Joshua Tree, LA, Highway One and back home

After Route 66 things started to accelerate towards the end of our holiday.

Joshua Tree was something that we added at the last moment, and we skipped Mojave Desert to go there. Joshua Tree is named after the trees/cacti that grow there. It is a little patch of desert where these grow (not only there, though) and it is very strange to see so many of the trees together, while we had only seen them in very small bunches or mostly even just one.

After Joshua Tree we spent the night in Palm Springs, a dandy town where Elvis and Frank Sinatra lived. It was on a Saturday so many people were walking around to be seen. Many girls in those overly posh Paris Hilton dresses.

The next day we went to Hollywood and Santa Monica. We were advised by some L.A. locals not to go there since the city hasn’t got too much to offer (more of the same, and usually less spectacular). Santa Monica is quite sad, to be honest. It is not much more than a sleepy commuter town with a fair on a pier that hasn’t seen any upgrades since 1975.

Hollywood was nice to have seen. The star-tiles in the sidewalk, the hand prints at the Chinese theater and the smogged over Hollywood sign. A nice afternoon. The Virigin Megastore on Hollywood boulevard was closing down, so they had a huge sale. Happy me.

We tried to do a bit of a star-house tour, but driving through the Hollywood hills made us realize it is utterly rediculous to look at the fence of the houses of famous people. We left it at that.

The next couple of days were spent driving along Highway 1 back to San Francisco, with a days stop at Paso Robles. The less famous and therefore less touristy wine area south of SF. We had a great afternoon at a wine bar tasting local delicacies. A great dinner afterwards made us have a fantastic day.

In Monterey we went on a whale watching tour. But, unfortunately, we didn’t see anything. Not even a dolphin. The morning before we went they saw humpback wales, the day before we went they saw blue wales. Bad luck… Two and a half hours spent getting a sunburn for nothing.

The last day in San Francisco we drove over the Golden Gate bridge and went to Haight Ashbury to go to the Amoeba record store. After that we walked around in town to get lunch and in the evening I just had to go to Rye again.

Home the next day. Completely exhausted before we got home, but feeling well about the incredible holiday we had. We have seen so many things and have been to so many cool places. Feeling very very satisfied.

El Cañon Grande and Route 66

After Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park we started moving back to the coast, more or less.

From that moment we were driving along what used to be Route 66. The first bit towards Flagstaff wasn’t too interesting since it was just a lot of Arizonan (?) desert. We took a turn north for Grand Canyon since the approach from the south is supposed to be very impressive.

Before we arrived at the Canyon we stopped at a small airport to book a helicopter flight over the canyon. No flights go in the canyon because of the noise that echoes from the walls, and to preserve the animals in the canyon.

We booked a little room in a hotel next to the south rim, so we slept some 15 meters from the canyon itself. Luckily we arrived somewhat late in the afternoon which meant that most buses with mostly Dutch and Japanese tourists were already leaving.

We took the shuttle up to several viewpoints and did some tiny hikes there to walk a bit into the canyon and to take some pictures from different points of view.

The next day started with a helicopter flight which was really incredible. I had never been in a helicopter before, and it was everybit as cool as I expected it to be. Highly recommended. The music on the headphones was a bit corny, as was the Dutch version of the interprative talk about the canyon. Sounded more like a 1950’s news reporter than anything else.

 

After that we drove from Grand Canyon village to the eastern most viewpoints and stopped on the way back at several vista points.

We expected the Canyon to live up to the reputation it has built for itself on tv, but it exceeded every expectation we had. It is more beautiful, more impressive, a lot bigger and more deep as I could ever have expected.

After the Grand Canyon we headed back to Route 66 to do a part of the old route instead of the Interstate that replaced the original two lane road. Route 66 has nothing of its former glory. It used to be the great American road but since it was replaced in 1984, it has been decaying ever since. The town away from the Interstate and on the old road were thriving towns with a huge tourist industry, but nowadays it is nothing more than a couple of motels and souvenir shops. The rest of those towns is mostly boarded up and abandoned. But still, it is a nice drive and it is cool to see the remnants of a bygone era. Of course, we had to buy a cd with 50’s music to play in the car while driving Route 66.

We stayed the night in Kingman. A rather rough town which almost seems as if it is stuck in the early 1900’s. It looks a lot like a town from a Lucky Luke comic, but with cars. We stayed in some old fashioned saloon with a few rooms above it. There we started chatting with the locals and we kept doing that till about 1 AM. I nicely finished a bottle of whisky (it wasn’t full when I started, of course), but we had a great time.

