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Published: July 21st 2009
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US Part 4 West Coast
July 6th
…After the burger we continued towards Grand Canyon West. I believe this is a fairly new site. The GC South Rim and North Rim have been common for visits for quite a while. For our compact trip to Vegas and the Grand Canyon it turned out to be sufficient enough. It only took us some 6 hours back and forth... The GC West is where the new (2007) GC Skywalk is situated. The Skywalk is a Glass “bridge” suspended on just one side over the void of Grand Canyon. The vertical drop is apparently some 2000 ft, and when looking down you can see the Colorado river 4000 ft below. The whole attraction is on the Hualapai Indian Nation grounds and there is also an Indian exhibition of their and other Indians culture and huts on the site. At “Guano Point”, with the sun starting to drop, we had some chilli dinner on the edge of the steep walls. As the cliffs were turning more and more red by the minute, I could not think of a more beautiful setting for a dinner table…
Heading back a marvellous full moon rose over the
desolate landscape and when passing the Hoover dam at night we got a pretty nice picture of the lit-up structure with the new bridge in the background.
Back at the Stratosphere Hotel there was the same busy casino environment as usual. The typical customer seems to be an elderly lady sitting at a slot machine pushing buttons. They sat there in the morning when we went for breakfast, they sat there during the whole day when we were out and they were still there when we passed out in our beds… it never ends.
July 7th
Heading west again we took the route via Death Valley… Just have a taste of that name, Death Valley… It almost says it all… This US National Park is consistently one of the hottest places on earth. The record is apparently 134F (56.7C). One more interesting fact is that it at its lowest point is almost 282ft or 85.5m below sea level! We just had to experience this place. We already had had some hot weather in LV so I was a bit worried about what we would see in Death Valley. Would the tires melt? Or, would the engine seize? What if
the air con stops working? It might get more than just interesting if we would have an unplanned stop in the desert. Anyway, on the route we had some lunch at Nevada Joe’s, the last stop before”Area 51”. The place is decorated with numerous pictures of aliens and UFO’s. Area 51 is just some 40 miles east from this place.
The road to DV was open and we continued through Zabriskie Point and Furnace Creek to the visitors centre at -190ft (below sea level). We held our breath and continued. On the way out of the valley we hit the highest temperatures on our journey, 114F or 44C according to the gauge in the car. Soon after, at Stovepipe springs I saw an ultra marathon runner coming jogging in at the campgrounds, unreal! Apparently on some training camp, seems to be a quite lonely sport. Afterwards I cursed myself for forgetting to take a picture of him…
Without any incidents we made it all the way to our hotel in Lone Pine, a nice small village just at the foot of Mount Whitneys (14,505ft or 4,421 m) east slope. The place had been used in numerous western films and the
traces of this could be seen in most of the restaurants, hotels, names of places in town.
July 8th -- 10th
Further north, we passed by Independence, Big Pine and Bishop small places with probably lots of stories that we didn’t have time to explore. We had a great lunch at Mammoth lakes and then continued towards Yosemite Nat’l Park. This park is like no other park, it is a mind boggling concentration of natural phenomena. It is fantastic how you can turn your camera in any direction and you will get a great picture. There simply is no end to the scenic views and abundance of wildlife. We saw birds as Ravens, Blue Jays and “Eagles”. Numerous species of Squirrels, a Rattle snake, a Bear and more… Giant Sequoias (Mammoth Trees), enormous pine cones and beautiful flowers in the meadows.
One day we took a Hike to the Vernal Falls. And the second day we went up to Glacier point and later had a swim in the Merced River, down in the Yosemite Valley… the newly melted water was, shall we say invigorating. A Ranger telling stories around a camp fire rounded up our Yosemite experience.
July 11 - 12th
Just a short drive down to Sonora today. This part of California is known from the Gold rush. There are many small towns in this area that have lots of stories around the 49’ers… ‘
TBC…
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