Life’s a beach – finally

The race southwards towards the sun and warmer temperatures continues. Jen has just about stopped complaining about the cold as we reach Morro Dunes, well, once the ubiquitous morning fog has cleared. We’ve got a couple of days here as our stays get longer and we’re covering less ground. It’s a pretty basic site (with terrible internet again; that seems to be the norm) but it’s very close to the beach, which is nice when the sun comes out. We’ve been promising the girls a beach now for quite a while, and they finally get to break out the bucket and spade.


On the second night we went to the local harbour, which for a change was actually close enough to walk. The local fishing trade seems to be wholly supported by the slew of restaurants surrounding the harbour judging by how busy they all were. We stopped at the first one we saw, and had a really good fish and chips. It seems to have become the girls new eating-out favourite; I’m surprised there’s so much of it about. Obviously English cuisine is finally finding it’s way in the world. Unfortunately we misjudged how big the portions were (2oz pieces?) and only got a 5 piece meal, so we were pretty much fighting over it. Jen also had a lovely bit of clam chowder from a bread bowl. Looks like she’s gotten over her shellfish allergy (which I always thought was more of a hangover-allergy anyway).

Next day we had a 2 hour long slog down to our next stop at Santa Barbara. We just went for it this time, rather than stopping off anywhere on the way. The drive was much easier, highway 1 seems to have calmed down a bit from those hairy-scary days north of San Francisco, so it went pretty quickly.

Edited: August 13th, 2010

Car-parks, castles and class war

Odd day today. We started off with a spooky overnight stay in an empty parking lot in the Big Sur state park. It was pretty disconcerting being all on our own, in the dark, in the middle of the woods, with nothing but the strange noises to keep us company all night. Guess that’s what we get for not booking ahead in the campsite itself. The girls didn’t seem bothered, but Jen and I had a night of disturbed sleep with the rustlings and scufflings of various unknown things outside the RV.

In the morning we set off bright and early (for us) at 9am, with a fairly long drive ahead to get to Morro Dunes RV park. On the way we had a stop planned at Hearst Castle (another excellent last-minute booking by Jen) but as it turned out we also did a couple of interesting stops on the way.

As we’d been driving down highway 1, we’d noticed how much of the land was private property, It was fenced off at the roadside with large “no trespassing” signs, and we’d been commenting about what a shame it was. Then we came across a lovely looking waterfall down to a little cove, so we screeched to a halt and went to take a look. It was just on the outskirts of the catchily-name Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park. Disappointingly there was no access to the cove from the road, but we followed the path to see where it went anyway. The story was that a very rich family had owned the land, including the beach, and had had a house on the cliff above with magnificent views of the ocean. When the last remaining family member died, she bequeathed the land to the people, but with a couple of, frankly bizarre, stipulations. First, the house should be demolished on a certain date. Secondly, there should be no public access to the beach, to “maintain it’s beauty”. That’s the one that really got our goat. The fact that “the plebs” can’t be trusted to preserve a piece of natural beauty, but the rich can.


A bit further down the coast we made another impromptu stop at an elephant seal sunbathing spot. It was full of lots of large, ugly creatures, lolling about on the sand, slowly shedding their skin. Insert joke about English beaches here. We had a good gawp, then set off for our scheduled appointment at Hearst castle.


Hearst castle was weird but interesting. The result of a wealthy American buying up all the ancient artifacts he could get his hands on and putting them in one place in a vain attempt to look like a member of the European aristocracy. And those were (almost) the words of the tour guide! It was another scarily well organized tourist centre and interesting to hear that the family still use the house when they want to. My favorite bit was definitely the Neptune pool, as featured briefly in Spartacus.

What a day; from car parks to castles.

Edited: August 10th, 2010

Is this the definition of “fanboy”….?!

Yes! I made it! A visit to the mothership… complete with commemorative t-shirt (not shown).

