Away from the dust...
Trip Start
May 27, 2007
1
5
27
Trip End
Dec 23, 2007
Las Vegas to San Francisco,
United States
Saturday, July 7, 2007
We then went to our motel: 2 nights in a proper bed... bliss! We also had a lovely swimming pool which came in very handy for cooling down.
This would be our last night together as a complete group as we were leaving 4 in Vegas. We went out for a lovely meal and then hit the town. Sarah managed to come ou with us and get very very drunk even though she's under 21. I told her to show the bouncers/barmen her passport and if they didn't read the date right that's their problem! Not one single person realised she was underage! She was so drunk in fact that I decided it would be a good idea to walk her back to the motel. What should have taken us 20 minutes took us at least 45!
The following day I spent walking around the strip and even decided I would have a bit of a gamble. I managed to double my money in Planet Hollywood and then lose it all in The Ballagio!!! I started with $5 and ended with nothing: damn those casinos!!! I decided that I would stop gambling at that poin t and try to get tickets for Phamtom: The Las Vegas Spectacl e. Just my luck, the only day it doesn't show is sundays and yep you've guessed it, it was a sunday. Grrrrrr.... Ended u p going to see Stomp Out Loud with Mo and it was awesome. Fo r those who don't know, Stomp is a group of artists making ' music' using everyday household items like dustbins and broo ms. Some of the stuff they do is just unbelievable and they build in some comedy into the routine as well. I'd highly reccomend seeing it if they tour through England again.
We left Las Vegas with just 5 of us (inc driver) in the van and found ourselves with so much space we could each lie down and have a bit of a snooze while driving. Well we left the heat of Vegas to enter the extreme heat of Death Valley: 51oC!!! It was so hot that we couldn't stay out of a ir conditioning for long without feeling ill! It was just qu ick photo stops here... As we had left the vegetarian in Vegas: we had steaks for dinner and they tasted so good: 2 weeks without proper meat is torturous for a meat lover like me!
Our next port of call was Yosemite. We stopped at Mono Lake and the ghost town of Bodie on the way - I think it was just a way of breaking up the day a little bit as they were not all that exciting!
Yosemite however was absolutely stunning. I'm not sure if this was just because we hadn't really seen any vegetation for that last 2 weeks of if it actually is that beautiful. Our first stop was at Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias. The trees are just huge. We found some were the 5 of us at full stretch couldn't make a ring around them! We then went into the main park. Camille and I decided not to do the big hike with the boys and just wandered off to some shorter hikes. We walked to lower Yosemite Falls and found a lovely pool of water that was refreshingly cold. It was lovely to just sit, relax and enjoy the surroundings in peace and quiet. On the way back to the van to collect our lunch tradgedy struck: my Havaianas (best flip flops in the world ever!) broke after 2.5 yrs of faithful service. I was devestated and left barefoot on scorching hot pavements! It was a matter of running between the patches of shade available. After luch we decided to go to the store and buy an ice cream, me barefoot as I had no shoes and Camille just didn't put shoes on. That proved to be a huge mistake for her: she burned her feet so badly on the floor they had blisters on them!
It was the 4th of July and there were no fireworks anywhere within driving distance of us! How disappointing is that! We decided we would have a BBQ in honour of the day even if we had no other celebrati ons. On our way back to our campsite, the van kicked up a li ttle dust from the road while getting grip. The owner of the campsite came charging up to our leader and started shoutin g at him and how he hadn'y paid enough when he checked in an d all sorts. The man was a complete lunatic! In the end it t urned out that we had been overcharged and we would have never known if he hadn't chased after us up the road!
Our next 2 days were spent relaxing at the pool at our campsite in Sacramento. I think we all needed the rest after 3 weeks on the go! We did go to a local winery for a wine tasting session on our way back to San Fran. It was really good: they had free samples of bread and various toppings: sweet and savoury as well as the wine and also pizza! We managed to eat enough that we didn't need to stop for lunch!!
It was goodbye again to another group of people and onto my hostel for the next few days of exploring San Francisco...
