Day 18, Route 66

After another hamburger breakfast, I wanted to check out the garage across the street. It was a stereotypical small town garage. From the state of the building and the cars it from of it, I could tell it had seen better times. Being a passionate fan of american cars I had to step inside. The owner was a chain smoking man in his mid sixties, the standard blue coverall looked as old as his garage. I explained my obsession with american cars and politely we asked if we could check out the cars. The owner told me he had something I might like in the back. There stood a fully customized black 1950 Lincoln coupe. It had a mirror like paint job, a professionally chopped rood, flamed nose, lake pipes and a full custom leather interior. This car looked better than any new car I have ever seen. It was all hand build by the old man himself. Amazing.





Today we left Williams to travel the historic Route 66 toward Los Angeles. US66 was established in 1926 running all the way from Chicago, Illinois through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California before ending at Los Angeles for a total of 2,448 miles. Route 66 was a major path of the migrants who went west, in search of a better life. The road was officially decommissioned in 1985, after it was decided the route was no longer relevant. Immortalized in literature, popular music, and television the route is now in revival, and labeled a national monument. Although much of the original road is covered or bypassed by Interstate 40, some parts still exist. The stretch from Kingman to Seligman is one of the few preserved original parts of the mother road - as it is affectionately called.




Well, after 4000 miles of traveling, the route 66 was just like any other road: long, straight and lonely. Although the idea that you are traveling what is possibly the most famous road in the whole world, is exciting. The interesting stuff is not the road itself but the historic towns and shops beside it. We stopped at a famous gas station: a wooden building filled to the brim with Route66 stuff. The yard surrounding the house is home to various American cars, ranging from classic to historic. I have seen a 1918 t-Ford, 1930 Ford Coupe hotrod, ’57 Apache pickup trucks, a ’67 Impala. The barns were filled with flathead ford engines, dual carbed ‘65 corvette blocks and other stuff many enthusiast can only ream of. On permanent display is a pristine 1957 fuel injected Corvette. The owner told me they got all the stuff for free. After buying some drinks and gifts, visited the bathroom -which was totally covered in pictures of naked women- and continued our trip west.





Today is my lucky -car- day. After taking a wrong turn in Sleligman, we were still on the route 66, going to Needles. Unfortunately for Bart, we passed a car dealer who had two hundred square meters of classic cars. I felt like a kid in a candy store! After an hour of ooh’s and aah’s, Bart persuaded me to come back to our own car and keep driving. Exiting route 66 on the I-40, we drove though the most remote, uninhabited part of America; the mohave desert. Elsewhere deserts change their scenery every fifty miles, not this desert. Worst of all: due to floods the road was badly damaged, at least according to the road signs, it seemed fine to me. The maximum speed was only 35 mph here... Boring! We stopped at an old 66 trucker diner, which looked like it was closed years ago. Enjoyed a salty soup, while two truckers next to us talked about their vehicles. Back on the desert roads we discovered that or brand new Chrysler was starting to fall apart. With strong side winds the side window gets blown in about two centimeters. The convertible top does not close very well at times; is has nearly been blown off several times. Hanging on to the sail like roof at highway speeds is quite the frightening experience.

Getting close to Los Angeles we decided to keep to our traveling schedule and visit Irvine tomorrow. So, we had to find a place for the night fast! It was getting dark already and we were still in the desert. After some driving around we picked a national forrest south-east of our position, about two hours away. It is the only national forrest near Los Angeles, so we figured there must be some motels or campsites in the area. Just as the sun set we arrived on the foot of the hills leading to Big Bear. The sunset colored the skies red, fading into a deep dark blue. Driving in the dark we discovered a town and asked for directions. Another hour later we were settled in a ‘motel 8’. The shower was nice, the blankets smelled like cat piss. We watched ‘cat woman’ on cable television, I’d rater lick the blanket than watch that movie again.

