Author: Sandra Watt

So we backtracked a bit South on Hwy 1 and then started to head East towards Yosemite.  We drove right through a low cloud!

We were ready for lunch, and we lucked upon a lovely winery called Kickass! They had an old kitty named Max that would hang out with everyone. What a sweetheart! There were also twin white Corvettes in the parking lot. LOL

Lovely scenery on the road to Yosemite. And a windy road it was!

And finally, the entrance to the park. It starts to look very lush immediately!

We decided to actually put down and stay in the park for a number of days. We found a really nice place to stay called Rush Creek Lodge. We really took it easy and dedicated one day to just hang out at the spa.

Cute room too!

In the morning we went on a run together on the trails around the Rush Creek Hotel. We took the longer loop trail and we missed our exit getting back, so we had to turn around and retrace a bit at the end. It was very hilly but extremely enjoyable.

Then… spa day. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah There was a steam room, a Himalayan sea salt sauna, a cold mist area, heated loungers, and just a beautiful relaxing area.

Some nice dinners, cozy fires and evening activities too. And yes, we roasted marshmellows again!

Another Plot Twist!

Now for another plot twist. We’re ready to go out on the trails and see Yosemite Valley, and we find out that the road through Yosemite is closed!!!  This time, it was due to too much snow, making several of the east-west roads impassable. This means that instead of a 30 minute drive to the valley, it’s 2 hours each way because we have to go around. It also means that after our stay, we will need to go back again, and down around the park to the south to get back to Las Vegas, or back and around the park to the North if we want to see new places.

So instead of the extra 4 hours of driving, we decided to drive to a closer waterfall, which was less than 30 minutes away called Hetch Hetchy. It’s on a beautiful lake. A few lookouts on the way there…

First you cross a dam – complete with rainbow, then walk through a tunnel, and then hike along the far shore of the lake to the waterfall – it’s the right-most one that reaches down to the water.

We weren’t able to make it all the way there, because the smaller streams and waterfalls were blocking the trail. We crossed many, but near the end, we encountered one that was just too dangerous to cross. And that’s even after I gave up keeping my feet dry, and started just walking through all the water. LOL That was really fun, and the water was really cold!

Heading back

We stopped for lunch at nearby sister resort.

On the way back, we did a second hike called Upper Carlon. This is uphill along a river with a waterfall at the top. Whew!

So at last, we’re driving up the California coast along the Coastal Highway 1.

It goes along the ocean for a while… yes, still overcast.

We saw some neat houses along the coast, and also a very cool highway wall! The pattern with the little square bricks looks like a crossword puzzle, and this wasn’t the only place. It kept going for a good section of road!

Then the highway turns inland for a while, driving between beautiful green hills, and a lovely lake too!

Funny story, it got to around lunch time, and we wanted to find somewhere to stop for food. But… it was Mother’s Day!!! So every single place was booked. We finally found a lunch spot around 3pm!

Then the highway goes back out to the coast… yup, still overcast.

Then you get to the Lion Seals! I don’t know how they all know, but they all hang out at this ONE beach. They can get really huge: Adult male 16 ft 5000 lbs; Female 12 ft 1800 lbs. But they just lay around and scratch themselves with their surprisingly hand-like fins while little birds hop around them. And little squirrels too.

We even saw two youg males sparring!

Then came the surprise. Hwy 1 is CLOSED 10 miles up the road! We looked it up online later, and it’s due to too much heavy rain washing away and burrying the road!

SO! Time for a change of plans. Lothar pulls out the map, and since we can’t continue North to San Francisco, we choose an entirely different route. We will head East to Yosemite. Home of Yosemite Sam! LOL

But first, we look for a place to spend the night and find a really sweet little DANISH Villiage (!!) called Solvang. Just lovely. Windmills, danishes and all!

Our hotel was very cute and quaint. Lothar took a turn at the guard station. 🙂

All the streets and buildings were in Danish style.

We found this little courtyard nook with a little fire. Nice!

More walking around and looking for a dinner spot.

Dinner was a Mexican restaurant, though we did stop at a few before trying to get a seat, but many were fully booked!

And of course in the morning, we had… Danishes 🙂

So West we went, all the way to the coast to spend some time in Los Angeles. We decided to visit Venice, where Lothar has a friend.

It’s very touristy there, and everything you’d expect from a beach town, including a full workout gym right on the beach! But what surprised us the most is how cold it was. There’s a weather effect that causes the coast to be overcast for a lot of May and June aparently!

For lunch, we found a Chinese place called Mao’s Kitchen. The food was good, and the menu was hilarious, with items like “People’s potstickers”, and “Eggplant pamphlet – eggplant bound volumes filled with shrimp or tofu propaganda”. Cute!

Later, we saw some of the harbour and sights with Lothar’s friend, and they also took us out for dinner at a wonderful Italian place called Barrique.

The next morning, we visited his company, where they make sim racers! We even got to try it out! We drove essentially Formula 1 cars in there!! I struggled with some motion sickness feeling with the 3 big screens in front, and it was really hard to get the hang of driving, but there’s also an option with a VR headset and Lothar said that felt much better.

So after Grand Canyon, we headed West toward the California coast. The intention is to hit Los Angeles, and then head North, and enjoy the drive up the coastal Highway 1.

It was really fun to watch the terrain change from desert to taller some-what greener hills, even one that’s snow-capped!

We passed a bit of an oasis along the way when crossing a river.

And for a long while there was really nothing to see, except a passing train!

We knew we weren’t going to make it all the way to LA that day, so we found a cool-sounding place on the map to stay for the night “Desert Hot Springs”. And Wow, was it ever!

From the middle of nowhere, we pull into the town, and it’s just beautiful! Palm trees and flowers everywhere.

And at the hotel, these may look like pools, but they are all various temeratures between warm and hot, and they are all fed directly from the hot springs! In fact for the hot tubs, they have to cool the water first, down from 106 F before it’s ready to go in. The hot tubs were my faviourite part.

We ended up visiting the West end of the Grand Canyon. Going to the South access was 4 more hours of driving if I recall, and given that we’d be heading back West after, we decided not to add that much more driving to just 2 days of the trip. Our visit spanned 2 days. The first day, we took a bus tour that took us to a number of great lookout points.

As always, photos just don’t do justice to the grandeur you actually experience when you’re there.

The West side where we were is on Hualapai land, and they also run the Skywalk. The next morning we went out on the Skywalk, and got some pictures taken. Everyone had to wear special shoe protectors out on the walkway. Parts of the floor were actually glass!

On the way to the Grand Canyon, we stayed at this really cool ranch!

We got this really cute cabin to ourselves. In addition to the cabins they also had tents for “glamping”!

They served a really excellent dinner. After dinner there was a really funny guy singing country songs and requests, then we all went out to the fire pit and roasted marshmallows! What a cool evening.

In the morning, I went for a run, then we went for a walk to the top of the hill and saw the buffalos there. There were several little calves too!

And this is why we do road trips. To stumble apon amazing experiences like this unexpected ranch stay! 🙂

Once we left Las Vegas, our first stop was the Hoover Dam. We walked out on a bridge near the dam from which you get some of the best views of the dam and the road winding down to it.

Coming off the bridge is the Nevada signpost, since we were right on the border at this point. And right after, we drove out on the dam itself!

We’re heading East into Arizona, and toward the Grand Canyon. Here’s us driving, and a variety of dessert terrains.

That was really one of the hilights of the whole trip, just driving through so many different terrains and even climates.

And I found out what Joshua Trees are! They are so different.

Pulling over at one of the lookout spots by the road.