|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 20, 2015 18:38:49 GMT
I'm just back from a two week trip to the States. I used to do this every year, a driving tour either in Canada or the western states of America, but because of a change in circumstances, we haven't been able to do it for several years.
Due to one or two reasons, I wasn't able to post things as they happened, but I'll be doing so now in a kind of a blog style.3 Jun 2015 at 7:12pmI've got tickets to fly to Los Angeles and then back to the UK from Denver. The flights are two weeks apart, so we've got to find something to do while we're there! LA and Denver are about 830 miles apart (if you're a crow) but there are deserts, mountains, canyons and forests in between. We don't like towns but we love the natural world and it just so happens that there are a good number of interesting parks and reserves in this part of the world. We've got a vague idea that we might do something like this:  But that really is just a vague plan - we like to be impulsive! There are two things that we must do: 1) Spend at least a couple of days in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks - we went there 14 years ago and had to leave because of bad weather, so we vowed we would return. 2) Another return trip, this time to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. The route we're thinking of taking is 1,716 miles before you even start thinking about taking any side trips. Based on previous experience, I'm thinking it's going to be more like 3,000 miles once we're done. Mischa doesn't drive, so it's going to involve some pretty long stints at the wheel. We've booked car and 3 nights accommodation - a night in LA (we'll be pooped when we get there), a night in a cabin in Kings Canyon and one in Denver the night before we return. Apart from that, we are free to go where we please - we could even decide to blatt across a southern route through to New Mexico, into Texas and then up through the Oklahoma Panhandle and into Colorado that way. You just never know!! We like to stay in independent motels, eat in independent diners and restaurants and prefer to keep off the interstate highways wherever we can because this is where the interesting people and places are.
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 20, 2015 20:13:16 GMT
4 Jun 2015 at 6:29amUp early this morning and getting into predictable music mode, I fancied a bit of Led Zep 4! 5 Jun 2015 at 11:56am Made it here safely. Totally pooped but after 6 hours sleep I'm wide awake and raring to go. Trouble is, it's not quite 4 am here, Mischa is dead to the world and the car pick up time is not until 9:30. We had a changeover in Washington and the weather there looked exactly like Manchester on a bad day! It's averaging mid 80 degrees F here at the moment but we're heading for the Central Valley today, where it hit 100 F one day last week. Here's the plan for the day: Out of LA asap and up north to Sequoia National Park with a couple of minor stops on the way. A few hours in the park and then down to Visalia to spend the night in a motel and buy some supplies for a night in a cabin in the park. 
|
|
|
|
Post by brian2957 on Jun 21, 2015 7:34:01 GMT
This looks like a fantastic trip Chris , thanks for sharing it with us . I've never been to the USA but would love to do a trip ike this . I'm not interested in the usual destinations ( New York etc . ) What vehicle did you have ? . I would probably have considered one of the big camper vans for a trip like this .
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 21, 2015 12:04:03 GMT
Hi Brian. We just hired a car. I just went for something economical and cheap - I think I paid for something Ford Focus sized, but you never get what you order! It was a Misubishi Lancer as it turned out.
When we started doing this, we considered a camper van, but I was shocked at the price of them. So we just wing it with motels. As I said above, we go for the family owned independant ones, which are cheaper and more 'human' than the chains. They are obviously rather more variable in quality but that's part of the fun. Bates Motel, anyone?! Because we don't have a fixed itinerary, preferring to be as flexible and spontaneous as possible, we try to book nothing in advance unless absolutely necessary. We have never failed to find somewhere to stay, though once or twice we have have to drive on a bit further to the next town. Accomodation in the National Parks is pretty pricy and often well booked in advance, so we don't usually bother with that, but roughing it in one of the cabins is fun for a night or two. The National and State Forests often have cabins too and we've had some good times in those.
