Day 10: Yosemite National Park

On today's menu was.. Yosemite National Park. Definitely the most beautiful of the National Parks we visited.. Sadly, we didn't have enough time to really see a lot, since this place is just HUGE. It's as big as Rhode Island, it's the size of an entire state. To do a lot here you really need more than one day, especially since it has hikes that can take up to 6 to 8 hours even for experienced hikers.
Not to mention climbing up the sheer cliff face of El Capitan. A rock climbers dream. It took a little while to drive to the entrace, then another hour to get to the central Visitor Center.

Since we didn't have too much time because I still had another 2,5-3 hour drive ahead of me to Modesto, we couldn't drive to every important point so we took the Valley Floor tour which passed the more important sightseeing points and managed to get a few good pictures.

I don't really know what to say about today, since nothing special really happened other than our visit through Yosemite. But enjoy some of the pictures :-) I wish I could post more shots, but as I'm always driving I unfortunately can't pay too much attention to the scenery and take no pictures of it. Once Christophe makes all of his pictures available I can see what I'm missing every day :-p

Oh, to give you a scope of what we've been through so far, up to today I've driven pretty close to 3000km already in less than 2 weeks and still more is to come..

But enough, enjoy today's pictures :-)

It's really hard to see, but you can some rock climbers making it up the wall, next to the shadow of what looks like a champagne glass or golf tee. I personally couldn't really make them out but there is a small dot that's them.

Bridal Veil Falls. It's hard to see, but down that black-ish patch is a small waterfall.

Bridal Veil Falls from another location. If you look closely you can see a rainbow forming. Blue on the bottom going up into green and further until it's red about halfway the waterfall. We were just at the right time to see this, though sadly there wasn't much waterfall so this was one of the better shots I was able to take.

Tomorrow, on to San Francisco!

Day 9: Death Valley and Sequoia Forest

Loooooong day today.. I had to drive for 8,5 hours straight with just a three 2-minute stops and one 10-minute stop. It was long, especially in Sequoia Forest.. Nothing but steep, short, VERY sharp hairpin and u-turns where you constantly had to step hard on the pedal to even get up or constantly brake to avoid crashing into the rock wall (which started where the road stopped, so had to be careful not to hit it) or going off the edge (same deal as with the rock wall) and into the forest abyss.

But, first things first.. Death Valley National Park. This place was so damn hot.. At one point, Christophe's watch read the temperature as 54 degrees Celsius. We made 2 short stops for photo moments and 1 stop at the Visitor Center. After the first short stop already, barely outside for a few minutes and we were both already parched, sweating and feet cooking in our shoes (my feet really felt as if they were burning, it became unbearable after walking in the sand dunes later). We couldn't wait to get back to the car fast enough and breathe in the airco and drink some water. The wind out there feels like a furnace blasting into your face.. The name Furnace Creek was very appriopriate for the Visitor Center. Not to mention the golf course smack in the middle of Death Valley... Yes, there is a golf course in Death Valley. It's called Devil's Golf of course. There is a lot of Devil things in there.. Anyway, driving through it became even more of a hell when we saw a sign that said "Turn off airco for the next 20 miles" (that's 32 km) and the next parts brought us from below sea-level to up all the way in the mountains, which went slow going uphill. It was hot but quite an experience.
We also saw some dust devils and tumbleweeds. All in all, it was fun to do, for just once... Not again, thank you very much.

Enjoy a few pictures:

Of course you know by now I don't want just regular pictures. So I had to walk into the desert for a little bit for a better shot. Yes, that little dot in the middle is me having walked into the desert (damn it was hot!). Click on the picture for a larger view.

After somehow making it out of Death Valley alive (strangely enough, doesn't matter if you're 80 meters below sea level or more than a kilometer above it, in Death Valley the heat always kills) and finally cooling back down with the airco back on, we moved on to Sequoia National Forest for a visit.

Sequoia National Forest... Such steep uphill roads and short turns. You can only crawl up and down those roads and be VERY careful. On one end, steep cliff wall and falling rocks if you're not careful, almost driving against the wall. On the other end, sheer drop down deep into forest as there's no fence or rail to stop you. Small mountain roads, paying a lot of attention and driving very carefully... But beautiful sights though!

