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Itinerary:
click on picture to enlarge
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San Francisco
1
Yosemite
NP
Mono Lake
Bodie Ghost Town
Death Valley
Las Vegas
Hoover Dam
Valley of Fire State Park
Zion NP
Bryce
Canyon
Capitol Reef NP
Arches NP
Natural Bridges NM
Goosenecks State Park
Valley of the Gods
Monument Valley
Grand Canyon
Route 66
Lake
Havasu City
Calico
Ghost Town
Los Angeles Highway No. 1
Santa
Barbara
Pismo
Beach
Monterey
Big Basin Redwoods State Park
San Francisco 2
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  We left Düsseldorf for the States on
Saturday,
12th September, at 11.30 a.m. and arrived in London about an
hour later where we took another British Airways plane, a Jumbo Boeing
747-200, which took us straight to San Francisco
in about 10 hours. We arrived in S. F. at about 4.30 p.m. local time (5.30
a.m. German time). The view was fantastic. We descended right onto San
Francisco, in full view of the Golden
Gate Bridge and the weather was a beautiful sunshine! Unfortunately our
luggage didn't arrive with us! We got 100 $ cash each and were told that
the bags would arrive the next day during the late afternoon at our hotel. |
Well, so we had to spend another night at the S. F. Travelodge Airport
Hotel which we hadn't intended and which cost us $100 (okay, we got the
money anyway!), the first night which we had booked from Germany was only
about $82. Our original plan was to visit San Francisco during the last
days of our holiday, but as we had no choice we decided to make use of
the additional day anyway. So we drove into S. F. (our rental car was a
Toyota Corolla with 4 doors - we were lucky to get a slightly better car
than booked!) and followed more or less the scenic drive through the city.
We also went across the Golden Gate Bridge to the other side of the bay
and little towns like Sausalito and Tiburon. On our return our luggage
had arrived as promised and on the next day we were able to really start
our trip. |
In the early afternoon we arrived near Yosemite
National Park where we found a motel for the night
($60) at Groveland
before we went into the park. There's a loop tour down in Yosemite Valley
which we followed by car. We also saw the famous
waterfall. On 15th
September we followed the road across the Tioga Pass which also leads through
Yosemite Park. There were some spectacular views. Eventually we arrived
at Mono Lake, a salt lake which is drained
by water pipelines to Los Angeles. There are some interesting towers of
calcium carbonate called tufa which appear when the water level sinks.
North of the lake is an old mining ghost town called Bodie
which we visited even though we had to follow quite a long dirt road. Afterwards
we went south towards Bishop where we spent the night ($40). On the way
we stopped at Hot Creek, a river with hot springs, where we took a bath.
It was strange to bathe in hot water in a river! |
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The next day we crossed
Death
Valley and stopped at some interesting points like the sand dunes,
Badwater (the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 86 m (282 ft) below
sea level), Dante's
View and Zabriskie Point. |
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In the early evening we arrived at Las
Vegas where we got ourselves a room at the Stratosphere Tower Hotel
($47 only!). In L.V. prices for hotels and food are really
cheap, except on the weekends. For $6-8 per person you can eat until you drop! Later that evening we strolled
down the crowded Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) and saw the Buccaneer Bay
Pirate Show in front of the Treasure Island hotel (a life-size sailing
ship was actually sunk!) and the exploding volcano in front of the Mirage.
We made it down half the Strip before we got too tired. So the next morning,
after we went up the Stratosphere Tower to have a top view of Las Vegas,
we drove up the other end of the Strip and had a look at the newer hotels
Luxor, Excalibur and New York New York. They were just building the Eiffel
Tower and Venice's San Marco Tower was nearly completed. We tried our luck
at the slot machines as well but didn't win the jackpot. Nevertheless we continued our
trip, first
to the huge Hoover Dam and then
along Lake
Mead, through the Valley of Fire State Park and finally to St. George ($39 at
Motel 6). |
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  The next morning we nearly got recruited by the Mormons
when we tried to visit their church! It wasn't far anymore to Zion
National Park. Similar to Yosemite Park we
first went into the valley and then followed the road leading out of it
and further north towards
Bryce
Canyon. Before we entered the park we booked a room ($41) at Panguitch.
Bryce Canyon, which isn't really a canyon after all, was quite
impressive. We stayed until sunset at a place called Sunset
Point waiting for spectacular lights but nothing much happened. It only
got very cold and dark. The next day we went into the park again as we
hadn't seen everything the day before. Due to road works we didn't get to
the far end though. But I guess we have seen the most interesting view
points.
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 We had to return on our tracks
to the park entrance and then were still going north until Torrey where we
stayed at a Days Inn motel (pure luxury with indoor pool and spa at $65). We still
had time to spend so we went into Capitol Reef National
Park and followed the Scenic Drive to a Capitol Gorge, a narrow canyon
where you can find occasional waterpockets  (holes in the rock filled
with rainwater) which gave the waterpocket fold its name. We were glad to return anyway as there were
warnings of
sudden floods! Out of the park again we went, and after a nice trout dinner at a
restaurant next doors we spent a relaxing evening at the motel. The next day we hiked to
Hickman Bridge, an impressive
natural bridge (which was washed out by a river) that also belongs to Capitol Reef National
Park. Then we drove up to the town of Green
River and from there we went south again. We found a room in Moab ($72
- quite touristy) and visited Arches National Park,
an area of many often free-standing red sandstone arches (similar to a
natural bridge but withered by wind and rain). |
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On Monday, 21th
September, we went to see Natural Bridges National
Monument (more bridges), stopped off at
Goosenecks State Park and drove
along a dirt road through the
Valley of the Gods which was similar
to Monument Valley. We spent the night in
the Navajo Indian reservation, at a village called Mexican Hat (at the
Canyonlands Motel, expensive
at $47 as the motel room was very simple, it didn't even have a television!). |
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 The following day we saw
Monument Valley
itself, famous through many movies and commercials, and the Grand Canyon.
