This ain’t no country club… this is LA.

Well, that’s enough of the Sheryl Crow lyrics… it is amusing how everything in LA seems to have a film, tv or music link though.
Did you know that if California was a country all on its own, it would have the 7th largest economy in the world… and Arnie is in charge of it. Scary!!

Having been told by the staff at the KOA that there was an off road show at the “Fairplex” over the weekend it seemed rude to miss out on it, so our first day in LA was spent 200yards down the road from the campsite checking out the American off road scene. We were told that we couldn’t walk there as there wasn’t a predestrian entrance so Charlie had a really long drive 200 yrds to a car park next door to the campsite (and we had to pay to park!). The show itself was probably about the same size as Billing, but with a lot more space and lots of stands in exhibition halls. Unsurprisingly there were no Landies there at all, just a load of American muscle and far too much chrome. Like the bling on the UK scene, some seem to function on the idea it’s not so much about your vehicles capabilities as how much chrome you can stick on it and how tall you can make it.

There were only a couple of bits that really interested us, and I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but it was the jeeps (I’m not, some were really cool – Jen) and the sand racers. It was nice to be able to compare them to what we have back home in the way of 90’s Rangies, and Discos. Neither of us really know the US off road scene and we’d hate to offend anybody, but there was as much bolt on as you’d get on Scrap-iron racing and amongst most stands there seemed to be a distinct lack of innovation. Some seemed to work on the theory whatever type of off road toy you want, you just go buy it off the shelf, then spend a disgusting amount of money adding bolt on bling! One stand we saw that stood out was selling suspension mod kits for Jeeps… at ONLY $10,000! Huh!?! Thanks, but when I can buy a complete kit for a Landy for under £300, I know which way I’d go. However, looking at the sand racers and some of the jeeps was pretty cool, that was where the innovation seemed to be and therefore where we spent most our time, Jen spent a vast amount of it underneath several vehicles with a camera, poor George (JU – e-mail coming your way with some questions! – Jen). We did however manage to pick up a couple of bargains. Firstly a book listing a load of off road trails in Moab… essential reading! Secondly, a rather nice 4ft hi-lift jack… for £27. Bargain! (about £50 to buy at home) :-)

The following day we checked out Universal Studios. What a fantastic time of year to visit these places. Its just out of season, but still lovely sunny and warm, and not too many visitors. We managed to do the whole park before it closed. If you are ever there, check out Waterworld… Fantastic! The park had it’s usual themed shows, (including the Blues Brothers, much to my delight – Jen)

and the behind the scenes tour, which was a bit disappointing from an inside information point of view, but we did get to drive down Wisteria Lane (Desparate Housewives) which was amazing, turning into a ‘town street’ on a backlot is a surreal experience. The best part of all though – they’ve kept the scene from War of the Worlds (the one with Tom Cruise) where the 747 crashes into the neighbourhood.
Wow. That was truly amazing, luckily they stopped there for a while so we could all gawp. At the end of the day, as we were in Hollywood, it was only right we should go to a cinema, so we went to see The Kingdom at Universal Village.