From Kingman we wanted to go to Joshua Tree National Park, but that is something for the next ‘episode’ :-)

Heaps of parks

I left of at Las Vegas. After Vegas we had a big tour of the back country of the south west. We drove from Nevada to Arizona, back to Nevada (just crossed the Hoover Dam), to Arizona, Utah, Colorado and back to Arizona.

At least some 2000 kilometers, if I am not mistaken.

In Utah, where we stayed after Vegas, we encountered the mass of the Memorial Day Weekend, meaning that the nearest place to stay to Zion Canyon NP was 50 miles away (50 miles back the way we came). This was the one time we regretted not booking ahead.

Zion NP was something we really looked forward to since everyone we spoke to on the way there said it was incredibly beautiful. But, partly thanks to the bus loads of tourists there, we didn’t enjoy it too much. In our eyes, it was more a valley than a canyon, with some nice view points, but nothing too jaw dropping.

      

Bryce was next, and this was something different. We couldn’t grasp what we were seeing, since it looked much like I would imagine a coral reef sitting on top of a mountain. Many red stone spires. A sight to behold, and definetely highly recommended to everyone going to that part of the states.

Utah is a bit of a strange state with all those mormons. We happened to stay in a crappy town called Hatch, in which the prohibition was never abolished. Of course, I only found out when I was scouring the general store for a beer and couldn’t find it anywhere. Also, the people in the hamlet reacted a bit strange when Anneke came up to the office of the motel to pay and make arrangements about checking out before business hours.

We planned to go to Monument Valley after this, but this was changed rather radically, by adding a night in Moab to see Arches National Park and head even further inland to Mesa Verde. After Monument Valley we added Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

In Moab we drove through the weakest part of a thunderstorm and we had our loundry in the motel’s washing machine when lightning struck and the entire town went black. In those outskirts of the storm the temperature dropped from 30 degrees to 4 degrees in ten minutes, so we were rather happy to be booked into the motel before the storm hit town.

Arches was nice, and we spent a couple of hours there driving through it and taking a small hike (more of a stroll than a hike actually). Quite remarkable what nature can do with a bit of torque on stone.

Mesa Verde was something I planned on doing at first, but since we thought it to be way too far inland we eliminated it from our plans, only to add it when we realized the distance we could cover. It is one of the oldest pueblos found in that area of Colorado and consists mostly off cliff dwellings. Little stone villages sitting under an overhanging mountain. Very impressive. And again (as in Bryce, Arches and Zion) we were early/late enough to avoid the main throng of people.

Monument Valley was one of the highlights of our holiday. It is such a cool thing to see the big red stone pillars in such a flat area. Then realizing that many John Wayne movies were shot there, kick ass. You can do a little tour through the park with your car or with an organized tour. Of course, since we really hate organized trips we took our own car off road and drove through the park at ease. It was very nice to stop where we wanted and take about 200 pictures.

Painted Desert and Petrified Forest were pretty cool, since you can see pre-dinosaur petrified trees lying around everywhere. We even bought a chunk (legally) and took it home as a souvenir. People at customs weren’t too happy with a 15 pound stone log in my backpack, but it wasn’t illegal so they couldn’t do anything than let me pass after an elaborate drug check of the bag.

Mono Lake, Bodie, Death Valley and Las Vegas

After the Tioga Pass through Yosemite we arrived in a small town called Lee Vining. More or less the only raison d'être for that town is the fact that it is the first after the Tioga Pass.

Mono Lake is right next to Lee Vining, and is a saltwater lake, which used to have a water level that was a couple of meters higher. LA water supplies have used many of the creek flowing into the lake making it dry out. By drying out, many of the calcified springs in the lake are now above water which makes it look really strange.

From Lee Vining we also went to Bodie. A former mining town which started up when the goldrush of the 1880’s was almost over. The hayday of the town lasted only a couple of years, after which is started to decline again. After a couple of fires the last inhabitants left in 1962. At that time it was made a State Historic Park in since then, rangers have been working to keep it in a permanent state of decay. Nothing is fixed, but nothing gets a chance to collapse or rot away.

During the 1880’s the town consisted of miners, robbers, gunfighters and prostitutes, which gave it a really bad reputation. It looks like a Lucky Luke movie set, with some traces that people have lived there after the car was invented.

From there we drove throught Death Valley to Las Vegas. Death Valley was not as hot as it gets in summer, but still it was about 45 degrees Celcius (110 Fahrenheit). And with air that salty, no shade and barely any wind, you dry out quickly. Water packed, some food packed made us ready for a drive through.