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 21, 2015 14:52:15 GMT
6 Jun 2015 at 1:12pm The car turned out to be a Mitsubishi Lancer. Almost 400 miles in it yesterday. The big news on the TV in LA yesterday morning was that there was a chance of some light drizzle later in the day! We got out of that hell-hole asap. First stop was for lunch in Lancaster, which is smack in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It was close to our route and notable for a few reasons - firstly, we live in Lancaster too. It's a service town for Edwards air force base and was the teenage home of Frank Zappa AND Captain Beefheart (as well as two members of The Magic Band. It's one of the only towns in the world to have a musical road - Honda built it for a TV advert and if you drive along it, it plays you the William Tell Overture! Anyway, we cruised up and down the lovely treed main drag a couple of times and found a nice shady spot to park, jumped out of the car, only to discover that the entire town is wired for sound! At that particular moment we were ambushed by a blast of 'Lucky Man' by Emerson Lake and Palmer. Mischa wanted to take a photo of City Hall, so off we went looking for it, thinking people working there might think it a bit odd to see two people photographing their building. When we got there, we found a guy with a camera and tripod set up, taking photos of City Hall!  As well as Lancaster, how could any proper Zappa fan not make a short visit to Sun Village while they were there. It's a little community close to Lancaster, where Frank used to play gigs in his teenage band, The Black-Outs, who were the only R&B band in the desert area at the time.  It's forever enshrined in song on the 'Roxy & Elsewhere' album - the venue, The Village Inn and Barbecue, was burnt down in race riots. A little further north and we made another quick stop to photograph a sign or two in a music related mission.....   .....more of which later! We ended up at Sequoia National Park, which was our plan for the day.  By the early evening when we got there, there was only time for a drive up to the Sequoia groves for a quick opportunity just to say we had arrived. This is the first clump of big trees you see in the park.  [/url]  They're giants, but still actually only babies in the world of Sequoias! After that, it was a quick turn around and back down the hill for some food and bed. I say the hill - it's a climb of well over 4,000 feet in altitude over a stretch of about 12 miles. Lots and lots of hairpins and lots of steep! Just gone 5 am and I'm off to buy some supplies for a night in a shonky cabin in the woods tonight, then back up that hill for a day in the land of the giants - every tree lover's wet dream!
|
|
|
|
Post by pwiles1968 on Jun 21, 2015 15:50:37 GMT
Sorry missed the start of the post, probably too late now but the mountain roads above Palm Springs are an amazing drive. link |
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 21, 2015 16:15:26 GMT
Interesting, thanks. I've never been there.
I drove out along Highway 10 on the way to Arizona a few years ago and we took a detour at around that area, but we went on a more northerly route, up to Joshua Tree National Park and Twenty Nine Palms. My most enduring memory of Highway 10 is the enormous and seemingly endless display of wind turbines set out in neat rows all the way across the valley.
|
|
|
|
Post by brian2957 on Jun 21, 2015 17:02:03 GMT
Those trees look amazing Chris . I'm pretty sure the National Geographic had an article on the park a while back . Amazing images . This is definetely shaping up to be my kinda trip .
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 21, 2015 17:16:24 GMT
The trees are amazing and are only found in a very small native range. Most of the remaining groves are protected but the trees were extensively logged soon after they were discovered by the white man in the late 19th century. The really big ones are extremely old but the funny thing is, they grow faster in the UK than they do in their native habitat. We've got some pretty big ones here, but they've a way to go before they catch up with the American ones. More big tree photos to come!
|
|
|
|
Post by brian2957 on Jun 21, 2015 18:39:59 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 21, 2015 19:43:08 GMT
7 Jun 2015 We've put aside two and a half more days for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, which are kind of run as one big park because they're right next to each other. It's at Kings Canyon where we shall be staying in an old wooden cabin. Still in Sequoia NP though, you get a chance to see and stand near to the largest living organism on the planet, The General Sherman Tree. It's also one of the most difficult things to photograph on the planet! You can't do it justice with a camera. Close enough to capture the detail and you can't get it all in. Far enough away to get it all in and you lose all sense of scale and proportion. "Can't see the wood for the trees" would pretty much cover it!     The science of measuring trees is a bit odd. For starters, it's called Mensuration - careful how you spell it now! I used to do an awful lot of it and it makes a lot of assumptions in the general course of things, but it can be extremely accurate. It's only really concerned with the volume and/or weight of the trunks - I once measured a parcel of standing timber for sale that constituted a woodland compartment that covered 10 hectares (~25 acres). It was about 70 years old and consisted entirely of fast growing Corsican pine trees, cultivated wholly and solely to provide the maximum amount of timber in the shortest possible time.
That came to about 3,500 tonnes.
This single tree is 1,121 tonnes! VITAL STATISTICS Height above base 274.9 ft 83.8 m Circumference at ground 102.6 ft 31.3 m Maximum diameter at base 36.5 ft 11.1 m Diameter 4.5 ft (1.4 m) above height point on ground 25.1 ft 7.7 m Diameter 60 ft (18 m) above base 17.5 ft 5.3 m Diameter 180 ft (55 m) above base 14.0 ft 4.3 m Diameter of largest branch 6.8 ft 2.1 m Height of first large branch above the base 130.0 ft 39.6 m Average crown spread 106.5 ft 32.5 m Estimated bole volume 52,508 cu ft 1,487 m3 Estimated mass (wet) 2,105 short tons 1,910 t Estimated bole mass 2,472,000 lb 1,121 t
|
|
|
|
Post by MartinT on Jun 21, 2015 20:12:44 GMT
The Sequoia National Park has a similar look to the Hoh Rainforest near Seattle, Chris. Don't think you'll be driving that far north, though!