It got a bit cloudy at Monument Valley and then the sky got more and more
overcast and it started raining. |
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When we got near
the Grand
Canyon it was pouring down. It was also very cloudy and we were
right in the clouds, so I thought at first, like during my first visit
in March/April 1991 when it was snowing, I would see nearly nothing of
the Grand Canyon once again! We decided to return the next day if it didn't
get
better, but eventually it did clear up. There were still clouds but
they opened up so that we could catch some nevertheless quite spectacular
views of the enormous canyon. Due to a discount coupon we spent only $35 for a motel at Williams which is usually more expensive. The disadvantage
was that we got a smoking room which did stink much more heavily of smoke
than we expected (well, at least we saved some money). On 23rd
September we finally followed the famous Route 66
which used to run from Chicago to L.A. Eventually we arrived in the town
of Needles where we found the cheapest motels ever, only 18 $, even with
a pool! As this evening was hot again, we spent it at the pool swimming
a bit and enjoying the last rays of sunshine. The next day we went to Lake
Havasu City in order to see the original London Bridge (another bridge!) which was shipped across the ocean stone by stone to be reconstructed
in the desert of Arizona! We went back the same way via Needles and got
to Barstow not far from Los Angeles ($38 at Motel 6) where we did some
shopping for jeans at a Levi's factory outlet. |
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 On 25th September we visited Calico
Ghost Town which wasn't as original as Bodie but more touristy.
Afterwards we went down to Los Angeles where we stayed two nights at Motel
6 in Hollywood ($61 per night). We drove
through Hollywood and Beverly Hills and up to the Griffith Park Observatory
to get a good view of the city. The following day we spent $38 each to
get into Universal Studios, parking was $7 but we had a discount coupon for
$8. The Studio Tour were you could
see real movie sets and experience a fake earthquake was interesting. We
also enjoyed the "Back to the Future" flight simulator, the "Jurassic Park"
ride in a boat where we
got soaked and the "Waterworld" stage show. "Backdraft"
was closed unfortunately. In 1999 there'll be "Terminator". On 27th
September we had breakfast at a café at the Ocean Front Walk in
Venice
Beach and visited the old Spanish mission of Santa
Barbara. We had cake and coffee in a Danish village, Solvang, and spent the night at Pismo Beach
($40, Motel 6 once more). Then we followed
Highway No. 1 (Pacific Coast
Highway) with offers some great views of the Californian coast until we
arrived at Monterey. Here we tried another
coupon and got a motel for $32. |
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  On Tuesday, 29th September,
the sky was gray and it was even raining a bit, so we thought it would
be a great idea to visit Monterey Bay Aquarium. It wasn't cheap (about $15
each) but it was worth it. They had a three-story aquarium with fish
native to the Pacific coast, a two-story sea otter exhibit where you could
see the otters swim under water and a huge Outer Bay aquarium with sharks
and sea turtles. We found another Motel 6 at Watsonville ($62) and drove
up to Santa Cruz in the evening. Back in Watsonville
we got a special value meal for only 5 $ for both of us (we chose on burger
dinner and got the second one for free)! |
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On 30th September we
visited Big Basin Redwoods State Park where
you can find the big Redwood trees as the name says. Then we went back
onto Highway No. 1 until we arrived at San Francisco
once again.This time we stayed at a hotel downtown which
we had booked from Germany (approx. $80). First we stayed at the
Embassy Hotel in the Tenderloin district, an area where you shouldn't be out in
the streets at night, but we didn't know this when we booked! The hotel
didn't sound that good in the catalogue though and we only took it because
they didn't have three nights in a row available at another hotel. For
the last two nights we chose Holiday Inn Civic Center which was in
a slightly better area, but still it was fairly cheap compared to other
Holiday Inns (about
$100), obviously because it wasn't in the best of
areas either. Well, we had to make do with what we got. The hotels were
okay though, especially the last one.
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1st
October was a very
grey day in San Francisco. We walked around the city most of the day and
in the evening we went to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera"
(about
$35 ea.) which I'd already seen in London in 1992. Like last time
I thought it was fantastic and Volker enjoyed it, too. On our last day
we took the Cable Car to go to Fisherman's Wharf and from there we took
a ferry across the bay to Sausalito. We went right past Alcatraz and also
saw the Golden Gate Bridge. This time it was sunny again and we had a wonderful
view.
What I didn't like about the big cities like
San Francisco and Los Angeles were all the tramps on the street, especially
when you walked about in the evening and when you keep thinking they might
all be carrying a gun with them! During our trip we covered about 3500
miles (5600 km). Petrol was cheap at only between $1 and 1.30 the
gallon,
that's approx. 4 liters! Almost all the other tourists we met were Germans
if not Americans. Occasionally we could hear French and there were quite
a few Japanese. Italian restaurants were surprisingly expensive. We often
had burgers (which are much better than McDonalds) or Mexican food. We
left San Francisco on 3rd October at about 4 p.m. and arrived
back in Düsseldorf on 4th October at about 5.00 p.m. local
time (8.00 a.m. for us which adds up to 28 hours without sleep!). During
the first two weeks in the States we had temperatures of up to 40 degrees
Celcius! The last week wasn't that good anymore. It got colder and there
were even a few grey days. The last day was nice again though which made
leaving even harder!
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| Duration: 20 days/21 nights |
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