Part 3 – From Death Valley to LA – The final stretch.

We were up at 4:30am and on the road by 5am out of Las Vegas towards the desert, Death Valley laid in front of us. We wanted to be through it before the sun rose in the sky. We stopped at the Death Valley junction but it was all closed due to the early hour of the day.

It was over cast but still very very hot, we stopped at a small town for some breakfast and to tank up on water. 
We had gone though 3 litters of water between dad and I in a few ours in the desert. For the most of the trip (other than breakfast we  didn’t stop, but we did have a quick break to find some survivor stones from the valley. Dad and Flemming out collecting rocks ;)

I managed to get a nice photo of the road as we were driving down to a low point in death valley, on the photo you can see what looks like a river, but its all sand. Tails of water once being here I guess.

As we climbed out of death valley, the motorbikes started to heat up considerably the signs on the side of the road were telling people to turn off there AC to stop over heating, no sighs on what to do if your on motorbikes?

We drove for another day and we reached Yosemite National park, we went from 45oC heat to 20oC in 1 day. It felt super cold. The change from the heat was welcome though.

After pitching our tents in a nice small camping ground dad and I hopped on the bike again and went for a drive. I wanted to explorer, we would drive 200m then stop and take photos of some amazing lakes and streams, then drive again.

It was so peaceful when we stopped and relaxing. It gave dad and I time to really appreciate the surroundings. We went for a small walk, and enjoyed the park.

A short trip down the road we found the tourist information center and stopped in for a look. There were loads of info on the park and some of the animals that live in the park. One of those animals was the brown bear, a picture that I liked was a mum and her cubs eating at a picnic table (awww how nice, hehehe), poor tourists that lost there lunch.

Back at camp we had some visitors, ground squirrels were popping out of holes all around our tents, they were interested in what we were having for dinner and snacking on.  Every time you moved close to them they would run down there hole for a few seconds then pop there head out for a look to see if it was safe. Soo cute.

The next day we drove though Yosemite, after a small stop for lunch and a hike to another information center we were on our way to San Francisco, and would reach it by sun down.

As we neared San Francisco and it seemed to turn from nice and sunny and warm to down right freezing, and rain. We got to our campsite at the edge of san Francisco that night and dad was completely blue.

The next day we headed into the city to explore. We hopped on a tram and headed into town. We forgot however to check which stop we were to get off at, so we ended up in the middle of no where in San Francisco. From there we hopped on a older tram that would end up at the piers.

At the piers we walked around and got our first sight of the “golden gate bridge”, and Alcatraz island. I would have loved to go on a tour of Alcatraz island but apparently you had to book long in advance.

After a small walk and some amazing clam chowder inside a sour bread bowl, which was AMAZING!. We headed up to the street car, which would ride up and down the famous hills of San Francisco. It was a long queue, but dad and I managed to get great spots hanging on the edge. It was a matter of holding on and enjoying the roller coaster ride.

We ended up in china town where we then walked to Lombard street (the most windy road in the world), it was packed with people driving down the street. I had seen this street in so many movies before. It was cool to be here and see the street. But I wouldn’t want to live here with all the traffic and tourists.

That afternoon we spent our time just relaxing on the pier it was nice to enjoy the ocean breeze and watch people walk past.

The next day we drove out to the golden gate bridge and over it to the other side. It was very cloudy sadly and very hard to see the bridge.

We decided to move on to the coastal road, Hwy 1 another famous road in America running from San Francisco down to LA.

The road was nice, but super cold! Lots of nice views along the way. At one point we noticed lots of people parked at the side of the road and stopped to see what the commotion was, it was a pack of sea lions all living on the beach.

The next day dad and I left Flemming, we wanted to get ahead to LA and explorer a bit on our own, we also had to collect some goods from a motorbike dealer.

The next day we relaxed, we headed out shopping and lazed around the pool for the day at the hotel.  After a nice day of rest, we booked a tour of Hollywood. The tour would take us from Beverly hills to sunset boulevard and the beaches of LA.

At the beaches there was sooo many homeless people it was very sad, however people seemed not to see it, at the edge of the sand was a skate park. Some of the skaters were really good. We watched them for 15 min before the tour had to continue.

We got to walk the Hollywood boulevard past the Chinese theater and see the stars on the side walk. We headed up to a view point where we could see the Hollywood sign.

The next day dad and I took a hop on and hop off bus tour around LA. It repeated much of what we saw the day before but it was just nice to be off the motorbikes and relax.

The next day ended our trip to the states, dad and I were on our way to Denmark to meet the family, but first was a short stop in Germany.

So till the next blog about Berlin, Germany.

Have fun!

Steffen.