Day 18, Route 66

Day 17, Williams: Rodeo and Grand Canyon

Yesterday we were a little drunk and quite late, so we slept out and had a very late breakfast at the local greasy spoon; a 1960’s route 66 diner. Two 45 year old cars in perfect shape, were standing outside. Inside was a heaven of red vinyl and chrome. After a nice burger and some fries, our gang of two headed to the local rodeo. The place was stuffed full of trailers and pickup trucks. I have never seen so many 4x4 american cars in my life. The Rodeo was great fun to watch. It started off with a thanks giving, prayers and the national anthem. First event was wild horse racing, were three teams had to capture a horse, saddle it, and drive it around the track. It was followed by cow lassoing, wild horse riding for 8 seconds, wild cow milking and bull riding for kids. Where the people in Lone Pine worship their imaginary movie cowboys, the people here in Williams live the live, keeping an American part of history alive. It all takes an amazing degree of skill and guts to perform, and is great fun to watch.







Since the Grand Canyon is only about an hour away, we decided to take the car and drive there. Halfway we encountered a huge storm with rain and lightning. As quickly as it came, it disappeared, but the whole day has been cloudy. It is a nice change from the dry desert to the green lowlands. Temperature was a nice 23 degrees, The grand canyon national park was filled with people. We got off the road at the first parking lot, waited for several minutes for people to leave, and then our space was stolen twice. It makes me want to throw these stupid people in the canyon. The view was nice but not breathtaking. Maybe we have seen too much mountains and nature already.



The way back is again a straight road, the car’s 0-100 time is no less than 14 seconds, that is slow for a 2.7 liter v6. Back in the motel, we prepared a luxurious can dinner in the microwave.

Day 16, Going to Williams

Checking out is very easy in Las Vegas; you turn on the television, go to a menu, select check out and you’re done. Not much left to do here but indulge in the all-you-can-eat breakfast for $9. Real interesting if you see the restaurant’s standard seats are half a meter wide. Take a look around and no explanation is needed. I have never laid eyes on so much excessive fat. This is feeder paradise! Huge battleships of people stuffing their faces with fine foods. Like real gentlemen do, we took a glass of orange juice and some fruit and jogged elegantly to the car.



We didn’t have a map of the area, since we are no longer in California, but in Nevada. So we just drove to the Hoover dam, ugly piece of concrete with some dead workers in it, too much protection around it. What a lousy way to enter Nevada. The road after the dam is nothing you would ever find in Europe: think of a straight asphalt road hundreds of miles long, make it straighter. No! Ever straighter, double the length and you still don’t have a clue. Forget about it. With a tank full of gas, cruise set to 140 km/h and the stereo blasting sixties songs, we were leaving a town full of sinners behind us a quick as possible.

A quick stop in the charming living hippie ghost town ‘Chloride’ provides us with cold drinks and a map. Next stop: Williams, an old town along historic route 66. Only an hour from the grand canyon. This is as far east as we will get. The town was packed with people! Today is rodeo day, so nearly all but the shabby motels have no vacancies. We could take a room with three queen beds, but it would be too big and too expensive. Luckily the Route 66 Motel -creative name- had a cheap clean room with two queen beds. We dumped our car and suitcases and walked around the town. It is full of indian trading stores, we have entered many of those already, frantically searching for gifts. But no luck until now. We will continue our quest, not to return from the promised land empty handed. It will be a fierce struggle, but we will not succumb. Seriously, try and act happy with crappy or no gifts when we get back. Is a route 66 mug okay? As part of the rodeo festival, we watched real cowboy gunfight on the central street. Fun for kids. And me.







Our dinner consisted of two cans of beans and pasta. My pasta had a nice pull away cover, Bart needed a can opener for his beans. The motel’s front desk provided us with one. We have no clue how to use it. After fifteen minutes, Bart managed to torture the little can to such an extent it had enough holes to get the food out. We spent the rest of our evening drinking Tequila and Johnnie Walker Green Label with another local motel owner and a texan, and visiting a redneck party. Because of the rodeo, live bands play everywhere in town. It was great fun to be there. The ‘dress code’ was jeans, large belt, blocked shirt and cowboy hat. Not something one would encounter in The Netherlands. On tomorrow’s agenda is the rodeo and the Grand Canyon.