Monday and we were booked in to Warner Bros for a studio tour in the afternoon, can you tell we’re both film lovers?! This meant we had a morning to kill, so we headed to the Observatory in the hills above LA, this has also been used in a few movies! But we really wanted to see the telescope etc. Unfortuantly, it was closed, and not advertised until you get pretty much to the door. Still, we looked at the building (beautiful) and enjoyed the views and for the first time realised the LA smog really does exist! Words can’t really describe what it’s like when you can *see* the pollution and know you have to spend the next few days in it. We drove back down the hill to Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard where the walk of fame is, we parked up and had a quick look, but got bored quite quickly as at the end of the day it’s just some bronze stars in the sidewalk. The Warner Bros tour was one Jen had really been looking forward to and ensured we got right behind the scenes of many TV shows and movies. We saw the old set from Friends and the current one for Two and a Half Men (very popular in the US… and I think its out in the UK too, but have never watched it). We also saw the full set of the mock up of the Chicago hospital used in ER and got to have a good wander around. One of the chaps on the tour was from Chicago and said it felt way strange being at home… but in LA! We also heard a few details of the filming, how they create the Chicago light and rain and how they did the helicopter crash that killed one of the doctors a few years ago… I remember seeing it on television – basically the helicopter fell off the roof of the hospital onto said doctor… how they created it? They hoisted a helicopter 60ft in the air on a crane filled with explosives and dropped it. Lol! That’s Hollywood for you.
Jen got all excited and clappy by the Harry Potter stuff (and to be honest you can’t blame me, they had a ton of props from the movies there including a giant spider (ahh!) and the Triwizard Tournament cup etc. etc). We even got to wear the “sorting hat” in the Warner Bros museum and were both glad to be put in Griffindor. We saw the “Friends” front door and loads of props from the series including the sleeve from the porn video Buffay the Vampire Layer!! Outside the museum were 4 “General Lee’s” that were used in the Dukes of Hazzard film. Unfortunately they were all under wraps, awaiting auction, but being the sad muppet I am I can recognize a Dodge Charger from its tail pipes and wheels ;-) They were filming a movie whilst we were there, the new Adam Sandler one, but I can’t remember the name.

On our last day in LA, we checked out Bel Air, Mulholand Drive and Santa Monica and the famous beaches, including Venice Beach where all them daft body builders pose… errr… I mean work out. What a bunch of posers! One bloke there was in a posing pouch.. You just gotta laugh (but not when they are within earshot)!
We also happened to drive past a house and a school.. anyone recognize them? Jen got a bit overexcited – answers on a postcard…

Waiting in a traffic jam we also got questioned by the fuzz. They wanted to know how long we’d been in California. Apparently any more than 20 days and you have to register your vehicle. Personally I thought this is a load of old cobblers, and my suspicions were confirmed when he pulled up next to us again and said “I only asked ‘cos I really like your truck”. Oh how our heads swelled :-)

After 3 days getting snarled up in the LA traffic, we decided that we needed to get back to what we know, i.e. the great outdoors, so headed out in to the San Bernadino mountains, another National Forest that has plenty of off road tracks and had been recommended to us by a helpful chap at the off road show. As it was getting late though we headed straight for camp, this time at Green Valley Lake National Forest campground.

This morning we got up and were determined to get some off roading done. We planned to be in Death Valley by late afternoon, giving us ample time to check out the trails in and around Big Bear Lake. We started with the easy trails, then tried something middle of the road. As the trail went on it got more technical, big boulders all over the track, steep climbs and drops and a load of axle twisting. A bit later we found out that we’d actually just driven half of the John Bull trail… one of the most difficult! With some careful driving and good spotting by Jen we made it through unscathed and with seriously big grins on our faces :-)

As I type this we are currently traveling along route 18 having missed our turning for the 395. This part of the 18 is actually part of the original route 66. Not much to see here tho! As it turned out, we went back the right way but got caught in a jam behind a fatal accident :-( A huge detour later and we pulled up in Barstow just as it was getting dark, we won’t make Death Valley until tomorrow, but it’s better than driving in the dark.

Big hills with a dodgy gearbox - San Francisco!