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 21, 2015 20:22:37 GMT
I can see how you might think that. But then, I guess I look for different things in a forest than the layman does. However, we were comparing the two areas and the thing that we thought was most different (apart from the range of species) was that the stuff near Seattle is festooned with tonnes of mosses and lichen. No Banana Slugs here either!!
|
|
|
|
Post by MartinT on Jun 21, 2015 21:01:25 GMT
It's the colour of the place that struck me.
|
|
|
|
Post by Chris on Jun 22, 2015 6:32:26 GMT
Great post - very interesting. Those Sequoias are just superb!
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 22, 2015 21:15:18 GMT
Thanks Chris. 7/8 JuneMore trees - Standing at the feet of giants!  Moving on from Sequoia NP and into Kings Canyon, we found a hungry young woodpecker at home yelling "Feed MEEEEE" at it's Mum.  Our home for the night. No power, no light, no open fires allowed because of the danger of it spreading. We took a Trangia backpacking stove with us and made a great meal of steak in a red wine sauce for me and veggie cutlets for Mischa.........all the while wondering if the local bears prefer their meat cooked (the steak) or raw (us!)  On our last full day we went into Kings Canyon itself, which is a gorge 700 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon. A great drive on some hair raising bends and some really good short hikes to points of interest.  Back to the trees and into Grants Grove, where there are some more notable monsters, including a hollow hulk which you can walk into and along the length of.   This tree was dead and hollow in 1900 and remains substantially the same since then. At one time it was used as a stable for 32 horses by the Cavalry who were sent to safeguard the trees just before the park received legal protection from logging!  There's something for everyone here!  |
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 22, 2015 22:42:37 GMT
9 Jun 2015 at 2:36am Today it was time to move on. A quick run out of the High Sierras, up north a little and back up the hill to Yosemite.   My fears about that place proved to be well founded. It is utterly beautiful but even on a week day during school time it's over-run with way too many people. The only way to get away from them is to get a back country permit and the waiting list is massive. Still, we only really came through the park because there is a pass over the top of the mountains that drops down into the high desert- our gateway to Utah (via Nevada). This is different & much better than the usual route which drops down south of the mountains and over to Las Vegas.  They usually clear the snow from the road on the Tioga Pass in May, and we'd been keeping an eye on that before we came. The winter wasn't particularly harsh this time, so sure enough it was open when we got there. 
We met this little fella on the way.
The pass is 9945 ft at its greatest altitude and the road construction was started in 1883.
It's quite a drive and the road drops down into the Mono Basin, a massive area which contains a lake that has no outlet to the sea. Mono Lake is at over 6,000 ft above sea level and is a 13 mile long by 9 mile wide body of alkaline water with massively high salt levels.
OK, so now we're off the mountains and into the High Desert. I said in my first post that it was 813 miles from LA to Denver as the crow flies. We hit the 813 mile point today and we were still in California. After another hour or so, we crossed in Nevada and then landed in Tonopah, which is a significant development and a vital part of the plan. Since we went to Tehachapi the other day, it meant we were singing 'Willin' ' by Little Feet as we rolled into town.  As suggested in the song, we drove the back roads..... 
.........and I can confirm that we didn't get weighed.
|
|
|
|
Post by ChrisB on Jun 22, 2015 23:12:43 GMT
10 Jun 2015 at 5:36am
No sooner did we land in Tonapah, singing our song, that I logged into my favourite audio and music forum to see what had been going on and discovered this post. Which was a bit spooky!
(The spookiness continued)
We'll be going past Area 51 today - we are actually on the north west corner of it now - part of it is the Tonopah Test Range. A section of the route we'll be taking is amusingly officially called the Extraterrestrial Highway, so we will be looking out for the signs.
Today is probably going to be the longest drive as there's nothing of real interest except the stunning and changeable desert scenery. We are heading for Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, probably the most incredible landscape I know, a place everyone should see at least once.
(I had barely finished typing that when renowned UFO-logist Dave (synsei to some) returned to TAS after a significant hiatus in posting).
Ooh-errr, I'm in Area 51 and the saucers are circling!
|
|
|
|
Post by brian2957 on Jun 23, 2015 1:38:01 GMT
Absolutely stunning scenery Chris . I would be in severe danger of crashing the car as I would just have to look at all of this beauty . So if we don't hear from you for a while we can assume that you've been ' nicked ' by the spacemen  |
|
|
|
Post by John on Jun 23, 2015 4:05:07 GMT
Some really great pictures I would love visiting some of those places
|
|
