quickest. post. ever.

I swear, I really am at the Grand Canyon!

Anyway, I'll update the 7th, 8th and 9th (maybe the 10th too) tomorrow sometime.
And I'm back on the 21st of December, for those of y'all who were wondering.

Greetings from beyond the wireless realm

Hey, just wanted to quickly drop y'all a line to say something like 'don't expect many posts from me in the next few days'. After arriving safely in the Grand canyon after travelling 750 miles in 2 days, we found that there's no free wireless internet inside the park, and that the only spot where wireless is available is a short way out of the park. Anyway, That means I probably won't be updating until we get to Las Vegas in a few days (the 10th), so I guess I'll see y'all then.
If anyone desperately needs to contact me, I'll probably get back out here tonight (eg: 12 odd hours time), so email me or something.
Anyway, Seey'all on the other side.

we're on the rooooooad...

To nowhere... actually, more like the road to the Grand Canyon. But it's a long, boring trip, so we're taking a couple of days to get there. Tonight, we're in a place called Barstow, having travelled around 300 miles today. Not a lot of photos today, mostly because, for the most part, it's an ugly, boring drive.
The early part of the trip was quite nice, with beautiful views out the window of the hills near Yosemite. It really is a spectacular place.
But as we proceeded South towards Fresno, the smog began to close in. This was pollution of the worst kind, with visibility severly reduced, to the point where, for the longest time, we couldn't even see the mountains to our East. But, when the smog did (eventually) clear, we came into some beautiful terrain. We also saw the striking windmills of southern California.
Once through the hills, we hit the Mojave desert, and then came to the town of Mojave, where we saw the Airplane 'boneyards', where old passenger jets go into storage when they're not in use. It's amazing to see so many planes in one place at the same time.

We arrived in Barstow, a biggish highway/railway town in mid-afternoon, drove down the main motel drag, then came to our hotel to rest up for our next big day of driving. Tomorrow, we'll probably be in Needles or maybe Kingman.

Oh, and a big thanks to all y'all who emailed me about the commenting problems. fixed now, so you should be able to leave comments with now problems.

River deep, mountain high

The 5th of December was our second day exploring Yosemite national park. And having done the valley floor the day before, we decided to go upwards! While many of the high-altitude roads in the park were closed for the winter, we still got up a couple of mountains, and saw some amazing things.
The road to Crane Flats climbs steeply up the mountain, through tunnels and past precipitous drops. All rugged up, we got out occasionally to admire the stunning views, giving us views of the most spectacular sites in the Yosemite Valley.
Once we reached Crane Flats, we were a little disappointed to find that, despite an altitude of almost 1900 metres and the freezing cold (we were all well and truly rugged up), there was no snow... a couple of bits and pieces by the side of the road, but nothing significant... Still, a very nice drive.
On the way back down from the flats, we noticed something strange in one of the tunnels... It looked like some type of side tunnel, at right angles towards the edge of the cliff. In the end, my curiosity got the better of me, and Dad, Pip and I went for a walk to check things out. I was stunned to see the sign at one end of the tunnel, reading 'Fallout Shelter'. This just kept getting more and more interesting. Eventually, we got to the small side tunnel, which punched right through the rock and out to the sheer cliff face, a drop of what must be several hundred metres.
It was an intriguing and mystifying sight indeed.

Our next drive took us through the valley and back up again, towards the Mariposa redwood grove. Another steep road took us up again to over 6000 feet, then dropped down as we approached the redwood grove. As we went along, we passed through a whole series of small fires, being lit for fire reduction and giving us some pretty stunning photos.

The redwood grove itself was a funny place. A trail guided us around to see these huge trees (Including the 5th biggest living thing in the world, Giant Sequoia Tree 'Grizzly Giant'), and we saw some impressive wildlife, but some of it was pretty ugly. Still, some very nice pines trees, and those sequoias really are mindblowing.

Once we were done, we went back to the house we were renting out, and I had a nap. What? I was tired.