Dan…
But before that... Napa Valley! This is the home of California's wine region and as we both like wine we thought it'd be a shame to miss out. We had also arranged to meet Jens mum and step-dad here as they had flown over to San Francisco for a holiday.
Napa Valley is actually an area covering about 26miles and taking in 5 main towns, although not all California’s wine is made here, the majority of the grapes are grown in the valley. We started in the southern part, Napa itself and went to the tourist info shop where we were given so much info, loads of money off vouchers, various maps of the region and some personal recommendations.
Having walked out with all the info we could possibly need we headed off to Calistoga where there is an RV/camp ground. We eventually found it tucked around the back of the town and instantly realised that this place was way out of our league. The whole site was chocca block with the enormous palatial coach style RVs that seem to be so popular here. Fortunately there was a state park just down the road, so we checked in there and felt much more at home :-)
That night we met up with Jens parents and went out for a meal at a very nice restaurant, I think we managed to pick the one in Napa Valley with it’s own microbrewery and therefore specializing in beers instead of wines. It was great to see Jen’s mum and Ron and also so nice to be able to talk to someone English again!
The following day we drove down the road to the Sterling Vineyard for a spot of wine tasting and a tour. We sampled 3 white wines and a couple of reds. I’m a big fan of red wine, especially Shiraz and Zinfandels, but after a bit of nosing (that’s what you do to make it look like you know what you are doing!) both Jen aand I decided that their reds were a bit too oaky for our liking. We did indulge in a couple of bottles of white though, and as it’s the most expensive wine we’ve ever bought (at close to £15 a bottle!! Lol! Yes, it’s true – I usually pick them for their money off labels) we’ve decided to save it until our Birthdays :-)


By mid afternoon it was time to head off to San Francisco, an hours drive south. We planned to stay at the cities only RV park, and eventually found it wedged between the San Francisco 49ers baseball stadium Monster Park, and an industrial park. The whole “camp ground” is actually a parking lot and not really very nice. We checked in and we’re given the ‘best pitch in the site’. We then asked the camp ground owner about transport links into the city and he told us that the buses were too dangerous to use around this area, so our only option would be to use the camp shuttle bus at $10 each per day… Sod that! After seeing that the pitch was actually a wide tarmaced parking space next to a container warehouse we checked out and headed back up the 101 and into the centre of the city where we found a decent little motel that had parking without a height restriction. At £50 a night for a comfy room with a flush bog, shower, safe parking and the ability to walk down the road without being mugged it really was a no-brainer!


Having checked in, first job was to drive down to the Land Rover garage to see if they could fit us in for a small service. We’d supposedly had an oil change at a dodgy place back in Burlington, but I’m convinced all they did was change the filter and top up the oil as after 100 mile I checked the oil and it was black as a black thing on a dark night. The Landy Dealer was probably the poshest car dealer either of us had ever seen. It was based in a HUGE old building off the 101 in San Francisco and the show room had it’s own Chandliers. To get in to the service area you drove your car into the building and pulled up next to the service managers offices where they took care of you without you having to walk anywhere! They made room though and fitted Charlie in for an oil change and collant flush, we’d changed the air/fuel filters already and at the rate we’re topping up the gearbox oil I reckon that’s been changed at least every fortnight!
Just encase you didn't believe the bit about the Chandilers:


So after our first night at the motel we dropped Charlie Camel off at the chandelier clad dealership in amongst Jags, Bentleys, Lambos and Landies (somebody really should tell the dealership though that Lamborghinis are Italian, not English) met up with Mum and Ron and made our way down to Fishermans Wharf where we caught the ferry over to Alcatraz!
Did you know that Alcatraz has had a varied history. It was originally built as a military fort, guarding against water born invasion into San Francisco bay. It wasn’t until quite late on in the islands history that it became a prison for the most notorious criminals, the saying goes: ‘You break the rules you go to prison. You break the prison rules, you go to Alcatraz’ and was home to people like Al Capone and the Bird Man of Alcatraz. It closed in 1963 and then 6 years later a group of native Indians began a 19 month occupation of the island. The occupation actually fuelled interest in the Indians crusade and gathered lots of public support. But as there is nothing to do there, you can’t grow anything because there is no soil, there is no fresh water and hitting the town in the evening is a bit of a bind, they soon got fed up. In 1972 Alcatraz finally became a state owned National Recreation Area and in 1973, the first visitors began to arrive. Today it’s an amazing place. The audio tours, narrated by ex prison staff and ex-convicts are brilliant, they guide you round the prison buildings and you can pause at any point to have a nose around. It must have been a depressing place, it offers fantastic views of San Francisco only a mile and a half away, just so they could see what they were missing out on. (I tried locking Dan in a cell and leaving Mum and Ron there, but they all managed to find their way back again… sigh. ;-) – Jen )