Such a long drive eventually, it's really tiring when you haven't eaten anything all day. But it was good. Here's a couple pictures of our Sequoia stops.

We're in Three Rivers (near Visalia) now, and will be visiting Yosemite National Park tomorrow before driving on to Modesto (last stop before San Francisco).

Day 8: The last of Las Vegas

Our second night in Las Vegas!

After heading back out onto the strip (even though it was still way too hot, the main reason why Vegas doesn't come to life until nighttime, it's the heat) we looked around some various shops, acting all tourist-y and Christophe got himself a nice t-shirt, zippo lighter and some postcards. This place is good for him to kick his smoking habit though! He had to pay 21 dollar for just 2 small packs of cigarettes and he didn't even really like them :-p If that's not a good incentive to stop smoking, I don't know what is.

Anyway, after visiting a few more casinos and having a few drinks it became dark and the city got crowded again. Working our way through the crowd we made it to the place where our show took place. After getting assigned our VIP seats we had some complimentary drinks and waited to get guided/ushered to our assigned seats; which gave us a great view of the stage!

The show we went to visit wasn't a crazy expensive Cirque de Soleil one but rather one that was so funny I was a bit hoarse from laughing at the end of it and thankfully Christophe enjoyed himself thoroughly as well once all apprehensions were cleared. The show we saw was Marc Savard's Comedy Hypnosis and it was really great. I almost doubted to volunteer as well (since he didn't turn anyone down) but afterwards I was VERY glad that I didn't, after seeing what those people went through... Still though, for us it was incredibly funny to watch and the crowd was laughing all the time. Very much a show to greatly enjoy and have a good time with.

Another late night now and early morning coming up since tomorrow will be a lot of driving.. 7-8 hours of driving through Death Valley with a stop (fairly quickly after 2 hours of driving) to visit Death Valley National Park. This is going to be a tough one, especially since I won't sleep much tonight. I don't sleep much any night here anyway so it doesn't make much difference, just makes it more difficult.

Also, for Thomas: I'm sorry, I tried to find you some Vegas whiskey. It was called Sin City Whiskey, but it's proving very elusive to actually find for buying. I can find the Sin City Beer easily enough, and some bars serve the whiskey, but a place that sells the bottle is hard to find and most bartenders don't know where it comes from either, for some reason. Though apparently it's not that great (one of the Sin City store sellers compared it to motor oil) so I'll just skip out on this for you.

See you all from Three Rivers next, we'll be leaving Las Vegas behind for now.

Day 8: More of Las Vegas

Another day of Las Vegas. And damn is it hot... A scorching 39-40 degrees Celsius, it's unbearable to walk down the strip right now. After an hour or so you just start sweating and it feels too hot. This is desert heat alright.

Anyway, after sleeping in from our late night escapades we took off to find yesterday's elusive "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas"' sign. It was quite a bit further than we expected so it's a good thing we decided not to try and find it on foot since it was still 2 miles past the last casino on the South End.

Anyway, here we both are, with another icon of Las Vegas :-)

After our short visit to the sign we looked around the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop from History Channel fame. After a bit of driving around we found it, but unfortunately people were lining up until past around the corner outside and we didn't want to wait that long in this unforgiving heat so we might try again later, after peak hours.. Though chances are small of catching any of the main members but we'll see.

We're staying out of the heat a bit for now since we've seen most of the strip and casino's already by now.  We'll head back out a bit later for some last souvenir hunting before we go to attend the show.

We'll try not to leave Vegas behind like this once we're done with this town. ;-)

More of day 7: The Las Vegas Nightlife!

Alright! After the last post about daytime Las Vegas, now it's time to see the real face of this place during nighttime!

The whole strip is lit up with a lot of lights, every casino trying to attract more people than the rest. Also a lot more people are out now than during daytime. I would say that night makes the town alive, but a lot of shops still close at semi-regular hours so while the casino's (and the dozens and dozens of annoying card-slapping strip club/whore/escort services hawkers which really get on your nerves) are active, the rest of the town feels somewhat more dead/normal during the nighttime.

