciate your comments and your effort because I know some of the blogs have been a bit long!

Thanks and we look forward to seeing everyone sooooon!!!!

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Photos

Matthew on the panorama trail, Yosemite
Half Dome and Nevada Falls in the background.