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)