Edited: August 8th, 2010

Nature

Nature

Yes I’m finally doing a post! Since Ian has covered everything chronologically I’ll just add in a bit about the wild life we’ve spotted.  Starting with Vegas lions!

Yes lions.  On a super hot venture out via the other casinos, we happened across the MGM lions. As per Vegas they were in an artificial environment, in the middle of the casino, sealed behind glass but with a sprinkling of natural light – lucky things. There was a glass tunnel we could walk under with the lions asleep on top; they were pretending not to notice the crowds passing underneath, but they knew.  I took Lily through the very crowded tunnel, she was “all scared” but funnily enough wanted to go back when I took Jasmine under.

If you can make it out there’s a picture of the male lion with his faced pressed against the glass. He looked quite cute. I guess it’s the only chance I’ll get to be 6inches away from a lion’s mouth.

Aside from the lions, nothing in Vegas could be described as natural – particularly some of the “enhanced” individuals wandering about.

On to the Grand Canyon.  And off to a great start with a lone boy Elk wandering through the campsite as we’re having breakfast. Like any teenager he was completely oblivious to the fuss he was creating – about 10 tourists pursued him with cameras. 

A top tip for spotting anything rare and interesting is to start chatting to someone with a scope. I ‘d spotted a hawk  flying past and perching on a branch so I pointed it out to a couple with a massive scope. They pointed out a couple of turkey vultures then just for dramatic effect a Condor comes swooping by. They’re incredibly rare only about 70 pairs in the US.  They do like the Grand Canyon though, and to the trained eye they’re easy to spot. I would never have spotted it. It’s a massive bird with a 10ft wing span but the Canyon makes it seem the size of a seagull.

Next day we did a little walk in the forest. The girls were constantly asking “are we going to see any bears?”  and we kept saying “I hope not….” We did spot a huge bug with orange wings – he kept Jasmine a mused for about 2 minutes – she loves orange.  Way more exciting was a lizard me and Lily found. We went to investigate a big green plant in the middle of a charred patch of forest; and out scuttled a lizard. I chased him to a log and carefully lifted it so as not to squash him. He was lovely; just sat there trying to stare us out. Me n Lily got some great; pictures for scale he was about 25cms.  According to Tom the Jeep man he’s a collared lizard on account of his turquoise neck collar. Lily loved him but I don’t think he was impressed with us; he looks a little angry no?

Ian’s already posted the pic of the Elk we spotted on our jeep tour so I’ll skip over to our stop off in Inyokern. I have to say; I was preparing everyone for an overnight stay in an RV park that looks like a car park but we were pleasantly surprised. We pulled up into a tree shaded spot (it was a cool 39degrees) and we had cute bunnies for neighbours.  We gave them a couple of carrots and some left over apple and they joined us for dinner, they hopped over for a munch while we ate pasta.  They ran off quick when Jasmine showed them her knife & fork. I think its genetically imprinted  into them to run at this point.

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of our next nature spot. He was too bloody fast. Here’s a picture though– looked just like him, well sort of… bit more dusty brown than blue and he didn’t say meep meep!  He did run off down the road…and then back up the other side in true comedy style.

“Road Runner Road” -  the stunning view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from the back of the RV.

I was going to end my post there but then we moved on to Mammoth Lakes (near to Yosemite National Park) and we just keep bumping into impossibly cute chipmunks. Here’s one who performed for us at breakfast.

Here’s another up by Rainbow Falls. This one was a pro, working the crowd for bits of apple, crisps, nuts etc. He was a bit more brave, he’d fliff his tail about if you ignored him.  Lily has been keeping a chipmunk count; she thinks we’ve seen 28 but its way more than that. You’d just walk along a few paces and the just pop out and run along with their tails in the air. Stupidly cute and I love them.

End of 1st post…. phew!

