Day 3: (08/11)
Started off from Reno at 6:10. Got on I-80 and drove all the way east. Stopped over at Wendover for a quick lunch at Arby’s. Turned on I-15 North at Salt Lake City, and then on Hwy 26 East at Idaho Falls, up to the town of Jackson Hole. It was over 9 pm when we got to Jackson (we lost one hour crossing the time zones). After driving for 14 hours and 834 miles, the most impressive sight of the town was the red sign of “no vacancy” on the office windows of the motels. We almost gave up hope of finding rooms for that night, while we needed a bed badly. Our friend suggested we sleep in the car, or seek help from churches. But I insisted we go door to door to check on every motel we came across. Finally, at a Day’s Inn, we found a room.
For pictures, please visit:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cs8715
Day 2: (08/10)
After I got up around 6 am, I found that behind the window of my motel room was the backyard of a home, which looks like a mobile home though, with two seemingly cranky cars at the back of the house. The warm sunshine of the early morning was sprinkling over the roof of the house, keeping the cars and the lawn in the shadow. It set a tone of peacefulness and tranquility in my heart before starting another long day of driving.
Had some bread and bagel for breakfast, that we bought in Los Angeles a couple of days ago, we started off at 7:10 from Fresno up to Yosemite. Sixty miles and an hour and 20 minutes later, at 8:30, we got to the south entrance of the national park. The entrance fee is $25 per sedan car. We drove a 7-seat van, which belonged to the category of $125 per vehicle, but there were just three of us, and we were asked to pay $25.
It was a bit hazy that day, and not really good for pictures. Drove along the road for tourists, and saw the mountains, the rocks, the waterfalls, the forest, and the famous El Capitan cliff. Everything was gray apart from the trees. In the gray illuminating air, the rocks and cliffs appeared much grayer than they really are, and so gray that they looked just like chunks of silver glistening in the scorching midday sunlight. It’s been very dry around there (maybe in the whole of the West), and the waterfalls were either a thin thread of water hanging down the steep wall of the cliff or like a spread sheet so thin that one could even see through. A “thin-thread” waterfall was just in the backlighting sun when we got there. In the dazzling light and with the fall trickling down, we could hardly see the water, but a puff of white mist at the top of the cliff, with the glaring sun just about a meter above. The strong light blinded us from the waterfall sight, but made the tree leaves stand out of the darker background, which gave us a beautiful sight that in a way compensated what we lost with the falls.
Taking the “Yosemite Shuttle” at the day parking, we got to the visitor center. And there we happened to see something Chinese – some photographs and a Chinese vase commemorating the moment when Yosemite and Mt Huangshang of China signed to be sister parks.
At 4 pm, we drove out of Tioga Pass, the east entrance of the park. Right out of the entrance, there was this Mobile Mart by Mono Lake. My friend, Andrew, told me it’s a good place for some good food after the long drive in the park. We took the advice and had a World Famous Sandwich and a burger, which were nice indeed. And of course some gas for the car. After the refreshment, we got on Hwy 395 to Reno. It was pretty late when hitting Virginia Ave in Reno. We had not planed to pull over in town. Reno was not one of our destinations on this trip. According to what we had agreed beforehand, we would be driving on more that night, and tried to settle in somewhere beyond Reno, so as to save some time on the way to the Yellowstone the next day. But we just stopped at Reno that night. You know, what is agreed is just what is agreed, and it doesn’t mean we have to stick to it, since this is just a vacation trip, and we were not on any mission. When our friend has a second thought, we just tend to change the plan and make everybody happy. So we just stopped at Reno, and left more than 800 miles for tomorrow to cover.
At Reno that night, there was a vintage car show, which our friend thought we’d better not miss, and which made that particular night a hot night in the hot season at the hot place. After trying several motels where either “no vacancy” was the only answer or the rate was too high for us to say yes, we found this Reno Motel where only a suite was available. Due to the car show, part of Virginia Ave was closed, and it was near our motel. Seen the car show, we went to Mel’s Original to have some turkey burger. At eleven pm that night, what we needed to do was to go to bed and have a nice rest so as to prepare ourselves for the long drive to the Yellowstone the next day, for a whole day. Yes, a whole day, fourteen hours on the road.
For photos, please visit:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cs8715
From Aug 9 to 18, 2007, we drove around the west of the United States, covering over 3400 miles, and visited Los Angeles, Salvang, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, Reno, Grand Teton, the Yellowstone, Las Vegas, Calico Ghost Town, and San Diego. And ...
Day 1: (08/09)
We got up at 5 o’clock in the morning. It was not that hard for us to wake up this early that morning, coz we all felt the earthquake at 1 am and didn’t really fell back to sleep deep. I had never felt a quake that strong when I was in Los Angeles in 2005. Have heard that for LA people, having earthquake is as common as having ice cream, tho it’s not true according to a friend who was born and has been living his whole life in LA. But still, getting shocked by one in the middle of the night out there in a foreign country is indeed something that could at least keep us half awake for the rest of the night.
After we washed up and packed our bags and cameras and everything, we cleaned up the rooms and put everything back in place the way we remembered they were. We stayed in the apartment of a friend of mine in LA. She just left for Santa Fe, a city in New Mexico, and would be back a couple days after we hit the road. It’s very kind of her to let us sleep in her guest room for those days before we started our road trip.
The car was started at 6:10. It was a Chrysler mini van I rented at LAX, the international airport of Los Angeles. Via Wihshre Boulevard, we turned on freeway I-405, then on Hwy 101, and at 7:45, we got to Santa Barbara. It was too early, and everywhere was not open yet. We just had a drive around the downtown area, and took a couple of pictures, which is like just telling ourselves “OK, we’ve been to Santa Barbara.” After another 160 miles, we drove into Salvang, a Danish town, where there are not many Danish descendents, but Danish architectures and bakery. Had some bakery for breakfast, which we were told a must in this town. Had a tour around places.
Left Salvang at 11 am. Went on Hwy101 to Hwy 41, then on Hwy198 towards Sequoia National Park, and got there at 4 pm. Drove around the park, and saw those giant trees especially General Sherman, so impressive and awesome. It was a good time for photos with the soft sunlight in the late afternoon. Around 7 pm, we were on the road again, and at 9 pm, we settled in at a motel in Fresno, a city to the south of Yosemite.
After checking in, I was busy transferring the photos from my cameras into my computer, and typing the journal of the day. My friend was preparing the supper. Thanks to the cooker Aunt Mei (my friend in LA who opened the gate of the USA to me in the first place) lent us, we had some nice and hot instant noodles for dinner. We knew that we could not survive just taking the American fast food on our way, so we bought some instant noodles in Los Angeles before we set off. That’s what I did when I was doing the cross-country drive in 2005 by myself. It proved to me the best way to relieve the hunger and fatigue of the day. And it turned out to be a right strategy on this trip, especially for me, a noodle eater.
For photos, please visit:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cs8715