Day 15: Death Valley, Beatty, Las Vegas

Today we did a lot of driving. We checked out of the Dow Villa Historic Hotel in Lone Pine, bought some drinks, had breakfast at a big concern that starts with the letter M, and headed east past Owen’s Dry lake towards Death Valley’. Named after all the settlers that died horrible deaths in this harsh desert, it is the lowest and driest place on the Western hemisphere. Ground temperature can reach boiling point and it only rains two centimeters a year. If there is a middle of nowhere, this is it. It takes quite a while to drive through the Sierra Valley to Lone Pine. Getting to the desert valley entrance takes another two hours of driving, passing about three towns with a population below fifty. Nothing but dry plants and the occasional Yoshua tree grow here. We made a quick stop at a vista point when all the sudden we were overwhelmed by the sound of a jet engine; a fighter plane flew over our car, full speed, only ten meters high. It the made a sharp bank right and dove into the valley before us. The area past DV, in Nevada, is covered with military air force bases. It was, and is, the number one nuclear test ground is the USA. In fact, the famous top secret research facility, area 51, is only a few hours driving from here. This is something Pedro will like. We were also lucky enough to spot the 200x BMW 3xx v8 coupe. Parked just next to us, no license plates, and covered with black film. Both BMW and mercedes test their cars in this extreme landscape. We also spotted a squadron of new test mini coopers.





Death valley was nothing special, it was desolate and not extremely hot. Because of the heatstroke we had during our San Francisco road trips, 48 Celsius is not impressive at all. We managed to take some nice pictures, drove 160km/h, although the speed limit is mostly around fifty. We passed the famous valley pretty fast, and there we were in Beatty. This place is the worst DUMP I have ever layed eyes on. It is just random trailers and old crap scattered around to make a sort of hellish town. It is not even a trailer park, it is a trailer dump. We drove around, in shock, for fifteen minutes untill we found the “El Portal” motel we reserved. No way in hell we were staying in this god forsaken rat hole. We were kind enough to cancel our reservation in person. The ‘nice’ lady refused and wanted the full $100 charge for two nights. Then she wanted $50, and we were not allowed to leave before we paid, otherwise she would call the cops. Biatch. Wanting to get out quickly, dropped some money and drove away. We should have called the police ourselves, but we were glad to get out of here.



The miles and miles of straight highways to Las Vegas flew by. The closer we got to Vegas, the more crowded a it got. We got off the highway, directly onto ‘the strip’ where all casino’s are. While visiting Berkeley in California, an old lady said we should stay at the ‘Circus Circus’. We found a parking spot in their garage after twenty minutes, and took the stairs down to the huge and chaotic lobby. Rooms were pretty expensive compared to what we are used to now. By walking the strip and entering the various casino’s, we tried to decide if we wanted to stay in Vegas, or continue driving. First casino was circus circus: the place is filled with rows of glittering, flashing, screaming gable machines! Fat people hypnotically feeding their dollars into them, hoping to win the grand prize. It is such a shocking, different world, that I needed a few minutes to adapt and slow down. Horrible.





After a short search we found the Stardust Casino had two person room for $100. We made a reservation at the phone near the check in, checked in and installed ourself in the 40 square meter room with balcony, television, shower, bathtub and two double beds. Money well spent! A $12 all-you-can-eat dinner was enough to keep the hunger away for days to come. We headed out to explore what the fuzz is all about. The weather is hot and sandy, the streets are bright and windy. All casino’s look different from the outside, maybe americans are intrigued by the status and grandeur it represents, but all buildings are replica’s of architecture. Inside the entourage and people very in luxury, but the basic formula is the same. Gambling sells, sex sells. Every casino had thousands of machine rows, a few tables and a nightclub. Which we didn’t enter. Great to experience it once, to see it and take pictures, but even nicer to drive away from.

Day 14: Lone Pine or Cowboy Counrty.

Today is a quiet day, spent exploring Lone Pine. It is a old town in the Sierra Valley, directly on hwy 395, with a population of 1600 people. It has one pharmacy, one groceries store, two saloons and four churches. The rest is filled with small touristic or sport shops and motels. People here are very different then in Groveland; much more down to earth and genuinely friendly. No obligated small talk, and not so incredibly loud. But is it a small town: one of the girls at a western shop could not even imagine that people in europe do not wear cowboy hats! Or hats at all. Just try to explain to somebody why it has been out of fashion for fifty years. Anywhere you go and look you will see pictures of classic movie star cowboys, and people reenacting it. Maybe this rings a bell to the older readers of this blog: a slightly overweight man with a light blue suit -too tight-, white hat and a small black figure 8 mask. Probably someone’s idol, but it looked kind of gay to me. For many years, there is an annual film festival, celebrating the western movie. Since the 1920’s people have come to the hills just outside the town -now called movie hills- to shoot hundreds of cowboy movies and car commercials. This town really likes their movies, their whole identity depends on it. We figured out that every town has a purpose or identity: Groveland is the yosemite portal, Lee Vining the exit and waterplace with Mono Lake right next to it, Bodie is a gold town, Lone Pine used to be a waterplace but Ownen’s Lake is dry, so they adopted a new movie identity.



