We got up early, packed up, filled our flaskes, checked out & heading up Glacier Point Road to Washburn Point to have breakast, not quite at sunrise, but pretty early. It was stunning. we then headed to Glacier Point to see if the first rays of sun on Upper Yosemite Falls would produce a rainbow, but alas no. Pretty awesome watching the light creep round, hit just the spray & then the whole falls. We then hiked up to Sentinel Dome to admire the views from there, passing some cute chipmunks playing on route. We even climbed (& slipped) over the snow to get to the summit - the one time our yak-trax crampons would have been useful & we'd left them in the car! Up top it felt like we were on top of the ... read more

Weather forecast for Yosemite Valley still bad so the Hetch Hetchy plan was a on. The morning weather was good though and as we had to drive in & out of the valley to get to Hetch Hetchy we stopped at the various scenic points which we failed to get photos from yesterday. Although Hetch Hetchy is within Yosemite National Park you have to drive out & in again to get there. As the pay station was closed when we came in on Sunday we stopped in the way out & they said it would be easiest to just pay entry at the quieter Hetch Hetchy entrance. Just before we got there there was a golden eagle sat at at the side of the road!!! Sadly the road was too twisty to stop, & the eagle ... read more

Having stoken the fire high the night before & topped it up just before 2am it had still gone cold by the time we woke in the early morning! The free tea & coffee (available 24/7) helped us warm up as we packed, then after breakfast we loaded the car & set off to Sequoia National park in the sunshine. We parked at the Giant Forest Museum to hike the Moro Rock - Cresent Meadow trail. The Cresent Meadow Road was still closed for winter so we were hoping it would be fairly quiet over there. There was a small stream of folks visting Moro Rock, we took a brief detour up to Hanging Rock to admire the view, which was good in spite of a lot of low cloud, but the altitude of the park ... read more

Friday morning Chavaunne had to pop back into the lab at UCLA to finish up some work whilst I had a lazy morning getting up slowly then taking a stroll around the university's botanical gardens & failing to get a photo of a pretty hummingbird! I also saw several butterflies, a bees nest in a tree & several ant trails. After checking out of the hotel at midday & Chavaunne picking up the last of her research we headed to pick up our hire car, we got there slightly late but no matter as the didn't have our car anyway! After an hours wait a suitable car turned up (delay was due to traffic from the airport where our car was coming from) & we headed out of LA. Slowly. Very slowly. LA traffic is a ... read more

Sunday morning we were up even earlier than usual & left in the dark to drive the scenic route to the airport which avoids Reykjavík. Although Vicky spent a while fixing her broken suitcase with duct tape (very expensive Icelandic duct tape!). We first headed south towards Þorlákshöfn then west along the coast to Grindavík then north past the famous Blue Lagoon towards Keflavík & the airport. We dropped off the car without any issues (the mouse thankfully having vacated after the first night) & as the shuttlebus didn’t seem forthcoming Vicky got a trolley for her broken case & we walked over to departures and checked in. As our flight was over an hour before Chavaunne’s we said goodbye before security. Sadly I couldn’t find any Ris Buff in duty free so had to but ... read more