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Yeah, awesome photos at the Grand and in Las Vegas. It turns out that Las Vegas have developed an entire culture of fancy and delicious eateries for breakfast. I may have to write an article about this at some point.
Mark
Breakfast is my favorite meal for restarurants in Las Vegas
Yeah, awesome photos at the Grand and in Las Vegas. It turns out that Las Vegas have developed an entire culture of fancy and delicious eateries for breakfast. I may have to write an article about this at some point.
Mark
Yeah that'd be good. I didn't really research it much, as I thought we'd just walk along the strip a bit and find somethingOriginally Posted by Mark Sedenquist
Day 24
We woke up feeling kinda drained after a bug filled night and went into town for breakfast. We were stunned by what we saw: on the way in to town it was dark, and we could see a dark silhouette in the sky which we thought was maybe clouds; but once we stepped outside we realised that the town was at the foot of huge mountains towering above it. It was an amazing sight, and I just stood there for a while taking it all in. I was so in awe of it that I actually forgot to take any pictures! So here's one borrowed from Wikipedia.
We stopped for a very quick breakfast and headed out towards Tioga Pass. The drive was straight through a long valley in between two huge mountain ranges and arrived at Mono lake around 2 hours later.
The mountains towered above us
Mono lake is a salt water lake with a small museum giving a bit of information about the ecology of the area. We had a quick walk around before heading into Lee Vining to see the upside down house; a house that is literally built upside down with everything stuck to the ceiling. It was a nice little attraction so we got some photos and had a quick look around the small museum next to it, then went to a small diner for some lunch, and my 427th burger of the trip. I still like burgers.
After lunch we drove towards Yosemite through Tioga Pass. What a drive that was! Driving round the side of these huge mountains was amazing. We switched between having the roof down and back up as the rain started and stopped, as we wanted to get the best view possible. I had to be careful about enjoying the view too much however, as it was a long way down if I forgot to turn a corner. The first stop was Tuolumne Meadows, a beautiful meadow that had a quiet river running through it. We followed one of the trails and saw all sorts of wildlife all over the place. After a while of walking we came across a small log structure, which contained small puddles of water with bubbles coming out of the ground; these soda springs were dotted around the place and were pretty interesting.
We carried on along Tioga Road until we finally reached Yosemite Valley where we'd be camping. The campsite was very busy, and there wasn't the privacy of the Grand Canyon, but there was still plenty of space. The view was outstanding, as it was in a valley surrounded by huge mountains in every direction. The campsite was covered in large trees, with the tents and RVs set up in between them. By the time we arrived it was pretty late, so we set up the tent and started a fire to cook some food before getting an early(ish) night. Again, as with Grand Canyon there were a few people that ignored the quiet curfew, but I eventually managed to get to sleep. Rach was going to hear about this in the morning! Grumble grumble grumble...
Day 25
Today was our last chance to do some hiking so we intended to make the most of it. We had a quick breakfast before heading for our first and main hike of the day; the Yosemite Falls trail. We planned to go to the top of Yosemite Falls, which is a 7.2 mile round trip with an elevation of 2700 ft. It was listed as strenuous, but again Rach assured me that she was up to it. It was a hot day, and the trail was steep from the very start, zigzagging up a steep incline. The constant incline made the walk quite difficult for inexperienced hikers like ourselves, but we kept going, boosted by the increasingly spectacular view of the valley below as we got higher.
At around 5000 ft up we reached Columbia Rock, which offered an unrestricted view of the valley which made for a great photo opportunity, and gave us a chance to have a proper rest as we took it all in. I was constantly in awe of the view, but it was strangely familiar. I'm sure I've seen it before when planning the trip, and it must have been the exact view that I'd seen so often that made me want to visit Yosemite so much. It was probably the most picturesque place I've ever been. I kept feeling like any picture I took wasn't doing it justice, and I still feel that way.
After the rest, we carried on along a much easier part of the route, with some of it even being downhill until we reached the view of Upper Yosemite Fall. The great thing about Yosemite is that every time you stop for a great view, there's another different one just around the corner, and this time was no exception. A giant waterfall cascaded down into a small pool before carrying on its journey down to the valley floor. The flow of the waterfall was nothing compared to what it was in the spring, but it still looked amazing. There were quite a few dried up waterfalls around the place, so we were glad to see one that was still going even in this heat.
The decent down was slightly easier, but put a constant strain on different leg muscles stopping us from running down the side of the mountain at high speed. By the time we got down we still felt pretty good, so after a quick break and some food, we headed back out for a much easier route, which I think was the Bridalveil Fall Trail. It's a 1/2 mile round trip around the foot of the mountain which takes you past the base of a waterfall, but we extended it to keep walking round the base, eventually looping back around. We checked the information centre and found a small graveyard. I managed to climb across some large rocks to reach the base of the waterfall, but I definitely wouldn't advise doing this, it was pretty risky in places.