Yosemite on ice

the 4th of December, 2005, and we had our earliest start of the tip so far. Up by quarter to 6 (supposed to've been 5 O'clock, but oh well.), we were on the road by 6:15, taking the Bay Bridge (not my photograph) out of town and heading west. As the sun rose, we passed a bunch of power generating windmills, and, after stopping for breakfast at a diner which seemed to be headquarters for every emergency service in the district (2 cops and a table of paramedics were there when we arrived, and 2 groups of firemen arrived later), we pushed on, driving through what felt like the heart of middle America, despite being less than 100 miles from the coast.
Eventually, we left the walnut groves and country towns and hit the hilly, scrubby wilderness I was expecting all along. We passed through several 19th century gold-rush towns before hitting the long, spectacular entrance road to Yosemite National park. This road follows the Merced river through a steep, narrow valley before arriving at arch rock and the entrance to the National Park proper. Passing through, into the park, we got to see just why this place is so famous around the world. I took a whole bunch of pictures during our afternoon in the Yosemite valley, and I'll post a few for y'all to see, but it really is impossible to appreciate without being there for real. The best way I could describe it is to say imagine the Grampians. Now take that spectacular landscape, and scale it up about 10 times. That is Yosemite valley. and it truly is one of the grandest things I've ever seen, purely on account of its massive scale.
The other thing about Yosemite, which I failed to mention before now, is just how cold it was. The minivan we're hiring to cart us all around has a little thermometer built in (As well as a compass, both very handy things). Anyway, as we were driving towards Yosemite, we were keeping an eye on the temperature. As were we driving through the countryside not far out of SF, we noticed that it had gone down to 33 degrees fahrenheit (freezing is 32 degrees fahrenheit, and 1 degree fahrenheit is about 0.55 degrees centigrade, for those of you without a converter). Well, when we got into the park, we watched the temperature fluctuate, mostly in the 30s, until it reached a minimum of 31 degrees fahrenheit (-0.55 degrees celsius, for those of you who missed the link before). That is freaking cold. There were pools of ice by the side of the road, frosted over fields, and frost in the shape of a shadow. Ice was collecting around many of waterfalls, as the water froze before it hit the ground, and all of the high peaks had snow on top.
But the most spectacular part of the day was the late afternoon, around 4:00 (did I mention that the sun went down -early- over here), when the sun one side of the valley just right, and lit them up like nothing I've seen before. It was stunning.
So we drove back to our accomodation for the night (it's in Mariposa, a fair way but a spectacular drive from the park), and were cold... Another day of cool sightseeing today, I'm sure it'll be another amazing experience.

Last Disco in San Francisco

Well, Saturday the 3rd of December, and it's the last day of our visit to San Francisco. Today was a bit of an odds and ends day, we all did the stuff we wanted to get to, but missed out on in the last couple of days.
After an early start and breakfast at a diner down the road, I went for a walk all the way down Market street, through the financial district of the city. Did I mention how much I love tall buildings? I'm going to New York!
Also, I walked through a tunnel... not sure why that's important, but it was a pretty cool tunnel.
My wanderings also took me past San Francisco's oldest restaurant (est 1849), and a stretch jeep.

Once I got back to the hostel, I decided to sit out on the fire escape for a while. Soon, the rest of the family got back from their various travels, and we all drove out to the pacific coast, and the ruins of the old city baths. Amongst other things, there was a tunnel going to nowhere, huge waves, a photographer and a male model doing a photo shoot and a very hopeful tree.

Moving on to Golden Gate Park, we all went to check out San Francisco's beautiful Japanese gardens, with its teahouse, waterfalls, cute wildlife and intentionally overexposed photography (>_> <_<).

Driving to the outskirts of the city, we came to twin peaks, with its oddly shaped radio tower and a stunning, rarely seen alternate view of the city, which really gives you an appreciation of the scale of the place (We barely ventured outside of about 1/5th of the built-up area).

This evening, I wnet on a walking mission to capture some last pictures of this beautiful town, including the glow from the neon signs outside a strip joint, and this hotel, which looks like it would be more suited to gotham city than SF, but was in fact the setting for a scene from the Hitchcock classic, Vertigo.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable day and a fitting goodbye to a city I've come to appreciate more and more over the course of these last few days. I certainly hope to come back here eventually, and more fully explore this wonderful place.

Tomorrow we're off early early to Yosemite national park, where, I've just been informed, we will have wireless internet access, so expect an update around this time tomorrow. 'til then.