Edited: August 6th, 2010

Middle class, middle-aged heaven

Next stop: Napa, the wine region. Calistoga to be precise. We couldn’t get through to the RV site to make a reservation, so just turned up hoping for the best. Unfortunately our visit coincided with a big dirt-bike race, and those dirt-bikers love their RVs; no room at the inn. Luckily, the guy who broke the news helpfully told us that if we could “dry camp” (survive without water, sewer hookups) for the night, we could borrow a corner of the field. And if we left earlyish in the morning, we might not even have to pay. Result!

It turned out to be a nice spot, next to a garden with loads of sunflowers, and the next morning we took off early for breakfast in Calistoga without paying a cent. We stopped off at a small farmers market to spend our money on cucumbers and strawberries instead.

I wasn’t really into the whole Napa thing, it really seemed like a middle class, middle aged wine theme-park. We didn’t actually venture into any of the many wineries, apart from Hall that Jen wanted to visit to check on the progress of their Frank Gehry installation. Turned out it was cancelled, so rather than spend $40 on a bottle of wine to be polite, we just went down the street to fancy pants supermarket Dean & Deluca (which Jen had spotted on the way in) and then set off for Point Reyes.

Edited: August 5th, 2010

Wet playtime in Sacramento

To give the girls a break from all the scenery (which frankly doesn’t do much for them) we decided to stop off in Sacramento and visit the Raging Waters water park. It turned out that one of Lily’s school friends was staying in Sacramento too at the time, so we decided to meet up at the park.

It was quite a culture shock going from the wilderness of our several days in Yosemite to the urban black-top, which we hit at rush hour on a Friday, no less. After a few wrong turns and narrow entrances, we found our way to the campsite, which was just behind the waterpark which itself was in the California State Fair ground. As soon as we were hooked up (power and running water, yay! No more shouting every time someone ran the tap for more than 2 seconds) we walked round to the fairground to see what was going on.

It was one of those times you realise that the US is set up for cars, not pedestrians. It was actually a 2 mile round trip, and we set off at gone 8pm. Another holiday late night for the girls! Still, they enjoyed themselves at the fair; it was basically a run-of-the-mill fairground with the addition of a large display of cows. Livestock’s obviously an important part of a state fair… Another odd thing was the claim on almost every kid’s ride that it had been part of “Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch”.

The next day at the waterpark was excellent fun. Jasmine took a while to warm up, probably because she was tired, but eventually found something she liked (a shallow pool with a shark fountain in it). Lily enjoyed it from the start and when it came time to leave insisted on “one more go”… about twenty times.

Edited: August 5th, 2010

Treacherous Tioga Pass to Tuolomne

It was a fairly short trip from Mammoth to Yosemite. Unfortunately it involved going via Tioga Pass, a road that snakes up and around the mountains and into Yosemite. You know a road’s gonna be dodgy when it’s shut for more than half the year.

Jen had a great time looking out the window, admiring the view as I tried desperately to keep my eyes on the road to avoid getting vertigo. Driving something that’s wider than a bus down a road with corners so steep you’re supposed to take them in a *normal* car at 15mph is not fun.


We stopped near the top at a lake we came across unexpectedly. Jen took some pictures while I waited for the shaking to stop.

As we went on into Yosemite national park proper, the scenery became prettier and prettier; no longer fairly barren mountain-side terrain, there was suddenly greenery, pine trees, meadows and babbling streams. It was really stunning.

Our reverie was broken when we got to our camping destination, Tuolomne Meadows (I’m still not sure how to pronounce it), and spotted the dreaded FULL sign. Jen decided to try her luck and went into the park rangers office. Several long minutes later she emerged with a massive smile and an incredible prime camping site for not one, but two nights. I may never know what she did in that office, but I will be forever grateful.

Edited: August 3rd, 2010

Back on the road (again)

We set off bright and early, well, early, for the next leg of the journey; another 200 mile slog with a break in the middle to try and prevent the girls from driving Jen mad by constantly asking her to pick up whatever pen or crayon has just slid off the table as we’re driving.