Bart and I had a breakfast/lunch at a local diner. Good home made burgers for a small amount of money. Luckily for us, there was a ‘boil water warning’ active. Water quality was not guaranteed because of low pressure, so it was obligated to boil. In case of restaurants it means they serve tasty bottled water, instead of the chloride water from the tap. We have gotten pretty used to it, but it is still not nice to drink.

Checking out all the local shops, and talking to the owners was nice. Bart bought a small american flag and a huge black cowboy hat. No less than five beavers have been slayed to provide this head cover. A horse hair band really personalizes it. Time to blend in with the locals. We had a drink in a saloon. The sign at the counter said: “Warm beer, cold food, and bad service”. It was not that bad.





The great west was luring, so we took our metal stallion to movie hills. It is really and inspiring landscape, seen in every big western production. We took some cowboy pictures and shot our own blockbuster cowboy-hunts-car movie. Our attempt to climb mount whitney, by car, was not successful, we did not want to drive too far. The way down was much more fun, it is easy to reach high speeds downhill.



Following the advice of a local shop owner, we had dinner at the Merry Go Around. John Wayne sat here too. Then, of course, there is no place in this town that he has not been. Food there was not cheap but very good. After dinner we had a look at some saloons, but they did not look very inviting. So we spent the rest of the evening watching television. Hey, I told you it was a lazy day!

Day 13, Bodie and Highway 395 to Lone pine

Driving from Groveland to Lone Pine:
I will spare you the details, but after a nice night of no sleep and too much throwing up, el Bart and me had a free breakfast. At least I tried some orange juice and the uber sweet yoghurt. Stuffed full of travel sickness pills, entering the car, I could only wish the trip trough Yosemite would be quick and painless. Many horrible miles of windy roads and some high pressure plant feeding by yours truly, we finally made it to the park exit. I managed to snap some pictures and told myself I would write about the variety in landscape in the Yosemite park. I won’t. There are beautiful mountains with snow and many rocks - for me to puke on. The town of Lee Vining made for a good stop between the park and our next destination: Bodie ghost town. Bart had a nice mexican lunch, I felt stoned from the pills.

The best way to describe Bodie is remote. I don’t thinks anything but the prospect of gold can persuade a man to live here. Exiting the highway, it takes twenty minutes to arrive at a dust road which leads to the gold city. Only hills live here. Figure that one out. The town itself is much more crowded with visitors than one would expect. Founded 1856 in the Californian gold rush, the town quickly grew to some thousand people. Many millions of dollars worth of gold were found here, but the mines dried out and fires raged, burning half of the city. By 1920, Bodie was officially dead. What remains are 150+ original houses and the stuff inside. It offer a real interesting view on how people lived a hundred years ago. Amazing how all the houses are made of wood, considering there are no trees in a hundred mile radius. Of course that could be because they used them all for building houses…













We continued or journey through the Sierra valley. I was starting to feel much better already. The only crossing point is 400 kilometers south of us. Miles later we arrived at Lone Pine and checked in to the Historic Dow Villa Hotel, only to find out we were one day ahead of schedule! Our original plan was to stop in Lee Vining. We still managed to get a room. It had no private bathroom and only a queen bed. Hmmm, cozy. Luckily the blanket was huge, so no midnight fights there. We enjoyed a self made dinner of sweet bread, mustard, pickle, tomato, and cucumber. My first real meal in 32 hours of sickness.

Day 12, Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy.

Hetch Hechy was my first sick day, so I will not post an elaborate story. We did our laundry, saw a wild west hanging tree, visited the Hetch Hetchy lake and watched the sunset at Yosemite's Glacier Point. It was a long drive and the mountain offered a crowded and mediocre view of the valley.