As the evening drew in, we headed back to the campsite, where we had a nice stroll down to the river where people were floating past on inflatable dinghies. We reflected on the journey we'd been on so far and the thousands of miles we'd covered. The USA is a very large and diverse place, with each part of the country having its own distinct culture and climate. Before we got too nostalgic, we still had another few hundred miles to cover before we reached our final destination, so we called it a night ready to pack up the next morning and head into San Francisco.
Last edited by LeicesterLuke; 10-23-2016 at 05:49 AM.
Day 26
San Francisco
Before we left Yosemite, we had a drive around taking as many pictures as we could. I felt sad to be leaving this spectacular place, knowing it would be the last national park of our trip. We were on the home straight now, once San Francisco was done we'd be heading for our final destination! The drive out of Yosemite was just as good as the drive in, again winding round the side of mountains, past rivers and valleys. The experience was marred, however, by an incredibly slow RV who started to build up quite a queue behind him, and ignored all the signs telling slower vehicles to pull over and let people pass once a queue had formed. And because of the winding roads it was a good while before I could eventually overtake, getting us on our way, now behind schedule. Making me late for lunch is inexcusable!
We stopped for a quick lunch and carried on towards San Francisco. The drive into San Francisco is nice, as you have to drive across the bridge to get there, but the traffic was pretty chaotic once we got there, with so many traffic lights, taxis and trams. I parked in an expensive car park next to the hotel to check in, before searching the web for a cheaper place to leave it for a couple of days. There were some pretty good deals within a mile of the hotel as long as you booked online before you went.
After resting for a bit, we headed out for dinner. We'd found a vegetarian Thai restaurant that had good reviews and was walking distance. This is where we first discovered the contrast between the areas where the streets are lined with homeless people, and where there are none at all. It was quite surreal walking through a block where every doorway had a homeless person staying. As far as I can remember they were pretty segregated into their own ethnicity. We weren't really sure what to make of it; an area with lots of homeless people is usually one that the police can't be bothered patrolling, meaning that it's pretty unsafe, but the homeless-lined and homeless-free streets were right next to each other.
We made it to the restaurant safely anyway and enjoyed a great meal before heading back to the hotel, picking up some snacks to chill out and get an early night ready for the next day of sight-seeing.
Day 27
We started out by getting a quick breakfast and heading straight to Alcatraz, where I'd heard it's best to visit as early as possible. We managed to find a bus that took us to within a mile of the dock. There was a large queue there already, but it moved at a reasonable pace. I'd definitely recommend getting there as early as possible, as we went straight to the cells to follow the awesome audio tour and managed to get around before it got too crowded.
The tour was a great experience, giving an interesting background to what life was like there, as well as some of it's more famous residents with interviews with some of the inmates. I knew a little bit about it, but there was information dotted around the place, and there was an interesting exhibition about the Native Americans that took over the small island for a while which I knew nothing about. The whole experience gave a really good idea of what it must have been like to have lived there, and being able to see San Francisco being so close, but knowing you can never go there (at least for a long time).
By the time we were ready to leave the island was much busier, as boats full of people kept arriving at the island without many leaving, so we got straight on a boat back without having to wait.
The boat had a great view of San Francisco, but there were a lot of low clouds and fog obscuring some of the view, especially the Golden Gate Bridge, which was partially covered by the cloud. We planned to cycle there later so hoped it would clear up.
Next we headed to Pier 39 to see the famous sea lions. There was a lot going on with all sorts of little shops and restaurants, so after a look around we had lunch at Bubba Gumps Shrimp co. and enjoyed some seafood with a view over the pier.
After lunch we walked along to Musée Mécanique, an amazing amusement arcade housing all sorts of old arcade machines. This was one of my favourite places, and we spent much longer than planned spending 25c a go on the machines like the arm wrestler and an old mechanical baseball game, as well as strange shows like Laffin' Sal, and a diorama of a French execution. They even had Tekken 3 somewhere near the back (which was probably the newest thing there). A few dollars got us ages of entertainment, which meant that we were running a bit short on time for the rest of the days planned activities. It was definitely worth it though.
The whole experience of the pier was slightly marred by a loud man with large posters and leaflets showing dead fetuses and babies trying to get some sort of anti-abortion message across, but his message was lost in the feelings of outrage that someone would stoop so low to try and shock people into listening to him. It was interesting anyway, as we sometimes get shouty American preachers on our streets telling us we're all going to hell, but they're pretty tame compared to the Americans in America!
We walked along to Lombard Street which seemed a lot further than it actually was because of all these hills. It was worth seeing, although there were tourists taking pictures absolutely everywhere. The last activity of the day was an ambitious one: renting bikes to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge. We got a taxi to the rental place and got the bikes easy enough. On paper the ride looked easy as I've done a fair bit of cycling in my time, but I don't think I properly took Rach's pregnancy into account (a recurring theme on this trip), so she wasn't too thrilled about the 10 mile round trip.