We decided to do another Route 66 location: Barstow. After a bit of hasty Googling (did I say how well planned this trip is?) we settled on “The Mother Road Museum” as a good spot to spend an hour or so. What Google didn’t tell us is that it’s only open at the weekend. Luckily, Barstow itself was interesting – it had loads of the typical old 60′s style motel signs that I recognised – and there happened to be some sort of rail graveyard next door to the closed museum.


There were a selection of old Santa Fe railway engines sitting baking in the sun, so after having lunch in the van, we ventured out to clamber over them, try and avoid burning our hands and take some pictures of the well-preserved railway behemoths. We sold it to the girls as “let’s go and see those Chuggingtons”, which seemed to work well. It was a really nicely unexpected find and both Jen and I were snapping away for ages.

Our destination for tonight is Inyokern. A kind of nowhere-place (of which there are quite a few round here) that we’re only using as an overnighter. We arrived a bit earlier than yesterday, and the campsite turned out to be really nice. It’s a few degrees cooler, has wild rabbits running around, is well kept (there seem to be a lot of long-term residents) and has lots of shady trees (what a novelty)! That meant we could sit outside and have tea plus some more of my birthday ice-cream cake while the sun set behind the mountain. Another pleasant surprise.

Tomorrow it’s another slog to Lone Pines, then on to Mammoth Lake.

Heavy Drinker

I don’t know why, but I expected petrol to be as cheap as chips out here. So much so that I hardly factored in the cost of petrol to the trip. What a shocker: it turns out that the RV takes something like 40 gallons of petrol and costs $150 to fill up! Ouch. Combine that with the fact that you can almost see the fuel gauge falling as you drive, it feels like you’re literally burning money. Still, the cruise control is nice. I can basically set it to 60 mph, point it in the roughly the right direction and let it drive me. So now my only issues are going round corners and understanding the hand signals that Jen uses when trying to help me reverse.

Random picture

When I noticed Jen knitting away in the passenger seat at sunset I just had to take a quick picture. Rock and roll, eh?

Edited: July 22nd, 2010

Escape to the Grand Canyon

On Sunday it was time to escape the stifling heat of Vegas and get to our first stop at the Grand Canyon.

We checked out of the hotel and went to pick up the RV. After watching the intro video, signing all the forms and a few technical hitches due to the heat, we drove it away. Now I know how bus drivers feel; this thing is huge! 30 feet of gas-guzzling holiday-home behemoth.

We went straight to Walmart to get some essentials: squeezy cheese, doughnuts and a GPS, you know the sort of thing.

Then we were off to the first campsite at the Grand Canyon. We were already late and made a bit of a silly decision to take a detour round the Hoover Dam rather than go over it (I misunderstood the sign about what type of vehicles were prohibited) so it added about 50 miles and an hour to the journey. There was some pretty spectacular desert-style scenery (and a few scary bends), Jen was snapping out of the front window.

It’ll take a while to figure out what’s going to slide where when we’re on the road. Jen bought a massive 2.5 gallon container of water (economy of scale), but didn’t secure it, so the first bend we went round, it slipped off and boom! 10 litres of water swilling all over the floor! Luckily it was so hot that it seemed to pretty much evaporate after Jen mopped up the worst of it.

Eventually at 10.30pm after more than 6 hours behind the wheel we got to the Grand Canyon Camping Village. The office was closed, but Jen managed to find someone to help us and we eventually got hooked up (with the help of a friendly fellow RV’er) and crashed out. (I’ll skip the bit where I locked us out of the van, with the girls fast asleep inside. Jen had to climb in through a window that we hadn’t realised was open!)

It’s lovely to be out of the desert and among the trees and plants again.

Here’s Lily outside the RV in the campground. She’s got one of our old digital cameras, so is clicking away merrily!

Edited: July 19th, 2010