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...

Thee eightest day of San Francisco: another roadtrip

I am tired and I don't feel like writing. I'll just post pics then.
Got up at 6:30 to get the car out of the parking lot. Bought some sf caps with the assistance of a semi-homeless mofo who started asking us for money. Today two Finnish girls travelled with us, they had seen L.A. and S.F. but never really left the city. Without a real plan, we just started to drive up north. First, we headed ro the Muir woods with the giant redwood trees, the small version of the sequoia's. They are over 1000 years old and really big.





Continuing up north we passed the muir beach lookout. It is THE MOST spectaculair view I have ever seen! Maybe at sunset it is even more beautiful. I wouldn't mind living in one of the bunkers there, if it means I can watch this view every day.




We headed into point reyes a national seashore park. This is what anyone thinks of when you talk about a USA roadtrip. Neverending winding roads and a scenery that changes from ancient woods and sea vista's to small historic towns and barren hillsides. The vista's here were absolutely amazing too.



The drive back we tested our sportscar, it has nice handling but it is no competition for the 4x4 V8 monstertrucks that drive around here. When we got back, I just crashed; tired from getting up early, driving all day, and 10 hours of cabrio sun. Tonight we might head into town with Sam and Jack to get some drinks.

Say Seven already in SF: cartime.

Today is the day we have to pick up the car we reserved. When we booked our flight at the ANWB, we also reserved a midsize car at Alamo. A basic 4 or 6 cylinder, four seater. We arranged to pick it up in San Jose, where we would stay according to our schedule. But the schedule has changed; we are still in SF more than 100km North of San Jose. After calling Alamo car rentals three times, we still couldn't change the pickup location to SF airport. So, we got up early for our free breakfast, walked a mile to the BART station, rode it for 40 minutes, took the caltrain for over an hour to Santa Clara, the bus to the San Jose airport, and a shuttle to the car rental companies. Luckily there were no lines at Alamo. We showed our nice voucher for a Midsize car, when Bart suddely decided we needed something different. Think luxury, sun, California. The smell of asphalt in your nose, the sun on your skin and the wind in your hair. Goodbye boring midsize, hello cabrio sportscar! We picked a 2006 Chrysler Sebring Convertible with only 3400 miles on the odometer.



Today is Winchester Mystery house, Apple and Google visit-day. Topless (the car not us) and with the airco on full cold, we drove to our first destination. The car was great, and with that I can sum up the whole day: great car, lousy day. The Winchesterhouse was as expensive as Disneyland but the garden was nice for some photos, Apple only had an open store, and Google even kicked us out of the parking lot before we arrived. Not that it was not predictable, but still frustrating. We drove back to sf, got some tan along the way. Parking here is $12 a night, and we have to pick the car up at 7AM!




We didn't want to eat out so we bought some food a a local 'Safeway'. Fruit vegetables and candy is very expensive, but the meat is cheap. Real strange. We spent $5pp total on a steak and salad and went to bed.


In stead of pictures, I present a list of innovative american inventions I came across.

- Orange cones saying 'wet floor' when there are only two drops of water on the sidewalk. Great to avaoid lawsuits.
- Rotating doorknobs which lock by pressing a button in the middle. Turn it to unlock and open the door at the same time.
- Self lighting gas furnace: turn the knob and it fires sparks untill the gas is on. No maches or extra buttons needed.
- Automatic cash return machines. Pay $7.75 at a cashier for groceries with a ten dollar note. She hits the $10 key, and the cash register spits out the correct change.
- Unscheduled busses: the schedule sais they come by every 6 minutes on average, depending on traffic contidions.
- One knob showers: turning the knob turns the water on, turn further to make it hotter.
- Pedestrian traffic lights showing how many seconds there are left to cross.
- Chat radio. 24 Hours of a semi-comic-disc jockey talking to people or himself.
- Asian recycle plan: scary little asian women collect plastic bottles for money. They have gold teeth, so it must pay well.
- Two floor trains with open middle. Looks really comfy and large.

Cool car things:
- Refuel without gasoline vapour, there is a rubber sleeve over the gaspump pistol.
- Windshield sprayers are in the wipers themselves, wetting and cleaning the entire glass.
- When driving, no matter how fast you go, keep your lane. You can pass other people left and right.
- Radio turns off only after opening your seatbelt.
- Lights turn on automatically when it gets dark
- "Panic" button on car remote. I dont know what it does, and I don't want to know.
- Pickup trucks. Now I can say a Hummer is a small car. Really, it is TINY compared to the ford f250's and Cadillac Escalades driving around here. They jack them up half a meter and hang a 15 meter mobile home behind it. Possibly even another car on a tariler! Look at this: http://www.americanwheelandtire.com/gallery/albums/upload/Ford/F250%20Lifted.JPG
That is 7 meters of V8 powered, airconditioned, glorified redneck heaven on four wheels.

Sixth day, San Francisco: Baker beach

Thanks everybody for the emails and SMS'es to congratulate me on my birthday, that really made my day.

Today was also a lazy day. Bart and I took the bus to Baker Beach, just on the west side of the Golden Gate bridge. After a bit of searching we found the beach at the end of a dead end street in a typical luxurious American neighbourhood. The sun was shining today but the beach was very quiet, probably beacause everybody is working. What a shame; more beach for us to enjoy. Baker biatch (beach) offered a great view on the Bridge and the surrounding cliffs. The closer we came to the bridge, the more our view got spoiled by lots of old naked men. While it is not a nude beach, in the weekends it is supposed to be full of naturists. I guess it is the typical liberated San Francisco spirit.







To answer Sylvia's question: yes, by accident we did stuble upon fortresses. They were built in 1904 to defend the SF harbours. Being 100 years old, they still looked like they were placed no more than a few years ago. At the bunkers, we met a great guy from Texa, he gave us some nice tips for Los ANgeles, on where to go and what to visit. It turns out that there is a 30 year old Industrial Design school in L.A. And General Motors is just around the corner, luring all designers in. But ist is nearly impossible to get into, I guess especially with a &*^%* University of Twente diploma. After gatting burned on every spot with no sun-lotion (No we were not nude, but shirtless!) we took the bus back to the Hostel, had a free Mexican dinner. Bart burned some cd's for Liza, and we went to sleep. I should organize a proper birthday in Ze Nezerlendz when I Get back.

Fifth Day, San Francisco: Nothing

Today was a lazy day. Because we rearranged our travel schedule with the roadtrip, we had to do do a day of planning. We decided to stay in San Francisco at the Green Tortoise hostel untill we go to Yosemite. The twentieth, we have reservations to pick up our car. Parking will be very difficult in San Francisco, but the great hostel and low prices counterbalance that.

We had a great Chinese dinner with Liza at 'Brandy Ho's' one of the best in town. It is not a cozy place, but the food is cheap but outstanding!

Fourth day, San Francisco: Berkeley University

Today was "Save the air day', basically it means that on a hot day, all public transportation is free! Bart and I took advantage of that by taking the BART to Berkeley University. The campus is so much more impressive than our campus in Enschede. Just have a look at the pictures to see what I mean.

We have spent exactly $0 today: free hostel breakfast, free transportation, free hostel meal. A hostel is probably cheaper to live in than a regular house; if you do some chores you get a night's stay for free. There are people living here for over six months.

More text to come here.