So it’s been ages and I’m laying by a pool in las Vegas.
Since last I posted we said our farewells to Connie and Gunnar and drove off into the desert. We made a stop by a beach near Santa cruz deep in the fog, where there was a semi sunken ship, home to thousands of birds. Then to San Francisco to meet mike. I met mike at the burning man festival two years back and stayed in contact over facebook.
Mike lives in a lovely place near height street,. So almost central, and has two spare beds, so ace! We had some drinks and went off to party, eventful it certainly was. We couldn’t have hoped to have met some many interesting people, or gone such places had we been tourists. Crazy colombians to ex google start outs and lots of partying fun.
We woke up late the next evening and did relatively little, took a bus tour on an old english bus, but the gear box died on a hill and we spent the evening walking around admiring the architecture of SF.
The next day, Monday I think, alan and I went to the apple store to hand over my MacBook for them to send off for repair, the second time in as many years, but all to apple’s cost.
So after we wandered the water front to pier 39, to catch our ferry. As per usual off into the pacific fog we drifted to the infamous island known as The Rock. It’s pretty cool, über touristy as to be expected and much of the island is inaccesable. The audio tour is cool, being guided by ex-inmates and prison guards. We finished off the day doing some shopping, and had some nice food before passing out.
In the end the San Francisco experience killed off the jet lag, and brought on something else.
Tuesday we set off again, east towards Yosemite. There’s been a huge fire recently which has levelled a large area, and it’s still smouldering, but it’s still breath-takinly beautiful. While driving I decided, ‘alan turn right!’ so we found this waterfall, maybe 250m tall. After a long clamber over the boulder stream we found the pool at the bottom of the rainbow, er waterfall. It was a cold swim and dive, but oh lots of fun. This is where a waterproof camera would come in handy, but the one I’m interested in is so popular that nobody has it.
So off we drove taking photos along the way and found some hitch-hikers from the east coast living in the Rockies. So a lots of chatting about snow and hiking and we had the tip off to a free night in a campsite.
We didn’t lack in alcahol, managed to play two person flip-cup and drink until we saw shooting stars. It was bloody cold and at 2am I woke and went and slept in the car.
Finally cold and tired I woke alan at 7am and we dove out to the park exit. Then we proceeded to climb mount Dana. As we walked the sun rose, and as we rose we ran out of air. It’s was beautiful, but I can’t remember ever climbing a mountain and seriously doubting the liklihood of reaching the summit. But we made it to almost 14000ft headachey, exhausted but to some stunning views. It’s took us 2.5 hours to get up and less than an hour down.
So yesterday we had a scorcher of a drive down through death valley, enjoyed the sunset from below sea level.
We arrived into Vegas last night so to the neon capital of madness, and rather than going crazy we collapsed into a cheap little hotel to sleep.
It’s getting hot, and time to check out. Time to check the town out.
Good luck.