We left the island mid afternoon and headed back to the mainland to pick up Charlie. All the jobs had been done, we paid the bill and they brought Charlie down to the service area for us… GLEAMING! They had washed and polished him and put that shiny black stuff all over his tyres and wheel arches! LOL… I don’t think we’ve ever seen him so clean… they even cleaned the bikes mounted on the back, although I was quite upset because they didn’t lube them up again! ;-) So, if you are even in San Francisco and need a car wash… book into BMC.

Jen…
We traveled down to Union Square for a bit of other-side-of-the-world-girl’s-shopping-trip and left Dan and Ron in the bar at the Cheesecake Factory which wasn’t quite as good as the one in Baltimore, but still had fantastic Cheesecake – Mm. By the time we left it was getting late and the queues for the cable cars were non-existent, this was much better than the 45 minutes earlier in the day! So we all jumped on and admired San Francisco at night whilst riding on the old cable cars. Luckily Ron had been to the museum a couple of days before so was able to give us our own tour – did you know those things have wooden brakes? Going down the steep hills it was all you could smell! We spent most the night when we returned looking out the Motel window giggling at seeing Charlie so clean, before that he hadn’t been washed since he left England!
The next morning we got up bright and early…well, ok, we had a very comfy bed so it wasn’t overly bright and early, but we were still at the Exploratorium in time for the opening at 10am. This is something we probably wouldn’t have done except for Mum and Ron getting a free ticket in their city passes and recommending it to us and I’m glad we went. They had a ‘free Wednesday’ day, so we didn’t even have to pay, although we did give a $10 donation as we thought it only fair. The whole place is basically in what looks like and airport hanger and is like the ‘Launch Pad’ floor of the science museum back in London i.e. hands on science! Cool! We made smoke rings, bubble rings and a HUGE bubble, made bubbles suspend in mid air... and some un-bubble related stuff to, but that’s un-important ;-) Dan was like a kid in a sweet shop and to be honest I was too, we even learnt some interesting things so it wasn’t completely wasted on us. There was an amazing optical illusion in the restrooms with the bathroom tiles, so who knows, I may now have a hope of getting Dan to agree to re-tiling the bathroom when we get home.

When we were all scienced out (and Dan had brought me a kit claiming to make a bubble as ‘big as a bus’) we jumped back on the bus (hopefully as big as my bubbles now) and headed down to Golden Gate Park. We had to go here for two reasons: a. Dan is a geek and wanted to see where the Klingon Battle Ship was landed in a Star Trek film b. They had a nice Japanese Garden and I like stuff like that. We met Mum and Ron for tea in the Garden and spent a while wandering around being serene and taking a ton of photo’s. We decided to make the most of our muni transport passes and jumped back on the bus to Union Square, I’d realised the Adidas Climalite training top Mum had kindly brought me yesterday was reduced to $22 (£11), them being £30 at home made me want to get another one! Sadly, the other one wasn’t reduced but it gave us a chance to jump on the trolley cars to take us back around to Fishermans Warf where we had to do some pressie buying and wanted to stop for dinner. Pier 39 is in this area and is home to a huge group of Sea Lions, they made it their home after an earthquake in the 80’s and haven’t left yet. It’s pretty amazing as the tour boats and people stand and stare at them from the pier side, they don’t seem to care though and just seem content to swim about in the waters, climb up into the sun and make as much noise as possible! We stood and watched for quite a while.

The Trolley cars are from all over the world and basically a working museum, Ron was telling us about a group of people from England who came over with the express aim to ride every single one, I can think of better ways to spend my time but I have to admit they were fun.