Death Valley, contrary to what its name suggests, is a beautiful place. The salt flats, sand dunes and colorful mineral-rich rocks give it a look that makes it even more desolate.

Las Vegas was a bit of a dissappointment. I like the fact that I have seen it, but once is enough. Its cheesy, kitsch, it smells and there are way too many idiots there. People gambling directly off their credit cards, drinking beer from half a gallon plastic budweiser bottles. It is all fake and plastic. It was fun to walk around for a night to see some of the world famous casinos, but in the morning we really wanted to get out of there to get back to nature. We spent the night in the MGM Grand, which was rather cool. A very modern room in the West Wing, with a map to get there from the lobby.

Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon

After we left California on an incredibly hot day (100 F / 37 C) we simply drove out of the city as fast as possible. Not that I wanted to get away, but since it was my first time ever driving an automatic geared car, I wanted to have some manoeuvring space.

The back country when you get out of San Francisco is quite nice as well, with rolling yellow hills and many farms and wineries. We drove to a tiny hamlet called Buck Meadows for the night. It was only a few hours, but on the doorstep of Yosemite National Park, so we could get in early the next day and avoid the bulk of the tourists.

Yosemite is beautiful. Mountains, forests, lakes and so on. We loved driving around there and go on several very short walks to waterfalls, vista points and other remarkable areas. The first time we saw a deer we thought it was very special, but after that they kept showing up in groups, so after a few we stopped taking pictures. Anneke never stopped taking pictures of squirrels and chipmunks though.

At the end of the day we drove the biggest part of the distance to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park, to do the same trick of getting in early the next day again. We slept at Gena’s Place in another tiny town called Squaw Hollow. The night was cheap, the food was cheap too, but very very good. I am not big on pork, usually, but the pork chops at Gena’s were great!

Kings Canyon was nice, but not as good as Yosemite, and nature is more or less similar, except for the occasional Sequoia that was not present on the day before.

Sequoia trees, Redwoods or whatever you call them (there are several names), are huge trees that start off as a regular fir tree, but just keep growing bigger and bigger. We saw a couple that were almost 100 meters high, and have been around since before Christ. Really impressive.

What was also impressive was the fact that we saw a bear in the wild. Chances are not really high, but we saw one that was foraging for food in a meadow on the side of the road. Not too close of course, but still…

After Sequoia, we thought we would just sleep somewhere and move in the direction of Death Valley the next day, but in the evening we decided to change those plans and wanted to go to Mono Lake on the other side of Yosemite as well. We called in to Yosemite to ask if the Tioga Pass had already opened (it is usually snowed in till June), and we were lucky since it opened that day. That meant another day of Yosemite, alpine meadows, deers, ice lakes, and snow up to 6 feet high. One of the most beautiful drives I have ever done.

Back home / San Francisco

Today we have arrived back home. I have to say that it is very nice to be home again. A shower, a bed, a kitchen, normal food, everything at hand. There are certain benefits of your home, that a holiday cannot replace.

I think I will blog about our trip in more detail than I did last time, and I might even throw in a photo or two here and there.

We started off more than three weeks ago in San Francisco. We booked a hotel for the weekend from our home, so that was not a problem.

We arrived during the afternoon and after a short anti-jetlag rest we headed into the city to get a feel for the lay of the land. We walked into chinatown, the financial district, and in the end I wanted to go to a cocktail bar named Rye, which was just on the  brim of the Tenderloin area, which was ill-advised to enter. We had a few drinks and I, as a first, had a cocktail that might make me skip a dram of whisky. I love Sazerac!

(no that is not a potato in a glass, that is a lemon peel…)

The next day we had (booked ahead) a trip to Alcatraz, and before that we took the cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf and had  a bit of a stroll there. We went into the Aquarium of the bay, which was nice, but not really good. We also visited the Coit Tower to oversee the city from a different perspective. We had dinner at a very good small Mexican Cantina at the Ferry building.

On Saturday we planned to visit the Golden Gate bridge, the Golden Gate Park (for the Japanese Tea Garden and the Academy of Science) and some more cocktail bars (there was a very good article on those bars in Malt Advocate a few months back). A very full day, but a very rewarding one as well. After visiting the bar called Absinthe we went out for dinner and had another Sazerac at Rye, since that is a lot closer to the hotel.

After all is said and done, I loved San Francisco. It is not as some local told us, the most beautiful city in the world, since I just don’t have a thing for modern cities. But I sure as hell is a pretty good place to hang out and start (and end) a trip through the south west of the USA…

After a long silence...

there is a lot to talk about.

