Las Vegas to Los Angeles

 We are currently stuck in Santiago, Chile (because our flight to New Zealand last night was cancelled, thanks Qantas!) We hope to be able to fly out on Saturday night; in the meantime we are usimg the opportunity to catch up on the blog. The pic on the left shows the inflatable globe at Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level.

The temp. was 37 degrees at Death Valley, rather a change from Yellowstone! We scuttled out of the van to look at the "must see" sites, then back to the airconditioned cab.

At the lowest point is a dried up salt lake, the light reflecting off it is dazzling. Signs tell you not to walk past the end of the boardwalk, but of course everyone does. There were a surprising number of tourists there, in the back of beyond.

I (Jane) was quite glad to get out of there really, it was SO hot! The next stop was Lake Isabella. I drove from -282 feet to nearly 5,000 feet then down to nearly 2,000 feet on winding roads which were quite scary. Robin amused himself by watching the inflatable globe inflate and deflate again.

Our next overnight stop was Lake Isabella, a pretty location, however I got thoroughly bitten by mosquitos (why do they always go for me?) and did not sleep well. Next day a long drive to Yosemite. I had always wanted to see the giant sequoia trees there, after seeing a photo of a car driving through a tunnel in the base of one in National Geographic magazine when I was a child. That actual tree is no longer standing but there is one you can walk through, so I was not disappointed.

We camped at Wawona campground next to the river, and had a camp fire which Robin was very proud of! Next morning I insisted in a paddle in the river before we set off for the Valley. The view as you come out of the tunnel into the valley is stunning, and we had plenty of time to admire it as we were held up by roadworks!

Bridal Veil falls was great, it should have one of those signs up like at Thorpe Park, "You WILL get wet!", we did. Refreshing as it was a very hot day. 

The pic on the right is the view as you enter the valley.

Yosemite was beautiful, probably the prettiest of the National Parks we visited. Then we had another long drive to San Francisco. The road into the city itself was atrocious, so many potholes we were afraid the rattly old RV would finally fall apart. Coming into the city over the bay bridge there were 6 lanes either side and we were not entirely sure of our directions so it was a bit hairy to say the least. However we found the Candlestick Park RV park without too much difficulty in the end, it is right next to San Francisco's 49'ers stadium. It was expensive but the good point was a shuttle minibus into the city. We enjoyed our two days in SF,

one day we hired bikes and cycled along the seafront and over the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito, then got the ferry back via Tiberon past Alcatraz and Angel Island. Once we handed the bikes in we had a Ghiradelli special, a chocolate-covered wafer bowl witha hot fudge sundae. We also got a free cable car ride up the hill (as the car was going to the garage) that made Robin's day as you can imagine!

The cable cars were fun, we had seats on the outside while some passengers hung on standing up. Our driver was doing a rap with the bell, something about "hold on tight, you have a bad driver and worse brakes!"

From San Francisco we set off to take Route 1 to Los Angeles. We drove through the 17-mile drive and saw Pebble Beach, near Monterey (very exclusive). Unfortunately at Carmel we discovered that the road had fallen into the sea at Big Sur, so we had to take a long detour, and made an unplanned stop at Avila Beach instead of Los Osos which had been recommended to us. We rejoined the coast road and stopped at Point Dume where we saw a pair of dolphins.

Then on to the Dockweiler RV park, our last night's stop in the RV. A soulless place right next to the airport, not quite what we'd expected, but it was convenient for finding the cruise America office the next morning where we handed back the van.

In LA we stayed one night at the Days' Inn on sunset strip. We weren't impressed by Hollywood, but we did find a very jolly Laundromat with an internet PC, and some chatty local residents. The next day we walked to the Farmers market, an ambitious undertaking when we realised the tourist map we had did not do justice to the distances involved, luckily we got a bus back. We also sampled a world famous Pinks hot dog (all hotdogs seem to be world famous!) That evening we successfully negotiated public transport (and saved a fortune) to the airport for our flight to Lima via San Salvador.

The next blog entry will, we hope, catch up with our travels in Peru.