That night we said good-bye to Mum and Ron as they had to be at the airport bright and early the next morning. It was excellent to see them and even better as they’d had a couple of days in San Francisco before us so could give us lots of help and advice – it was nice getting to a city and not having to figure it all out ourselves! Oh, and they brought Chocolate and Marmite – Wahoo! It has made me realise how much I’m missing everyone at home though, especially as I’ll hopefully be an Auntie in a couple of weeks… wish I could give my Bruv and Jules a hug! Mum texted though so it was good to know they got home safely.

The next morning saw the end of Charlie’s rest period as we were due to head down the Big Sur coastline towards LA. We couldn’t let the opportunity go though and had to drive some of the steepest streets and of course the twistiest. Luckily Dan didn’t get chased by the Police so we didn’t need to launch Charlie over any of the crests! They were awesome, especially when you try to run down them in croc sandles and realise you can’t stop. Heading out of San Francisco we went towards Monteray and through lots of little towns and villages, America is busy gearing up for Halloween as there are pumpkin patches everywhere. We stopped in Santa Cruz at Safeways only to find a ’67 Series II Doormobile in the car park – Coooooool! Needless to say we had to park next to it and just as we pulled up Linus, the owner came wandering out after picking up some lunch in his lunchbreak. He was a lovely bloke and a member of the SII club, it was a shame he couldn’t stay and chat for longer as he was on his lunchbreak, but he was talking about coming over to the UK with a SII, so hopefully we can hook up with him then and show him around some lanes etc.

As we headed down the coast the characteristic rocks and blue sea of the Big Sur coastline came into view. It was beautiful, but sadly, it seemed most of the land was privately owned, either by the Navy or private resorts. You could look, but not investigate. Due to this, I think we both agreed, Big Sur has the reputation but Oregon is more beautiful and due to the access it provides, more deserving. However, we did see Elephant Seals which were pretty cool, another animal to tick off the list:

We stopped at a state campsite for the night, next to a mad lady and her 5 cats. She came over in the morning to lecture us about living simply and not causing a lot of pollution, which as quite funny when you looked at her in her 27ft RV and Honda parked next to it. That put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day, I don’t like being lectured at the best of times, but when I’ve only been awake for 10 minutes its not a good thing. We drove down the rest of the coast and into LA. It’s amazing how Mediterranean this bit of the US is. We spent the afternoon doing washing (4 loads!) and Dan sent me to the gym as I was being grumpy – much better now  The best thing though? We are checked in at the KOA next to the fairground and when we checked in the lady said: ‘are you here for the off-road show tomorrow?’ ‘eh?’ we said! It turns out there’s an offroad show here this weekend and judging by the amount of Jeep’s in the car park it’ll be a big one. Guess what we’re doing tomorrow…


P.S. Marky Bloke - saw this and thought of you, this is the colour your Eddie *should* be!

The long wait for the Dairy Milk - and Yosmite

Well, it's been a busy one!

We left the motel and headed to Lake Tahoe in search of potential mountain biking oportunities. We came in from the north of the lake past several huge houses, but it was the blue of the lake that was the most eye-catching thing - good job I wasn't driving otherwise Dan probably would have started moaning again... is it really that important you keep an off-road vehicle on the road?! ;-)

We popped into tourist information and got some details on the trails. There was the Flume, the most famous in the area, unfortuantly though, it's a 23 mile trail one way and not recommended if your scared of heights. With my tendancy to freeze when faced with large drops we decided this wasn't an overly good plan and didn't really want to spend the whole day in one area anyway. So we thought we'd try a few others. It was tricky finding somewhere to park, they seem to like to make it difficult unless you're staying on a hotel etc. but as we found somewhere we headed out onto the powerline trail. This was running close to the top of the mountains on the lake and was a pretty sandy trail amoungst the woods, I was a bit nervous considering my last liaison with sand and the problems I had walking for a few days afterwards, but after 10 minutes was getting my confidence back no problem. We cycled a few miles but found the views (or lack of) a bit disappointing, for some reason, it was also very hard work consistent ups with short boring downs, not really greatly technical. We finally figured out cycling at 8,000ft was probably something to do with the lack of breath and struggling so as we weren't really enjoying it we headed back to Charlie and decided to find a campsite for the night.