We have been travelling the south west of the USA for little over two weeks now, and thusfar the conclusions are many:

- America lives up to many points of its reputation. People eat shitloads of crap. They order complete meals at McDonalds as a mid-day snack. Diners are available at all corners, and you won't get more than a burger there (although some are really good)
- Many people drink light beer, for some reason. I tried one, but it tastes like yellow water. And anyway, why drink light beer if you want to lay low on calories? If so, don't drink beer at all...
- Lots of people are over weight, especially if you go out of California. Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and so on...
- Huge cars
- The towns are exactly as seen on tv.
- Motels are exactly as seen on tv, and sometimes they charge really high rates for nothing, but the next day you can sleep for a couple of bucks and the place is great... Hard to guess ahead, on that.

But anyway,

I love it here. We have been driving around a lot since we left San Francisco. The first three days were to get acquainted with culture and everything else in the city, and after that we picked up our car and drove to Yosemite National Park. After Yosemite we saw Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Yosemite again, Bodie, Mono Lake, Death Valley, Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Route 66, Joshua Tree and now we are staying the night in Palm Springs, near LA.

Tomorrow we are going to do a quick run through LA, to make a picture of the Hollywood sign, the Ferris wheel at Santa Monica, and then we're off... We have been recommended not to go into LA too much, since it doesn't excel in anything except crime rates. Even locals told us that, unless you want to see stuff they have better versions of in other cities, you should skip LA, so that is what we are going to do. It will give us a head start on our trip on Highway one, by the coast up to San Francisco.

Highlights up til now:
- San Francisco (and its cocktail bars :) )
- Yosemite
- Sequoia
- Bodie
- Death Valley
- Sleeping at the MGM Grand
- Bryce Canyon
- Mesa Verde
- Monument Valley
- A Helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon
- Our cheap-ass motel near Yosemite
- Motels in Palm Springs, Kingman, Grand Canyon
- Emptying a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon in Kingman
- Lots of stuff that doesn't come to mind right now
- The outspokenness of Americans

Disappointments:
- Las Vegas
- Motels on the interstate
- How run down everything on the original part of route 66 is.
- The variety in affordable meals (cheese burger or hamburger, your choice...)
- The price of a beer in a bar
- You run into Dutch everywhere

We have made over a 1000 photos, so those will show up here after we get back home. Some stats:

- We have driven over 3500 miles / 5600 km
- We spend most of our budget on lodging
- We have been pulled over for speeding once (I was doing 49 while the limit was 45) but we got no ticket
- The best time to visit national parks is late in the afternoon or just after sunrise, since that is before and after the buses of Europeans and Asians are there.
- We overestimated the time it takes from A to B, so we have (as you have read) added about 5 National Parks to our trip.

Have to go to dinner now, I will probably blog again when I am back in the Netherlands.

Nintendo DS

Last week, I started to worry a bit about the flight to San Francisco. Since I am nearly two meters tall, I have trouble sitting comfortably in an airplane, and I am simply unable to sleep in there at all.

You can, of course, pay extra for a more spacious seat, but I refurse to pay anything for some 5 centimeters, that will otherwise go to little kids or Asian people (nothing against Asian people at all, but they just happen to be a bit shorter than the average Dutch guy). Especially when it comes down to 100 dollars, per seat, per flight. 400 bucks, while the tickets weren’t too cheap either… Not happening.

So to pass time apart from watching a movie or two, we decided to buy a Nintendo DS. A collegue of mine has one and is very enthoused about it. And he more or less an authority on console / handheld gaming (for me he is). Of course, I bought a couple of games with it:

• Professor Layton and the Curious Village
• Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass
• The New Super Mario Brothers.

Of course, we also have some of those brain training games that are more or less synonym to Nintendo DS.

The worst thing about the Nintendo DS is that games are rediculously expensive. The average playing time needed to finish console and handheld games is somewhere around ten hours, as far as I know, and to pay 45 euros for each game you want with it, is just too much. Especially since you cannot play demos of the game anywhere, apart from illegally downlaoding then and playing on an emulator, which just sucks compared to the real thing.

But all in all, we have some very cool games with it. I can get quite addicted to the most rediculous and monotonous puzzle games, as well as to Role Playing Games which are available in heaps for this device.

Now, since I have plenty to do in the airplane, I am more or less looking forward to the flight. I just might catch up on some magazines I had lying around, maybe a few books during flight and the vacation, and gaming as well… I don’t think I even want to sleep anymore ;-)