Of course we had to place a few bets... Christophe played slots and did win some, but lost out a bit in the end. I did some slots with him, though I have HORRENDOUS bad luck with those.. After a while I wanted to bet a little bit more as well so I went to play some blackjack.. As expected it went pretty good at first and I played for quite some time (all the while with Christophe watching the skimpy dancing happening on stage behind the blackjack tables) but didn't get any major winnings in the end so just played it out for fun.

Oh, George, you don't know what you're missing.. You would have loved it here ;-)

Anyway, we had a few drinks at the various casino's again, and Christophe took some pictures of nighttime Las Vegas (unfortunately my camera seemed to be acting up and kept giving very blurry pictures, even on Night Portrait and Night Landscape, so no pictures from me this time).

All in all, it was a good, busy, fun, long day. Tomorrow after sleeping in we'll visit the Welcome to Las Vegas sign; sneak in a visit to the famous Gold and Silver Pawn Shop from the show Pawn Stars on the History Channel (and recently on 2BE), tour the strip some more and catch a show in the evening. Did I mention yet we have VIP tickets for the show?

Anyway, time for some sleep in a little while. Another busy day ahead tomorrow.

Day 7: Las Vegas !!!

We've arrived in Las Vegas! And what a town it is! It's a burning 38 degrees Celsius hot right now and according to the forecast it will be even hotter tomorrow! Luckily the heat here is drier than in Palm Springs so it's a bit more bearable, albeit still quite hot (it is in a desert after all..).

So, after checking into our hotel we immediately went down to the Strip to check out the fame of Las Vegas.
After the shuttle from the hotel dropped us off near the Bally's we explored the south end of the Strip first.

Sadly the "Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas" sign was a bit too far off (still 2 miles past the last casino and that was already a long walk..) so we'll do that by car tomorrow since the south end one has a parking near it anyway.

So, south end of the strip.. We saw the Bellagio, Paris, Planet Hollywood, Monte Carlo, Hard Rock Cafe (which of course we had to enter for a drink; it's very nice looking and has some big multi touch screens with some cool history on it. Not to mention we were served by, according to the ticket, Papa Awesome.. And he did look like the veteran of the place), New York New York, MGM Grand, Excalibur, Lucor, Tropicana,...

We went for a drink and small gamble in a few of them. We started with the MGM Grand, and Christophe played 1 dollar and immediately on his first try won the money we spent on drinks so far back already. Just 1 pull on the handle and his 1 dollar turned into 20 dollars right away...

The Excalibur looked pretty cool as well, taking the theme even as far as the shows (jousting shows and the like..

After a while and doing a lot of sightseeing around the south end we walked back up and this time started to explore the north end.. There we visited the Ceasar's Palace, Imperial Palace, Mirage, Treasure Island, Venetian and the Palazzo.

Hands down, the Venetian is easily the most beautiful of them all.. Wonderful interior, very authentic looking and at one point both Christophe and I were fooled for a second by the interior as the ceiling was so well painted that it almost looked real if you didn't pay close enough attention. Of course, that only lasts a very short moment, but still the surprise was there.

As far as gambling goes, the north end of the strip definitely seems like the poorer man's casino's where you can bet as low as 30 cents, whereas the south end of the strip starts at 1 or 5 dollars. Nevertheless, of what we tried so far with gambling we like the MGM best.. The Bellagio is very nice looking as well and had a very nice water show along the waterfront in front of the hotel (which stretches out for literally like half a kilometer) and has a nice mood, the MGM just feels better and the Venetian is much more beautiful.

After make some more various stops for drinks and a bit of gambling in trying to recuperate our drinking money (which Christophe is fairly good at, the slots really suit him.. whereas I just kept going bust on every single try.. 20 tries and I didn't get one single win...) we had a little bit to eat and did a brisk walk back to our hotel. We're resting up a little bit now and waiting for dark to settle and the nightlife come to life before heading back to the strip to enjoy the night view.

Oh, we also bought tickets for a show :-)

For now, enjoy some daytime pictures of Las Vegas.

It's Siegfried and Roy!

It may not look like it in the picture, but when you first enter this hall, the sky can really have you fooled..