We were late that night, but managed to find some BLM Land with a few tracks leading down to a valley bottom, this proved to be a peaceful campsite for us, the moon was even low enough for us to see some stars - beautiful! (oh, and it was free - cool).

The next day we got up early and headed south on the 395 to Bodie - the best preseved 'Ghost Town' in California. Over $1bn in gold had been extracted over the years, but the last residents left in the 50's, the majority going when the mine closed in the 30's (IIRC). It was certainly preserved, the state park has done nothing to clean the town up, just prop up a few vehicles and replace some roofs if necessary. There were still cans on the street, plates in the sinks and bottles on the tables - people really did just leave! I'm not really suprised though, Bodie has some of the coldest recorded temperatures in the US at -40F without wind chill and winds of up to 100mph. When combined with the 20ft of snow it was quite a forboding place. It was also known to be the most lawless with a gun fight most nights, one diary of a young girl stated: 'I am leaving you God, for I am being taken to Bodie', you really did expect a stage coach to come trundling around the corner at any minute.



Our next stop was Mono Lake, an alkaline and hypersaline lake south of Bodie, it's one of the most important areas of birds and other animals in the area but probably best known for it's tufa: rock like Calcium Carbonate deposit. Again, a beautiful area:



Finally we headed down to Yosmite, or should I say 'up' as we reached 9,945ft before decending into Yosmite Park down towards the valley. Charlie coped well, we only had to stop once to let him cool down on the way up, which wasn't a problem as the views were worth stopping several times for anyway. The drive down was very promising, about an hour and a half of twisty roads with stunning views of the half dome. We saw several coyotes in the meadows, but we were the wrong time of year to see teh famous wild flowers.

We got down into the valley about 6pm and started to look for a campsite, well, I say started, we spent most the time trying to negotiate the one way system. Paul, if you fancy setting up a consultation service out here I swear we could make a fortune! For a park meaning to preserve nature and prevent pollution there is a serious amount of visitor miles being wasted around there. When we'd found the reservation area we realised the park was full. Mid-week and well out of season. The only option was to head an hour out the valley again, we didn't really fancy that so took the 140 out the park and found a campsite about 15 mintues away, it was dirty and by the side of the road, but it did for a one night stop. The next morning we made a plan so we could attempt to cut down the wasted miles, first stop was the visitors centre. You park 1/2 a mile from the centre and catch the bus in, but we didn't want to waste the time so got the bikes off the back. The ranger was grumpy and unhelpful but we got a list of trails and decided to head down to the waterfalls. We knew they'd probably be dry, but wanted the walk anyway, it was worth it as we saw some deer and beautiful trees.

As the cycle route was also one-way and very limited we put the bikes on the back and drove down to El Capitan, this was a bit of a pilgrimage for Dan as he likes his climbing and he wanted to get to the base. The Rangers and the Climbers have an 'interesting' realationship and as such, there are no trails to even the most famous and popular climbs, so we hiked through the woods and did about an hour of scrambling to get to the bottom - which, to be honest, was far more fun anyway! (until I looked down!) Dan posed for a pic and we climbed back down. El Cap certainly deserves it's reputation, you need to be fit and know what you're doing as that's one big rock!



The last thing on the list for Yosmite was Glacier point, there was a 5 mile hike up there and 5 miles back again, estimated at 8hours - sadly we didn't have 8 hours. This was another problem, all the hikes were either full days or about an hour, nothing in between so unless you had alot of days or were really lazy it didn't really suit. It seemed like alot more could have been made of oportunities there without damaging the park which was a bit frustrating. So, we took the lazy option and drove up to the top to take the little walk. It was a beautiful view though so I'm glad we went for it.



Later that day were headed for Groveland and the oldest bar in California, swing doors and everything - excellent atmosphere.