Yosemity Photo's

Bart just uploaded tons of Yosemity Pictures.

Check out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bartelomeus/


Greetings to everybody back in the Netherlands, and anyone reading my blog!

Shanna, I miss you!

Day 11. Exploring Yosemite.

Today was our fist full day in Yosemite. The Charlotte Inn is 24 miles from the park entrance, it takes around 45 minutes to get there. We expected the park to be very crowded, considering a large part of all californians go here for their summer holidays. But there were no crowds at all, maybe because it is midweek and extremely hot. The occasional mobile home slowed us down, but other than that it was a very nice and scenic drive.

There are three roads in Yosemite, hwy 120-west from San Francisco, 41-north from L.A. and 140-west in between. Check out this map for reference. http://www.scenicwonders.com/images/yosemite_map_lg.gif . The last road is closed since last april, because of a mountain slide. In other words, there is no more road. We decided to go and see for ourselves, it should be the most quiet part of the park with only one entrance. We stopped at the roadblock, parked the car and went for a walk. We thought the closed part of the road would be just around the corner. We thought wrong. It was too hot, too dy, and too far to keep walking, so we headed back to a cafe at the parking lot. It turns out the mountain slide was six miles away! Good thing we didn't walk there in this extreme heat.

Since there is nothing more to do on hwy140, we drove back. Along the way we passed a relatively slow part of the wild river that runs through yosemite. With wild I mean, non crossable, ferocious, rafting wild river. We went for a swim, the cold mountain water was a welcome refreshment with outside temperatures still in the high 40's.



Half-dry we got in the hot car and drove to the central part of the park: Yosemite Valley. The way there offers some nice views, but this is were all the campsites and parking lots are. So it was full of tourists, filling the road, campsites and swimmable parts of the river. We were glad to get out to hwy41-south: we were driving towards the Giant 3500 year old Sequoia Trees. Again, there was a vista point every 5 miles, which offered a stunning view on the raw beauty of this park.



The Sequoia trees are indeed huge. The one on the picture below, is many thousands of years old and fell more than 300 years ago. Sequoia trees can survive this long, because they are extremely resistant to deseases and fire. Their soft bark and extreme height protects them from the most extreme heat. In fact, fire is their reason for survival: they depend on it to clear out other competitor plants and trees. Their only weakness are the shallow roots, which makes them sensitive to falling over in strong winds. Still they make for a great tree huggin' hippie experience.





The way back to Groveland took about three and a half hours, which should give you a nice impression of the size of the park. It got dark quickly, Bart was driving, the top was down, and I lay on the backseat watching the stars, Lenny cravitz' 'Calling all angels' was playing on the stereo, followed by 'dust in the wind'. The silhouettes of trees passed on a background of thousand of stars. It makes you feel both more alive and insignificant than ever before.

I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment's gone.
All my dreams pass before my eyes in curiosity.
Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind.
Same old song. Just a drop of water in an endless sea.
All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see.
Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.

Day 10, Leaving the city for a Yosemite adventure

Today is our last free breakfast at the Green Tortoise Hostel. I would advise anyone travelling to San Francisco to stay there, it is that great. I managed to do a quick userstest for our bachelor assignment, and got to meet some great Dutchmen all at once. They were a traveling couple at the end of a 11.000 km yourney trough the USA, still they wanted more time! For their first time in Amerika, 20 years ago, they had quit their jobs to travel for a year. One year became 3 1/2, a great way to experience a country. I would like to do that too with Shanna.

We found a free parking lot overnight, but what seemed a short walk yesterday was much harder with a twenty kilogramme suitcase today. On top of that, the cabrio only has room for one case. Luckily it has a good backseat for additional storage. The weather was hot again today, 45+ with extremes arounf 48C. Due to crowds, it took a while to get out of the city. It was not long before we entered a much dryer desert like area. The only thing here are hills and dead grass. Halfway we stopped for an ice cream, and a cold soda.





After a few hours the landscape changed drastically: within a mile we went from brown hills to green mountains. We had arrived at the borders of the Yosemity park. Our Hotel in Groveland was only eight more miles! After a scenic ride, we entered the town, founded 1856, population 50.

