National Parks - Yosemite/Death Valley

On leaving San Fran, we spent the day travelling to Yosemite, which I still pronounce Yos-shem-mite. It's actually pronounced Yoh-shem-mit-ee, which I think is just stupid. It's a huge national park in California with sheer cliffs, lush valleys and waterfalls. It's stunning.

We got a little lost on the way there because the map we've got is not great (I blame the map every time). Brad got out to ask someone. That someone happened to be an Australian woman 'in her forties' (I didn't actually see her!) who not only gave Brad her own map of the area to help him, but also her name and phone number! Slut.

Pulled over by the police!

It was approaching dusk as we got to the park, but we managed to squeeze in a couple of short walks - to a meadow from which you can view Half Dome, a massive rock which (you guessed it) looks like a Half Dome, and the base of Yosemite Falls. The Falls are actually the highest in the US and are 3-tiered, unfortunately dried up at this time of year.

Although we'd pre-booked accommodation and shouldn't have been surprised, we were a bit dismayed at the tent as we approached it. Yes, I said tent. The Lonely Planet actually said that Curry Village 'could double as a labour camp'! To be fair, we did have proper beds, a mirror and towels in there, just not heating. It wasn't until we got inside that we discovered there was a light, thank God. As you approach the area it was pretty dark - just rows and rows of orderly positioned tent cabins. It was 4 degrees overnight, luckily the sleeping bags we brought were good enough to keep us warm. I tied the hood of my sleeping bag tight around my head...in the morning the open part was at the back of my head and I was totally mummified. Good job I'm not claustrophobic. Needless to say, we went without showers the next morning - our first priority was to get dressed quickly.

In the morning we took a bus to Glacier Point, which offered an impressive vantage point of the landmarks there. We trekked the 8.5- mile trail back down to the valley which took about 6 hours. We were rewarded with some amazing views and ate our packed lunch at waterfalls. We definately did the trail in the easier direction,with mostly downhill paths along steep rough steps cut out of the granite in the last section of the route. Some people were doing the walk the other way. Crazy. Our calves were absolutely killing us after - still do today actually.

We saw some wildlife in Yosemite - squirrels, chipmunks, deer, woodpeckers - nothing too exciting. Everyone talks about the bears there - in fact, you're asked to take all food and scented items, even empty bottles of water and keep them out of your car and tent overnight. We were actually lucky enough to see a bear on drive out of the park. Everyone had stopped their car to take pictures, which was pretty cool.

Our next destination was Death Valley, another national park across the border in Nevada. We envisaged a 4 hour drive there. The route we needed to take was diverted and, due to the fact that there are other national parks inbetween that can't be cut across, we were forced to take a huge diversion, an understatement if ever I heard one.

We actually didn't help things by going about 20 miles in the wrong direction up a freeway, so tried to make up a bit of time (as you do) by exceeding the speed limit slightly. It was a clear straight road, with no houses nearby or traffic. I heard Brad mutter 'shit, we've just been done for speeding' and I thought that a camera had snapped us. But no...a police car with it's lights flashing is behind us with a police officer speaking into a tannoy thing - 'please pull over'. We were nice as pie, fluttering our eyelashes, to no avail, we got a speeding fine. The bill will be spent to Oz, but could be up to $250 dollars! The police officer even made a note of Brad's height/weight, eye and hair colour. He was actually really nice, he even got a torch and was showing Brad the best route to Death Valley, with the open map book on the bonnet of our car. We considered slipping him a little bribe of say $50 dollars for him to tear up the ticket, but thought it probably wasn't a good idea!

We steadied ourselves for a long long drive and stopped for dinner (at Taco Bell) and one of those massive Cokes for a big caffeine hit. We phoned up our pre-booked motel in Death Valley to warn them that we would be there after midnight, and would we still be able to get into our room? When told where we were at that time, the woman at the other end of the phone called out to her husband, 'they're in Fresno, is that even in California?!' and he shouted out 'oh my God, that's 10 hours away! Tell them we'll see them in the morning', which didn't fill us with joy. They said they'd leave the keys for our room in the letterbox.

The worse thing about the journey is that most of the roads we were taking weren't lit up at all, so the surrounding areas are pitch black. You have the idea you're probably missing out on loads of wicked scenary. We wouldn't pass a car for ages and some of the roads were so straight you can see the headlights of an on-coming car for literally 10 mins before it passes you. The advantage of it being so dark is that we could see the glow from Las Vegas (3 hours drive away) which was cool, but so wrong! The night sky was stunning too - I've never seen so many stars. We stopped the car for a bit to watch it and I saw shooting stars for the first time - 3 of them!

The journey from Yosemite to Death Valley took 12 hours. That wasn't a typo. We arrived at the motel at 5am. I was a good girlfriend (and map girl) and stayed awake the whole time too. I don't know how Brad did it though. Can you believe we stayed in good spirits the whole time, even making a joke of it?! Brad was very happy that he worked out how to use the Cruise Control function in the car, which stopped his back getting so sore. Of course we were now bloody sticking to speed limits.

We couldn't find our room keys when we got to the motel and (of course) the battery in Brad's mobile had died so we couldn't call reception. The only keys in the letterbox were in an envelope with someone else's name and room number on them. After lots of faffing about, we decided to try them. Luckily no one else was already in the room! We settled down for 5 hours' sleep before check-out.

Amazing we weren't too bad the next day, and Brad didn't develop a nervous twitch at the prospect of another day in the car. We visited the sites around Death Valley - clamboured around sand dunes, Ubehebe (God knows how you say that!) Crater (the site of a massive volcanic eruption), Artist Drive (along mountains with a stunning array of colours), Devil's Golf Course (a flat salt plain with masses of crystalline salt) and Badwater (the lowest point in the US - 80 meters below sea level). The Death Valley is not as sombre as it sounds, although it does hold the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the US - 56 degrees centigrade.

On our way to Vegas, baby!!