The next day we headed for Napa Valley, but that's a whole other story and will have to wait for tomorrow night :-)

Sittin on the dock of the bay...

Yep, we are still alive and getting very slack at posting up on the blog. To be honest, its not our fault, we got into California and suddenly getting net access has becaome a real pain in the bum! But anyway, we are here in San Francisco.
Will post up the last few days very shortly, but for now a lovely comfy motel bed is calling :-)

Giant Trees, Beaches and colds

Why is it that when we get into California we both get colds?! We've spent the past month travelling through Alaska and Canada without a sniffle, but get to California and fall appart! Oh well, never mind, we're still making the most of the holiday, just with lemsips instead of beers.

Following the Lave Beds we travelled back towards the coast towards the Redwoods National and State Parks. We stopped for some shopping on the way and realised, in America, a Defender 110 is classed as a 'compact', classic! lol!



Taking advice from a helpful chap at the last campsite we stopped off at the nothern point of the Redwoods to take a little stroll. These forests are amazing - made up of the Californian Redwoods and the giant seqouia (sp?!) the booklets say you feel like dinosours may come through the undergrowth and that's exactly how you feel! The trees can live upto 2000 years old and the thick ferns on the floors add to the mysterious feeling.

We spent the rest of hte day driving down the 101 taking in the views and hiking a few trails, I decided to take up tree hugging, but not a hope of working with this one. We also discovered there is only 1 type of tree you can loosing a Camel behind.


As the evening drew in we discovered the Golden Bluffs campsite - sigh. It was fantastic! A state park, so it cost us about £7 a night and we got to spend our first two nights in California on the beech. Dan celebrated by practising his Kung-Foo on the beech, lol!


The next day, I was still feeling pretty terrible, so we had a relaxing morning on the beech checking out the views and enjoying the sun. In the afternoon we got a pass to travel down the restricted road to the tall trees grove, it also involved a hike of 1.6miles downhill and 1.6miles back up again, but this is where there really large trees are, the second tallest tree in the world (only by 1ft!), it was peaceful and amazing, well worth the sweat on the way back up.

Today we're heading towards Lake Taho, for a bit of biking before heading down towards Yosmite and into Napa Valley (wine Country) and San Francisco, where we meet up with Mum and Ron for a couple of days - they're bringing Dairy Milk - Wahoo!

This was our first night we couldn't find a campsite where we're staying, so have taken our second motel. Why does that always happen at the end of the financial month?!

Not sure on internet access for the next few days, but will update when we can. Glad to hear seven sisters went well, we were going to annoy you all with Text Messages, but have had no signal for over a week! (back now). Oh, we did a bit of graffitti on the beach as well:

A geology lesson for us all

So here we are on our way to the Redwoods National Park on the coast of California. We have pulled into a funny little KOA “Kamp Ground” and opened a bottle of red wine… Yes, we have our priorities right :-) So if this post gets a little incomprehensible later on it’s because we are getting close to the bottom of the bottle. Oh, and it’s one of them big 1.5lt bottles too.

Crater lake… The volcano eruption happened some 7700 years ago and was 150 times bigger than the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens. The lake was formed after the eruption when the top of the volcano collapsed in on itself. The most notable feature of the crater is Wizard Island, a small cinder cone that has risen from the crater. The lake contains some of the cleanest water on earth apparently, but you can’t get to it to try it unless you book yourself onto one of the boat trips that had stopped running when we were there… D’oh! The lake is also the deepest lake in North America and the 7th deepest in the world, averaging over 1900ft deep. The geological features are amazing and you can see by reading the many information boards around the lake exactly how certain features have come to be. As always the visitors centre is the place to start any National Park trip and Crater lake is no exception. There are displays, story boards, videos etc etc that give you the full low down on the area.