The 'Charlotte Inn' is an old wooden hotel, the wallpaper is green with pink roses, the furniture victorian and the carpet has a lettice leave pattern. Plants, paintings and kitchelaria (is that a word?) fill every empty space. There are only two person rooms, with a one meter high -very fluffy- bed, and a handmade braided quilt. The bathtub has claws and gold taps. It all looks very cozy and classic, just wat you would expect.



We checked in, had dinner and went to Yosemity National Park, 24 miles away. As we entered the park, the sun was setting. It turned the already magnificent landscape into a work of art. I thought the Muir Vista near SF was unbeatable, but this is even better. Even though the pictures are great, you have to see it for yourself to fully experience it. It was stunning.

Day 9: Napa Wine Country

Since we have to park our car here in San Francisco, we need to get out of the city early. Otherwise the 'meter maids' will come and give us a parking ticket after 9AM. On todays menu we have a mix of sun, cabriolet and wine. Liza really wanted to come with us, but Jack told me she wil be at the hostel at 11AM. So we had two hours to spend on parking and internetting.

11AM and we were ready to explore the Napa wine valley. We headed up North onto hwy 101, over the Golden gate bridge and into the countryside. Where we passed endless desolate hills on yesterdays trip, today we enter a more green and populated area. The mercury was rising quickly and before long, we had to put the top up and turn on the airconditioning.

On the way to Napa we passed an old landing strip where a navy blue WWII fighter cought our attention. We decided to make a quick stop to check it out. Upon entering the 'airport' we were greeted by an old veteran who gladly takled about the strip and its aircraft. It turned out to be a landing strip and hanger for private planes, some of which flew in the last great war. Their owners were as antique as their aircraft. We were free to walk around the area and the hangers, it was nice to see a piece of history so well preserved.





Napa is a touristic town, it has a Tourist Info Center and 30 shops which sell wine, honey, mustard and other local delicasses. Every building is painted a different pastel, too sweet if you ask me. We tried the free food in every shop, and with a bloodsugar as high as the local temperature, we continued to one of the vineyards on Altas Peak, for some complimetary wine tasting. The sign in front of the winery said 'on apportment only'. We got in anyway, it turns out it is just a formal thing to prevent people from drinking whenever they like to. Liza and Bart both chose some wines to taste, I was today's designated driver. The wine started good, only to get better with the price. The most expensive one in the tasting topped $80 a bottle, 2004 preserved something something... Going to a tasting room and not drinking wine raises some questions. I couldn't get away by explaining I am the driver, so I admitted not to like wine, or beer for that matter, and that port is more to my liking. It turns out, that there is one port brewery in the north of the valley. Off to the North then!



Bart and Liza, a bit tipsy from the combination of good wine, no food and extreme heat, were having a great time singing along with all the songs on the radio. Deeper in the valley, the thermometer indicated 119 Fahrenheit, that is more than 48 degrees celcius! Refusing to put the top on, we were sweating like crazy. We reconed it is better to burn in the Californian dry sun then to suffocate in humid Dutch heat. We arrived at the hippie vineyard to see if the redneck yankees here can also brew a good port. Ofcouse I could only smell and take small sips, the port was very different from what we are used to. One had a strange chorizzo taste with a GREAT aftertaste. Where the next one was like a fruity tast explosion with a lesser aftertaste. But I have to admit they were all great. The riesling dessert wine was a perfect ending.

We drove back south so SF, got off the highway and entered yesterdays muir beach viewpoints again. We wanted to see a sunset at the beach, but it was much too crowded. Back to the vista again then. We were just in time to jump out the car and catch the last 10 seconds of sunset.




Back in town. Liza still wanted to get me a cake for my late birthday. So we stopped at Marcy's, a luxury store, took the elevator to the cheescake factory on the top floor. The place was very crowded, but the cake was huge and looked delicious. We took our newfound treasure to the hostel and devoured it. One piece of cake is like 1 1/2 meal, and it tasted great. Thanks Liza!

The day ended sadly thought. At the hostel we found that Luke, one of the guys which helped at the desk, died in his sleep. Although I cannot say I knew him very well, I know he was a great guy; always genuinely interested in people and spending every minute in the hostel talking to guests and helping them. He was only in his mid twenties. Very sad...