There were a few hills on the way, but it wasn't too long before we reached the Golden Gate Bridge. The clouds and mist had cleared up so we now had a great view of the bridge. Again, it was very busy with lots of people and cars trying to park to walk across. There were also a lot of bikes too, but not so many that we didn't get across easy enough. The ride along was nice, and it gave us an amazing view of San Francisco, although it was very windy. There was a place to stop at the end and get loads of photos before turning round and heading back. We took a more scenic route on the way back, but were glad to finally drop off the bikes and get the bus back to the hotel as the days activities had been exhausting! The bus was one of the strange electric ones powered by the tram lines up above.
After a rest we went out for dinner, and decided that since we'd seen the Cheesecake Factory everywhere that we'd try one that was nearby. When we got there we were told it was a stupidly long wait, so we just had a wander about until we found somewhere nice, which happened to be an Indian restaurant. We had a lovely curry before stopping in a few bars for a few drinks (including one microbrewery that had some great IPA style beers more akin to what we're used to at home) and heading back to the hotel. Tomorrow we'll try and make it down to our final destination in one day: Santa Monica.
Day 28
San Francisco to Santa Monica... in one day
Yet again we woke up later than we should have done, but I got Rach to pack up the stuff whilst I walked the 1 1/2 miles to the car park. I stopped outside the hotel, threw the stuff in the car and off we went. I had originally planned to take part of Route 1, a scenic route down the coast before joining a slightly faster interstate and just race down in time to make the Venice Beach Freak Show. We had originally planned to arrive in Santa Monica late that evening, but we found out that the Freak Show was only on at the weekend, and this was a Sunday so it was now or never. This was one of the things that Rach really wanted to see, so we made it a priority.
The start of the journey wasn't great, as there was lots of road works and traffic along the way. In fact it was taking so long that we had to go back the way we came to head to an interstate so that we could make faster progress. This was one of the least enjoyable trips, as it was a 10 hour stressful drive which combined me going faster than I should have done so constantly watching for any police, and Rach having to throw up every so often; all the time not knowing if we'd make it in time. The Freak Show said that they were on until "dark", which is extremely vague. As we approached LA it was certainly getting dark, but we persevered.
We made it to Venice Beach and drove into a car park along the beach. Just as we paid, we looked up how far we were from the Freak Show to discover we were around a mile away, so an exhausted couple ran along the beach (Rach more waddling) until we could see some of the performers that we recognised. We'd seen the TV series about this exact freak show so were pretty familiar with some of the performers. We raced in to be told that this was the last show of the evening! We couldn't believe our luck! 10 hours of driving to make the last show!
The show was as weird as we expected, with one of the performers putting a hook into his nose so that it came out of his mouth. Everyone watching stood silent, presumably stunned by what they were seeing; so I stepped up and started the applause (which got the thanks of the performer). After the show we had a wander about the place, seeing all of the two-headed creatures on display and talking to some of the performers.
A lot of people aren't sure what to think of the freak show (whilst some disagree with the idea of it), but from watching the show, and hearing the performers, the Venice Beach Freak Show is somewhere that people who have something different about them can accept and even celebrate the things that make them special. There was a touching story about one of the guys (pictured below) that has a skin condition that causes malignant tumours to grow all over his body. He works in a supermarket, and has had parents telling kids to stay away from him because they might catch something, and times he'd passed something from a high shelf to a shopper only to be looked at in disgust and told that they didn't want it if he'd touched it. The Freak Show, he said, was a place where he can be comfortable with the way he looks, and not be judged.
After the show, we walked back to the car and headed to our final accommodation: a bungalow near the beach in Santa Monica. As we pulled up to the house we noticed police cars all over the place, and some officers pointing a gun at a house. We realised that this was opposite where we were staying! We weren't completely sure so we circled around a couple of times (not suspicious at all) before deciding we'd risk getting shot and parked across from all the drama.
The bungalow was behind a house that seemed like some sort of commune. Our host Brett answered the door and showed us to the bungalow, which was a lovely little building with a bedroom and large bathroom. It was late, so we had a quick walk around the block, stopping in a shop to get a few supplies before finally going to bed, exhausted!
Just what the doctor ordered
Loved the photos from your Yosemite hike. Thanks for sharing on this storm-drenched day!
Mark
I think Yosemite was my favourite place; amazing scenery absolutely everywhere you go. It was so hard to capture how good a view it was
Thanks for the effort in writing a great trip report. And the photos were excellent too :)
We also love the US National Parks and try and see as many as possible. Yosemite is also one of our favorites. You were lucky to see waterfalls that late in the year as many rely on the melted snow and have run out by then.
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