Category: Caroline

Today began with a cold swim at 7:30 am. Are you impressed? Si wasn’t!
After that we headed off to Vegas by driving through Death Valley. Some Death Valley trivia for you; it is America’s largest national park (except Alaska), and covers more than 3.3 million acres! The Badwater Basin salt pan is 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in North America (quite staggering when you think we were at 9000 feet yesterday on the Tioga pass). But enough guidebook speil, the only thing I will remember is that it is hot! Hotter than hot. As we first drove in we had the top down on the car but we quickly put it up and turned the air conditioning on. The temperature then crept up from 85 ish to 109!! Needless to say we didn’t get out the car much, when we did it felt like hairdryers blowing at you from all directions, we certainly weren’t going to be doing any hiking today!
In the end we decided to head off early to maximise the Vegas fun, and fun it is! The whole place is like one giant theme park for adults, starting off with a map of the hotel attractions when you check in! Every hotel has a large portion of the ground floor set aside for gambling, surprisingly mostly slot machines, with some as low as 1c bets. There are other things to see, like the lions in the MGM Grand, and the Coyote Ugly bar – barmaids on the bar pouring drinks into people’s mouths (literally). Plenty more to explore tomorrow!

Today we did Yosemite. What an awesome place. Driving through with the top down and just looking up the view was amazing. Ranger Bob advised us to go for a short hike up to some water falls, 5 miles that can be done in 7 hours. Pah! said Simon, it’s a short hike, it’ll be easy! How wrong, I have never felt so tired in all my life!! (American miles are longer… 🙂 – Si) The first waterfall – Vernon Falls, although a mere trickle because of the summer, was pretty impressive, and that was from the bottom! From the top, it was just some water falling over the edge, but the view down the cliff made it worthwhile. Well, we’d made it that far, seemed silly not to carry on to the Nevada Falls. By the time we’d reached the bottom of those falls we were low on water, and only had a brownie between us (American size – so pretty much filled the rucksack) but we carried on like the couple of fool hardy souls we are. Everyone we met had proper walking poles,
with that hardened mountaineer look, this hill was only meant to be conquered by the best! Or so we thought, until the top, where there were 5 year old kids being dragged along by their parents… Anyway, in the picture you can see the second waterfall – did i mention that it was 2000ft up!? It was like sitting on top of the world and tempting to sit up there and watch the sun set over the mountain in front of us, however I was very worried about the bears and the fact that they might come out after dark and smell the orange peel that Si had in his backpack so we legged it down the other side of the mountain at a pretty swift trot, all the while looking over our shoulders for bears sneaking up on us. Luckily none were to be seen , although I’m pretty sure I heard one growling / snoring in the bushes next to the path. Bear or not we both trotted a little faster after that. Made it down to the bottom in record time, in the end it took 5 hours – but it
was worth it! (I was right, they over estimated! – Si)
Back at the hotel, I had a bath and Si went out to forage for food, he came back with burgers from Jack in the box, I think he is adjusting to the American lifestyle a bit too well – they were all he could get, honest!! Ah well, think we earned them today. Heading back to Yosemite again tomorrow, hopefully for a more leisurely stroll. Might pop down to Mirror lake – Ranger Bob reckons we might see a bear there and apparently that would be a good thing!!

Saturday and time to leave this cool city 🙁 Last breakfast in our hotel, sampled the waffles again and Si still managed to resist those burgers!)
We managed to pack in a lot of cool stuff before heading for the hills. Today was all about the Golden Gate.
First stop Golden Gate park and some mild pangs of guilt as I watched lots of people jogging past (too much nice food around here to try to stay slim – and the size of the portions!! Judith, you will be pleased to hear that yes I have put on weight! Must do something about that later!) We wandered around the Japanese tea garden (the Japanese know how to do good gardens!) and had a cup of oolong tea – very nice (thanks for tip Alison).
After the park we headed to the beach – didn’t expect it to be windier than Westport! (beach near Campbeltown) It doesn’t look this windy on the OC! Hopefully won’t be so windy when we head to south California and check out Newport beach etc.
We then drove over the Golden Gate bridge, with the roof down of course! And headed to Muir woods to check out lots of very old, very giant redwoods. It was early evening and quite quiet so I was a little wary of meeting mountain lions but all was fine, only animal we encountered was a cute little dear, even I can handle that!
Long drive ahead of us now as tomorrow we are heading for Yosemite (just a little worried about the bears,esp after Cat’s encounter, hope Si is up to the job of being my protector!)
Good night and god bless.
Simon’s addendum – Driving an automatic is so easy, just stop and go pedals! On motorways there’s also cruise control, so only need to steer. I liked it so much, I drove to the wrong motel, just to get some extra driving in! 😉

Right, I finally got my hands on the computer (only cos Si is driving!) so it’s my turn to post a blog! First of all, I agree Chris, there were lots of great photos of Alcatraz that could have been posted so here’s my choice.
Si also forgot to mention that we wandered around Pacific Heights and admired all the mansions – couldn’t quite work out which one was used in the film tho. We also tried chili in a sour dough bowl – was very nice but very difficult to eat, especially when wearing a white T-shirt! So Cat, I think we fulfilled all your recommendations- sour dough, ride a cable car, see the sea lions.Thanks for all your tips, it was a great city!

So we arrived yesterday about 9pm our time and 2pm local time, and after being told to “go pick a car, any car” we stumbled our way to the hotel. I was very tired but we tried to stay awake and experience some of the sights before going to bed so that we could combat the jet lag and make the most of our holiday!! We went for a wee cruise in our very cool convertible cruiser. Si drove off without a plan and just over an hour later (!) we found ourselves accidentally in the Fisherman’s wharf area. A very cool area – we caught a glimpse of the Golden Gate bridge (see the picture, it’s there somewhere…) and Alcatraz on the way and were greeted by a piper after we had parked!! They really pull out the stops for you here!
We woke up very early this morning and made ourselves waffles for breakfast at 7am – Si managed to resist the burgers and didn’t join the woman (American!?) who had her burgers on top of her waffle! We’re off to explore the sights today – what to wear? We have already seen the San Fran fog (leave off the cisco if you want to annoy the locals… 🙂 ) and oh my the wind!!!

I’m all packed up and ready to go!! San Fransisco here we come! I wonder if i can convince Simon to carry some shoes for me! 🙂