Christof's Blog: Juli 2011

Montag, 18. Juli 2011

Part 3 / San Diego - Dana Point - LA - Santa Monica - Santa Barbara - Monterey/Carmel - Mountain View

Our final leg of the road trip would start with a change of plans. Actually, we wanted to go to Tihuana, but with my bad experiences with the American border control and horror stories of stolen cars on the Mexican border, we decided to pass.

So we went to the most important sight in San Diego right away - the world famous zoo! There are quite a few really great zoos that I have seen so far, but none of them had a double-decker bus and a cable car...only in America.

Our next place to sleep was probably the most beautiful - which means something after the great overnight stays just outside Yosemite. We parked our van in Dana Point, just up a hill, with great views of the sunset and just a few steps away from a beach - which would bring both of us a severe sunburn the next day.

After spending half a day at the beach and getting a healthy lobster-red colour, we drove up to pay Los Angeles a quick visit. We only took a quick stroll up and down Hollywood Boulevard and drove through Beverly Hills - maybe we weren't keen on big cities after nature's beauties anymore - drove through Santa Monica and spent the night in Malibu (CA).

The next day, we had to work our way through quite a few miles along Highway one and thus had only time to do a "picture drive-by" through Santa Barbara and spend the night on a nice hill just before a 87-mile-No Camping-zone.

After Monterey and Carmel (see earlier blog post), we decided to pay the beautiful city of Mountain View a visit. It is well known for a company offering employees free shower facilities on site and we wanted to visit this highlight. :)

Bonus: Pictures from the 4th of July fireworks in San Francisco... coming soon.

Freitag, 8. Juli 2011

Road Trip Part 2 / Death Valley - Las Vegas - Mojave - Route 66 - Joshua Tree

And off to Vegas again. As we wanted to drive through Death Valley and everyone warned us to do so if we did not want our tires to melt, we decided to do it overnight, which meant quite a bit of driving - and we were pretty thankful we did that. At first there was the change from 10000 feet (around 3000 metres) to below 0 in just one day. Then there was the heat. It was around midnight when we drove past the valley, but we still had 42 degrees. I do not want to experience the daytime temperatures!

We were rewarded for our overnight drive with a great view of the illuminated Vegas skyline and by a friendly receptionist, who gave us our 35-dollar-hotel-room (mid week in Vegas ;)) at 7 a.m. Pay one night and you always get two. And in the end it was even free because it came with a 10-dollar-gaming voucher that I turned into 40 at the Black Jack table. My second time in Vegas was not really exciting, so I spend a lot of time trying to get good pictures of the strip and even better pictures of the Bellagio fountains.

The next day, we went to the desert again - this time Mojave National Park, after this, we drove a short while on the legendary Route 66 and then went to Joshua Tree National Park. See the pictures for a nice overview.

Our roadside place to sleep was in a residential area close to Leucadia Beach and after probably the longest time I had ever been behind the wheel in just one day, I had a nice beer on the steps of a Baywatch-esque lifeguard's stand and watched the waves roll in.

Preview to New York

The Luxor...Stargate says "Hi"

Bellagio Fountains

On the Strip

And on the road

Solitude...only the internet can help

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree in HDR

Down in the Valley

Donnerstag, 7. Juli 2011

Road Trip Part 1 / SF - Lake Tahoe - Yosemite

The last eleven days have been exciting, diverse and very entertaining. I have seen some incredibly beautiful places and Joe and I have driven almost 2600 kilometers across California and Nevada. Thus, I will split up my the journey in three parts - this is part 1.

We started our road trip quickly - no time for TGIF, no time for dinner, as we had to pick up the camper van that would be our mode of transportation as well as our temporary home for the next days, before the rental company closed.

We made it - and after throwing way to many bags into our home on four wheels, we were off across the Bay Bridge towards our first stop - Lake Tahoe. The drive was easy and pretty uneventful, we filled up our ice box and were there quick enough to have a good nights sleep - well, after we found a place to park. This would be our biggest concern for the trip: Where can we park for free and still be secure? Most of the time, we would end up somewhere on the side of the road with loud traffic making it hard to sleep. Our first night was filled with exactly this, which made us get up early in the morning.

And the view over the still tranquil Lake Tahoe was worth a sleep deprived night. After shooting our first pictures, we decided to enjoy the view over the Lake from Heavenly - a Mountain Top with a ski resort - and yes, there was still snow - even in the Californian summer. It is quite odd to go from 30 degrees to snowy mountains - the only place I had experienced that so far was New Zealand.

After a quick stroll through South Lake Tahoe - including the Hard Rock Café, to contribute to Joe's pin collection - we made our way towards Mono Lake from where we would start our Yosemite adventure. After a boozy evening on another road side sleeping place - this time with a great view, just outside the National Park, we were up for the (yep, anticlimax is coming) highlight of our trip. Yosemite is absolutely stunning and definitely in my top places to see again. We spend the first day just driving from picture spot to picture spot and walking to the countless waterfalls. Our second day was probably the best hike I have ever done: The Mist Trail! It is hard to describe the outstanding natural beauty and the views along this track, so see for yourself in my pictures.

And off we were for an overnight drive...

Lake Tahoe early morning 1