LA

Three wonderful weeks are almost over and this will be our last blog entry from the US. Right now we are in a motel in Anaheim which is south of LA.

Yesterday we drove along the coast on Highway 1, which is one of the most beautiful drives in the US. We arrived in LA late and just stayed at a motel.
Today we walked on the Hollywood Boulevard and saw the Kodak Theatre, the place where the Oscars take place. We also got to see the Chinese Theater, where a lot of famous actors left their hand- and footprints. The rest of the day we did some shopping and spend our last dollars.

So tomorrow we are going to leave the country around 4:30 pm (Pacific Time).

We thank you for your interest in our blog and hope you had fun reading it!

See you, bis bald und auf Wiedersehen!

From LA

(our trip)

Yosemite & SF

After our stay at Mammoth Lakes we drove up to the Yosemite National Park. We were afraid, that the park would be packed because of Labor Day but it wasn't that bad. We stopped at various spots to enjoy the beautiful landscapes. The park definitely is one of the most beautiful ones in the US. We drove down to Yosemite Valley and after seeing El Capitan (a huge rock formation that is famous for its climbing routes), we decided to hike one of the suggested trails. We walked up to the Vernal Fall, which took us about one hour. Just before sunset we also got to see the Giant Sequoias in the south of the park. The Sequoias are giant trees that can get up to a couple thousand years old. Once again we could have stayed in the park for a week without even seeing everything but we had to move on.

We tried to get as close to San Francisco as we could and slept one night in Livemore. The next day we arrived at the Golden Gate Bridge around 1 pm. We walked half way over the bridge and saw a lot of people that had rental bikes. We thought that it was a pretty good idea to get to know San Francisco by bike. So we drove to a rental place and rented two hybrid bikes. Here you can see the route we went. It took us 4 1/2 hours to complete about 32 miles (50 km).

Totally exhausted we tried to find a motel nearby and stayed at a motel that was right next to a main street. Martin slept like a stone but I couldn't sleep very well, while big trucks drove by almost next to me.
We already planned the next day: visiting Alcatraz, shopping and getting as close to LA as possible. So that's what we did and now we are staying at an inn in Seaside, which is about 6 hours from LA.
We'll have two days left to see the LA area before we have to leave the US on Saturday.

It's amazing but also kind of challenging how much we get to see here in such a small period of time. Fortunately we have a lot of pictures and of course this blog to remember the great time we have had here.



(our trip)

From 119 to 51

On Friday afternoon we arrived in Las Vegas. We realized pretty fast that this weekend wasn't the best time to spend two days in Las Vegas. It was the Labor Day weekend which we didn't really know. So it took us a while to find a reasonable place to stay for the night.
At the first night we stayed at the "Circus Circus" just next to the "Strip", the main attraction road in Las Vegas. We walked up and down the strip on the first night. It just seems so unreal if you see all this crazy stuff just right in the middle of the desert. But it's there and it's still growing! We saw a lot of construction work so there will be even bigger mega resorts in the near future. One of them is the "City Center" which will even have an own power plant. We also tried some slot machines that night, but we didn't get very far...

On the second day we went shopping again. Once again we were pretty tired after that so we just watched some TV (it was actually "Ocean's Eleven" which takes place in Vegas!!) and went to bed early so we could get started as soon as possible the next day.

Our first stop on the next day was Death Valley, the hottest place on earth! And it really was hot as hell there. Our car measured temperatures between 110 (43 Celsius) and 119 (48 Celsius) degrees! We went out of the car a couple times but never stayed out longer than 5 to 10 minutes. At some point we even had to turn off our AC, so the car's engine wouldn't overheat. We got through the valley safely but we didn't only experience hot temperatures but also extreme changes in the altitude. We went from -280 feet (-85 meter) to about 5000 feet (1500 meter) and then back down to about 1000 (300 meter).

And if this wasn't enough: after we left Death Valley we faced a big sand storm in front of us at Independence, CA. When we stopped at the visitor center they told us we might not be able to get through the storm. We drove through it and even though the conditions were pretty bad, we made it.
So when we got to Mammoth Lakes we decided to stay there, since it wasn't very far from Yosemite National Park, which will be our next stop. Once again we realized that accommodations are a little pricy on holiday weekends but this was compensated by the wonderful clean mountain air and an awesome view of the Milky Way.

PS just to let you know: today we experienced temperatures from 119 (48.3 Celsius) at Death Valley down to 51 (10.5 Celsius) at Mammoth Lake! It seemed like we spend a day in the sauna.

Las Vegas & Death Valley