Yellowstone is a familiar name for anyone my age in Spain, as we had those famous cartoons of Yoggi Bear and his friend Bubu, who lived there, making the life impossible to the many campers, visitors and forest guards,… and that was one of the closest National Parks near Chicago, where I had to travel for other reasons. Moreover, reading this is a volcanic area, and having missed a trip to Iceland in the past, this was tailor-made opportunity to get to see some the particular landscapes and spots of such area. Decision was quite easy to made.
Trip organization came a bit too late, and that entailed some logistics issues when visiting a (very) popular destination in high season (August): there was no affordable accommodation in the park, and we could only find reasonable prices at 2-hour drive locations. This ended up being a bit tiring, but driving in these wide areas in the US is also a very enjoyable activity, as the landscapes in the huge valleys make it worth it.
We drove through 3 of the 7 states with the highest rate cattle/person: Montana (#3), Wyoming (#5) and Idaho (#7). Driving forth and back, we saw many latifundia devoted to agriculture or ranching, and countless cows. We were in the West, where many of the movies were based, although instead of riding a horse, were driving a large Nissan through the endless straight roads, with only some scattered and isolated houses at the hills’ slopes. These places looked quite scary to live in (too many terror movies, maybe?), but even worse when we saw some active fires. We could count at least four different ones, so big that its smoke reached many hundreds of miles apart, ruining some views (and many pictures) in the park.
One of the many cool things about these roadtrips is spotting different state license plates in the cars. For those who may not know it, each state has a different design, which is also part of their own branding, with slogans like “Scenic Idaho”, “Life Elevated” (Utah), or “Treasure State” (Montana).
We visited two National Parks (Grand Teton and Yellowstone), two National Forests (Shoshone and Targhee), four states (Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana), and many many kilometres… but it was really interesting. (more posts coming…)
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California is worth a visit,
or even two, if there is a good excuse. I had the perfect excuse: a wedding of a very good friend made me decide what my long holidays in the year would look like: another road trip along the West Coast, adding the Grand Canyon to the equation, which was the big miss of my previous visit.
The trip started and ended in Las Vegas for a simple reason: very cheap tickets. There we took the car and drove to Los Angeles (A), a Cinema and TV town: there we visited the Walk Of Fame, looked for some good views of the famous Hollywood Sign, and drove around the Beverly Hills’ mansions, ending in the Santa Monica Beach, where we met the Pacific Ocean which would be our companion for the next days.
We drove North in the Highway 1, one of the best scenic drives in the world. The southernmost part of it is quite famous and is densely populated (in comparison with the rest of the road), being Malibu the most famous area thanks to the TV shows. We stopped in Santa Barbara (B), where we slept that first night.
The next day was long day on the car with beautiful views in every corner. We headed to Carmel-by-the-Sea (F), the richest town in California, and one of the surfers’ paradise, which was ruled by Clint Eastwood, but did several stops before.
Sea Lions like to strand in beaches in big groups. One of these beaches is located in Piedras Blancas (C), and it is always fun to see these huge animals fighting and sunbathing.
One of the next milestones in the road is the Bixby Bridge (D), a beautiful piece of engineering, built in 1931 in a wonderful environment.
The great discovery in this trip was the Pfeiffer Beach (E), a hidden treasure that is now a must in this route.
After Carmel, our next stop would be San Francisco (G). Well, I would say a mall near San Francisco (a must when US dollar is cheap), and then San Francisco downtown. San Francisco is always nice to visit, not only because I had the chance to meet Fabio after too many years, but also because it is an attractive city to walk around. Our first stop was Twin Peaks, where one can see the city that would host us for the next couple of days.
During these days, we took a guided tour around Chinatown, where we learn a few interesting facts about the city. The big increase in population took place in 1848/9 with the Gold Rush: from 300 people, the population grew to 25,000 citizens, and only 300 of them were women! The Chinese came also after the gold promises, but did not count with what was approaching. From 1882 to 1943 (61 years!), the Chinese Exclusion Act was in place. This Act stated that no Chinese could become American citizen, and they could only own grocery stores or laundrymats.
San Francisco is synonym of the Golden Gate bridge, the most iconic bridge in the world, and which is sometimes hard to see it complete due to the fog… not this time, though. In fact, this year we explored a new viewpoint of the bridge and the city.
After San Francisco, we headed to the wedding venue: Camp Navarro near Mendocino. This camp in the middle of a forest hosted the most hipster wedding I have ever lived, and we could enjoy the American way, with the conversations around the bonfire while having a sugar shot in form of marshmallows and chocolate.
After the wedding we flew back to Las Vegas where we took another car, crossed the Arizona desert and arrived to the Grand Canyon (I), where we enjoyed one of the most amazing sunsets you can have. The sun changes the some time before the sunset. I have tried to describe it several times, but I prefer to leave it to the pictures.
Between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, you can detour to the Historic Route 66 (J), that linked Chicago and Santa Monica. “Historic” is there because since 1985, Route 66 was mostly replaced by an Interstate highway, although it is being revitalised lately by nostalgic people and tourist-avid businesses.
Our last stop before Las Vegas was the Hoover Dam (K), another impressive historic construction in the Colorado river, between the Nevada and the Arizona States.
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Based on the excuse of visiting a friend living in San Franciasco, we organized a 10-day trip around California and hitting Las Vegas as well. A lot of miles (they don’t use kilometres over there) with what they consider a “too small” car (Ford Focus, Kia Soul), including nature (Yosemite Park, and the Central Coast), desert (Death Valley), craziness (Las Vegas), big cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco) and coast towns (Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, etc).
I will split the trip in three different posts to make it more readable, and make the pictures also viewable without falling asleep. The first part covers Yosemite and Death Valley, the second will take from Las Vegas to half of Central Coast, and the last part will cover the second part of the Central Coast to San Francisco.
The first day we visited Yosemite. It is one of the famous National Parks in United States and its fame is very well deserved.
The park surrounds the Valley, which is the result from the presence of a glaciar 10 million years ago, and which now is full of trees, and surrounded by steep granite walls, where waterfalls find their way out (or down).
The day after it was time to drive to Las Vegas. Long drive through the desert in Nevada State, and also a quick visit to the deepest point in North America, in Death Valley (which you may guess it is not full of life).
I liked the experience of being in the middle of nowhere for real. We crossed just a couple of small towns, with very long distances among them, and which made you reflect, how it would be living over there, especially when we looked to the steady outside temperature over 40ºC.
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