RETURN TO SAN FRANCISCO

Our circular road trip has looped back to where we started almost 4 weeks ago as we finally arrive back in San Francisco after a 4 hour drive from Yosemite.

Returning to San Francisco from Yosemite

Heading into Oakland

It’s been an incredible journey.  We have driven a total of 2,761 miles, spent $277 on fuel and visited 18 different towns/cities across 4 states (California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada).  And as you can tell from this blog, what an adventure it’s been!

Crossing the Bay Bridge on the toll road

Hello again San Francisco

Not looking forward to the flight home but am looking forward to being re-united with the kids and my garden.  Probably looking as wild as some of the national parks we’ve visited – the garden that is, not me …

STILL NO BEARS IN YOSEMITE

Snow has fallen overnight leaving a white mantle across the shoulders of Yosemite’s highest peaks.  A stubborn mist clings to the rocks obscuring the skyline.  The ground is sodden from last night’s constant rain but the valley has a wet freshness about it, that clean earthy smell that follows a storm.

Snow on the peaks at Yosemite

Visibility is poor due to thick mountain mist

View from the Yosemite Falls trail

It’s our last full day of sightseeing so we’re not letting something as trivial as a bit of rain get in the way of exploring some of Yosemite’s trails and photographing a few more rocks.

Starting with an easy trail to the Lower Yosemite Falls.  Perhaps not the best time of year to view the falls as there’s more water coming out of the hotel shower than there is from this mountain cascade but its pretty none the less. 

View of Yosemite Falls

Of course we didn’t quite plan on sharing the trail with coyotes.  This one just casually sauntered across our path oblivious to the fact that we thought we were on it’s menu. 

Walking through the woods

Phew! I don't think that coyote was hungry

As the mist lifted you could begin to see just how much snow had fallen on the peaks.  Glad we’d driven the Tioga Pass yesterday as the road was closed today due to the icy weather conditions.

View of the valley peaks

Riverside walk

Afternoon hike up to the Vernal Falls footbridge.  Described as a moderate hike but pretty much uphill all the way.  I almost needed an oxygen tank for the steep climb to the footbridge (too many peanut butter cookies and popcorn).  And surprise, surprise all that huffing and puffing to see about as much water cascading down as that of a garden hose.  Anyone else thinking of doing this hike, just browse the waterfall postcards in one of the park’s gift shops.

Vernal Falls view from footbridge

Still no sign of bears.  Beginning to think these are just an elaborate myth to capture tourist’s imagination or else they’re hibernating.  Maybe I’ll stand outside tonight waving our tub full of peanut butter cookies to see if I can entice any of them out of their hidey holes.  

No bears but plenty of mule deer

Just another mouthful

Lovely little blue bird

YOSEMITE

I’m on bear watch deep in the heart of Yosemite valley.  Yosemite is an incredible place.  Towering grey peaks surround us on all sides and today, there’s a dark menacing cloud hovering above bringing with it the threat of rain.  It’ll be the first time we’ve seen any since leaving the UK.

View of the Half Dome

We got here via the Tioga Pass road (Highway 120 from Lee Vining).  Luckily the pass was still open as it’s often closed due to snowfall at this time of year.  If you are travelling to Yosemite from the East, enter via the Tioga Pass as its probably one of the most scenic roads you’ll ever drive.

Views from the Tioga Pass Road

Driving the Tioga Pass

OK, it may be a bit of a tortuous winding road that goes on for miles but it’ll give you a feel for this amazing national park and there’s so many places for photo opportunities.  It took us twice as long to get to our end destination due to all the stopping and starting but it was worth it.

Tenaya Lake

It’s something else to check in to your hotel and be told at reception to read a disclaimer about bears and safety precautions to take in regard to food whilst in the park.  Bears it seems are greedy buggers who’ll stop at nothing to get at your grub.  They’ll break into parked cars if they so much as sniff cookie crumbs or discarded candy wrappers.  Do bears shit in the woods?  No but I will be if I come face to face with a hungry one whilst on one of the hiking trails.

View from the Swinging Bridge

El Capitan

Our hotel is what I’d call a Grizzly Adams vacation hideaway.  Yosemite Lodge at the Falls is a collection of rustic  pre-fab chalets nestling at the base of a very large mountain right in the middle of a pine forest.  It’s idyllic.  We’re in the Azalea block on the ground floor which is handy for bear watching as the patio doors in the bedroom open right out into the pines.

Yosemite Lodge at the Falls - Azalea Room 4604

View from our bedroom patio doors

Will be settling down later on with a bottle of wine and a pair of binoculars ready to spot anything that looks remotely bear-like and hungry.

BISHOP

Satellite internet delay in Death Valley so you’re getting 2 entries for the price of one today.

After finding a scorpion in our room last night  there was little sleep to be had at Stovepipe Wells.  The bags under my eyes are now larger than the one holding the dirty washing but there’s no time to nap as we head out of the heat towards the cooler climes of Bishop.

Beautiful sierra mountain view on way to Bishop

First a trip down memory lane at Lone Pine’s Film History Museum where the cowboy heroes of our youthful Saturday matinees still live on.  Roy Rogers and Trigger, the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy – yes they’re immortalised in this small town in this very interesting museum.

Lone Pine Film History Museum

Hard to believe that many of the western movies of yester-year were filmed in the mountains just outside this town.  The infamous peaks of the Sierra Nevada and Alabama hills can even be seen in films such as Tremors and Iron Man.