The whole lake is encircled by a road with plenty of pullouts, which is a bit of a novelty as every other road in America is just that, a road… no stopping allowed! So anyway, we did half of the lake. I had a stinking cold that day and was desperate to get out and explore the trails, but really didn’t feel up to it, so I just sneezed out of the window every half mile or so!
We left Crater and headed off to the Lava Beds National Park and finally arrived at about 7pm. We camped at the only camp ground in the park. In the morning we awoke to find a gaggle of Park Rangers taking photos of Charlie Camel and whispering quietly amongst themselves. When we finally got up, we showed them around together with half of the camp site. When we finally managed to get packed up and out of the camp ground, first stop was the visitors centre. We grabbed the maps and info from the park ranger on duty and then checked out the exhibits. This is where we sat on a sofa for the first time in 2 months!!! It was fantastic… you lucky sods back home have no idea how lucky you are to be able to sit on a sofa every day! We watched a 10 minute video all about the Modac Indians who inhabited the area before being unceremoniously shoved off their land by the white dudes many huindreds of years ago, and also about the Lava beds and the caves that abound in the park. We got to do some proper exploring today and checked out several of the caves around the park… wow!!
Just be content to look at the pics and then maybe I’ll explain later about Lava tubes, drop offs and Aa, ;-)

Charlie Camels Secret Identity...

...is a disgused dune buggy!

We had to give it a go, and at $10 for a pass that last two years it wasn't exactly expensive. We spent the afternoon playing in another recreation area specifically for ATV's and OHV's, in fact, the campsite we're staying at tonight is over-run with all sorts of buggy's and bikes designed to operate effectively in sand.

We arrive at the park and got some advice from a park ranger, to go in the dunes you need a flag that has to be 9ft high - Coooooooool :-) So we brought the most lary one we could and attached it to the back of Charlie. After airing down the tyres we were off! And we did remarkably well :-) We stuck to the main tracks and did avoid any uber-steep hills as we were concious we were relying on Charlie for somewhere to sleep tonight and we'd broken the first rule of off-roading - we were out on our own.

lol!:




We followed the tracks for a good few miles admiring the dunes until we got to a deadend. It was then my go to drive and I jumped in the drivers seat all eager, turned around no problem, driving along no problem... bugger, we're sliding sideways and not going anywhere! I'd made a mistake and instead of following our tracks out the way we came I was following what I thought were our tracks. They weren't. And we were in some seriously soft sand with mud terrain tyres and a 3 ton vehicle! Not the best combination. I did well and paniced as there was a gully getting closer and closer as everytime I tried to go forwards or backwards, we just slid sideways down the slope.

I must be the only person in the world to get cross-axled in sand...


So we stopped. Looked. And got digging. 20 minutes work got us 10 meters further. We could have got the winch out as there was a cluster of trees that would probably have provided enough strength to get us out, but it was across a track that could well be used by some ATV's at any moment and besides, we decided a winch was cheating.

We finally came to a complete stop about 5 metres from the crest of the hill, the digging and branch placing wasn't getting us any further. Then Dan had a brain wave - I know, it was amazing ;-) We hadn't got any sandladders (thinking we wouldn't have the need to use them on a 'road trip') but we did have the leveling blocks we use for the rooftent - they worked a treat. We dug them down into the sand and I hung off the side of Charlie - those cookies must have worked as it provided enough weight for the rear wheel to get grip and propel us triumphant to the top of the hill - wahoo! 5 minutes and a bit of digging later we'd found the wheel chock things and were once again cruisin' the dunes.


Charlie Camel is indeed cool.. and I didn't get lost this time.

We spent the late afternoon driving down the Oregon Coast to find our campsite for the night as all the marked pitches in the dunes were booked (we forgot it was the weekend). The Oregon Coast has been the biggest suprise of the trip so far, it really is breathtakingly beautiful, hills, cliffs, woodland and rocks. We even saw a large number of Marine Seals basking in the sunlight. Still, a pictures worth a thousand words:


We're heading inland again tomorrow to visit Crater Lake... and ...er somewhere else before moving onto the Redwoods.

Hope 7S is going well! Missing you all!