California Road Trip

Maybe I'll revisit the pictures of our road trip through California, here follows a few photos taken from our break in San Francisco, Yosemite National Park and Death Valley in 2001.

We arrived in San Francisco and stayed there for 3 days doing all the tourist things (although we didn't cross the Golden Gate Bridge) - you know, Alcatraz, Pier 39 and the sealions, the 49 mile drive...

By accident, we hit Yosemite National Park towards the end of May, and the Tioga Pass had only just been opened the weekend we arrived in the USA so we drove through it. Olmstead Point in the Tioga Pass was spectacular - it was like being on a mountain made out of huge flagstones.

The Tioga Pass cuts through (or as good as over - it's a drive up one side of the mountain and back down the other) the Sierra Nevadas (below).

We decided we were going to head to Death Valley (on leaving Yosemite Park it took two days to get there), and on the way we stopped at several little places, famous for once being part of the wild west or in a Hollywood picture (photo left was taken in Laws, Bishop (Inyo County) - a railroad and wild west museum now, well worth the 1 mile detour). Alabama Hills (photo below) was another one of Mother Nature's creations (that often doubles as an alien landscape for some movie location scout).

In Death Valley you have places called Stovepipe Wells, Furnace Creek and Bad Water (a salt basin and the lowest point in the western hemisphere). It was beautiful, and hot. So hot in fact, that while I was there - yes I could see how spectacular the desert was - but all I could think of - was leaving. I hope we can go back one day though....

The first picture below was taken from Zubraski Point (a bit more accessible to our hire car than other places in the Park), the second - out on "Devil's Golf Course"

On the Death Valley National Park web site - hit Refresh or Reload for more panoramas and scenic photographs (when we do go back, I am going to hire a more powerful car, and digital camera memory is cheap).