Hi Ho Silver

Why did the chicken cross the road?  Obviously to get away from this hairy scary critter.  Almost this size of my fist, this brown tarantula was in no hurry to get to the other side. 

This is the mother of all spiders!

As old as the hills or in this case the trees as we hunt for the Methuselah tree in the Bristlecone Pine Forest growing high in the White Mountains. This tree is over 4,000 years old but it’s location is top secret so it’s anyone’s guess as to which one it might be.   Do you think it’s this one?

Looking for the Methuselah tree

Could it be this one?

What about this one?

Or this one?

Pit stop in Bishop, small city on the US 395 highway that will take us towards Yosemite.  

Bishop - main street

Largest city in these parts

Spending the night in the Vagabond Inn and already you can feel that cooler mountain air.  Keeping the thermals to hand and checking the corners for beasties before bedtime.

The Vagabond Inn

Room 207

DEATH VALLEY

Described as the hottest place on earth, Death Valley is bleak.  I can feel the saliva drying in my mouth as I type, the hot desert air smothering the hotel room in an invisible thermal blanket.  ‘It never rains here’ our waiter said at dinner time.  Really?  You’d never have guessed from looking at the grey, stony and powdery ground that stretches out in every direction.  It’s a miracle that anything manages to grow but somehow it does.

Bare rocky landscape of Death Valley

The landscape around Zabriskie Point reminds me of Georgia O’Keefe’s wonderful painted desert scenes.  All that is missing from the rich, brown earth tones and undulating rock formations are a few bleached skulls. 

Rich brown mountain landscape

Views from Zabriskie Point

Just like a Georgia O'Keefe painting

 

The land is rich in minerals and was once mined for gold, borax and talc.  Fortunes were made and lost, towns prospered then died out like Rhyolite.  All that is left of the once thriving frontier town is a few ruins  baking in the sun.  

Rhyolite ruins

This town is nothing but a ghost town

All that's left of the frontier town of Rhyolite

It’s hard to imagine that this barren, parched plain was a prosperous metropolis with a population of around 8,000 people.

Lowest of the low

Death Valley is the antidote to the excesses and gaudiness of Las Vegas.   The tacky multi coloured neon signs and noisy, smoky casinos are gone.   Only a star lit sky and the soft sounds of a dark desert night remain. 

Mad dogs and English tourists out in the mid-day sun

From the decadent luxury of The Cosmopolitan to the rustic charm of simple desert life.  We’re spending the night in Death Valley at Stovepipe Wells Village. 

Stovepipe Wells Village

Room 12

The countdown to our adventure’s end has now begun with only 5 more days remaining until we go home.  We’ve almost closed our loop, travelling 2,013 miles since we left San Francisco three weeks ago.

LAS VEGAS

Like a phoenix rising from the desert dust, Las Vegas is the Torremolinos of Nevada but with twenty times more neon and taller hotels.  Everything about the place is fake – fake sky in the Parisian village, fake volcanoes, fake boobs on the waitress serving the coffee.  It’s brash, it’s trash but a lot of fun.

Arriving at Las Vegas

The other half generously upgraded our already premium view room to an even more premium view of the Bellagio fountains so we now have a suite on the 21^st floor of the Cosmopoliton larger than my brother’s London flat.  

The Cosmopolitan Hotel

Room 27 on the 21st floor

One of the bathrooms

Open plan lounge and kitchen area

There’s 2 bathrooms, a Jacuzzi, kitchen, separate lounge and enough arty farty coffee table books to prop open the vault door at Fort Knox.  You can feel the swankiness dripping from the understated beige walls.

View from our balcony

But in spite of the executive writing desk that I’m now blogging from, the quilted hotel bathrobe and fluffy slippers I’m wearing  or the view across to Caesars Palace I can see from my keyboard, the one thing lacking in this palacial pearl is a coffee maker.  Yep, we had to nip across the road to the nearest Walgreens to buy one as guests are expected to order room service for anything edible or drinkable.  Ludicrous that Travelodge will give you free coffee but not the Cosmopolitan.  All snacks are sat on a sensor - even sniffing a cookie might cost you twenty bucks!

The Cosmopolitan is located roughly in the centre of the famous Las Vegas ‘Strip’, the main boulevard that runs from one end of casino land to the other, it’s a great base from which to explore everything else.  There’s so much to see but we have a tactical plan to focus our sightseeing, targeting the Southern end of the Strip first. 

The famous fountains of The Bellagio

Walking the Strip is not as tough as I first thought.  The hotels, most the size of provincial airports, are relatively close together so it didn’t take too long to get down as far as the Mandalay Bay, the one furtherest south. 

We’ve seen a shark reef (Mandalay Bay), strolled amongst pharaohs (The Luxor) , walked across the Brooklyn Bridge (New York New York) dined in a Parisian village (Paris) and watched volcanoes exploding from the sidewalk (The Mirage).

Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay

That's a strange looking fish

Inside the Luxor Hotel

New York New York

Paris - yes it has an Eiffel Tower too

Vegas is the perfect vampire city, everyone sleeps in then comes out at night to try their luck at one of the many casinos on the Strip. 

The Strip comes alive at night

You can wander in to any hotel to gawp at the incredible décor or play a few hands of blackjack at any time, night or day.  As you stroll down the Strip, touts offer you cards advertising the services of escorts, girls that can apparently be delivered to your door in 20 minutes.  We collected so many of these cards that we now have a full deck to play titty trumps with. 

Hey big spender

Needless to say, after our gambling exploits  I still can’t afford to give up my day job!