Karol Kaczmarek

Date: 17.09.2011 – 29.09.2011 (13 days)
Visited countries: USA (California, Arizona, Nevada)
Traveled distance: 3 540 km (by car)
Crew: Me & Czarek
Goal: Enjoy sun in the Sunshine State
Route/Visited places:

Pokaż California Road Trip 2011 na większej mapie

Blog posts:

Day 1 and 2: San Francisco
Day 3: Silicon Valley
Day 4: Yosemite National Park
Day 5: Sequoia National Park
Day 5, 6 and 7– Los Angeles and the “magic” of Hollywood.
Day 8 and 9: San Diego
Day 10: Ridin’ Route 66
Day 11: Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon
Day 12: Ghost Town and Death Valley –great places to die in?
Day 13: Las(t) Vegas day… the very last one

Waking up in the morning was strange. We knew, that Just in a couple of hours we have our plane to Seattle. It was the last day of our amazing California Road Trip . Ok, ok, it wasn’t only California, but… who cares?

Anyway, there was one more thing to do left… after spending three days in Vegas we didn’t do almost any sightseeing in the city yet! 

To be honest, it’s hard to call it sightseeing, but I just wanted to walk along whole Strip  (the most famous street in the city  with incredible number of hotels, casinos, clubs, bars, restaurants and who knows whatelse) from one end, to another . We ate quick breakfast in some fast food restaurant (hell, yeah, let’s do it in American style!), bought some water (it was HOT that day!) and set out for almost 2-hour walk (well, Czarek didn’t want to go that far, so he choose a bit shorter option )! 

First, casino in our hotel! Believe it or not, but I doubled the amount I played there (no, don’t spoil the fun and please don’t ask how much I played. I’m just not the gambler-type ).

On the left – Denny’s! We’ve checked almost all fast foods during last 3 months, but didn’t manage to go there… hopefully next time

Next stop – some of hotels. But if you look carefully…

the one on the right immitates Venice, if you didn’t notice, here is a close-up

Ok, maybe it’s not that similar, but they think it is! 

Just few more steps from Italy and… we are in Paris!

Not a long walk from there and you can be in New York…

or even in medieval castle… wanna be knight? Come to Vegas .

And at the end we are in… I have no idea where… but it’s probably not the Egyptian Sphinx  .

My next stop was unfortunately the parking where we left our car and all luggages. We drove to the airport, returned car, checked in and… in the late evening we’ve reached Seattle where we had our flight to Poland from (the next day).

It was a great adventure, we traveled 2200 miles (more than 3500km), visited 3 states and had (almost) two amazing weeks of fun!

Now, after more than a year, I come back to Poland and continue my studies in Poznan. It may be a bit weird at the beginning, but the the only thing I’m really afraid of is… jet lag. I simply hate it!

Day after visiting Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon we went to a pleasantly called place – Death Valley. It’s claimed to be the hottest place on earth so we thought it would be worth checking it out .

We set out early in the morning, as always (11am or so ) and took the way which was going to take us to our destination.

To be honest, getting there is not a big deal. You basically go straight…

then you pass some mountains on your right…

and some on your left…

and you go straight again, veeery long straight .

Actually there is more than one ways to get there, official website of the Death Valley National Park lists shortest, easiest, most scenic and the one with ghost town. As we choose the last option, we’ve encountered a lovely city of Rhyolite on our way…

As I said, it was pretty adorable, but not very welcoming.

First of all, we couldn’t find ATM to get some cash and step by somewhere for a drink or two. Secondly, when we managed to find a bank, it was “out of order”.

Finally, all shops (in the total  quantity of one) were closed! Holidays or something???

We went to sheriff to ask what was going on there, but he clearly likes privacy, as he surrounded his house by a barbed wire.

No banks, no shops, no sheriff, let’s go for some hike!

No way!

Tough luck, it’s time to go again on our way to the death valley, hopefully people there will be more friendly (side note: they were at least not unfriendly, as there was no people ).

So, a little bit more straight on (by car or by foot, as you prefer).

And we are right there! The place called Hells Gate (another lovely name, isn’t it?), with the beautiful view on the Death Valley

Few photos and we drove down directly to the middle of it.

Quick glance at the thermometer…

Looks like a great day for a stroll!

We found a beach, but… where the heck is water?

Locals took care of us and gave valuable hints…

which I should probably take more to heart, so that I wouldn’t end up like this…

Ok, I was just taking a short nap and very soon was more than ready to continue the trip!

We’ve stayed in the valley till sunset and it showed us the second, equally beautiful face

What a beautiful day!

While Las Vegas is definitely the most interesting by night

you have still a planty of things to go and do during a day. Three main ways to spend a day are:

1) Go for shows and exhibitions prepared for tourists

2) Travel around to some of the most beautiful places on our planet like Grand Canyon or Death Valley.

3) Gamble

We’ve choosen the second option, went to the Grand Canyon with a stop on a enormous Hoover Dam.

It’s situated exactly at the border between Arizona and Nevada (or border is situated exactly where the dam is )

and looks incredibly, especially from the new bridge which was built near there to take all traffic out of the dam.

At the beginning we crossed the bridge without even noticing there was our destination. High concrete barriers successfully hide all stunning view and you are not able to see anything from your car. It’s definitely worth to go to the visitor center and walk around a bit.

Our next and final stop was Grand Canyon. We decided to go to the west rim, as opposed to the most popular south rim, as it would require us to drive 5 hours more one way. Well, lack of crowds is not necessarily a bad thing and it still offers breathtaking views .

The way there was quite pleasant and nice, only last 10 miles were a little bit bumpy, as road doesn’t have asphalt surface there.

This part of Grand Canyon is owned by Hualapai Nation.

After small line for the tickets in a visitor center we bought the tourist package which included bus to the best view points and some other attractions like visiting traditional Hualapai village, where I tried to  light a bonfire (yes, I failed… those stones weren’t even flints, just ordinary pieces of rocks ),

shooting with a bow or throwing an axe

Especially the last activity was quite fun, so be careful – next time you see me with an axe I may not necessarily be cutting trees .

You can even rent the helicopter to take you down to the canyon, so that you can see it from different, probably equally amazing perspective. We’ve didn’t do it. First reason is that we wouldn’t have enought time, the second is that one of my dreams would be coming back to see the south/north rims and flew a baloon over it… hopefully sometime in the future .

As far as throwing axe was cool, it wasn’t by any means the main point of our day there. So let’s write about Grand Canyon. Or rather, let’s post photos here, as those explain everything .

And at the end my “artistic vision”. I don’t offer any interpretation of this photo, I don’t really know what I was going to show, but it’s a nice shoot .

Way from San Diego to Las Vegas can be easy or can be fun. We choose the second option and decided to follow the historic Route 66. The most famous road in America going from Los Angeles to Chicago (or opposite direction if you want). Driving this route while listening “Home” by Edward Sharpe and “500 miles” by Proclaimers was one of my dreams and number 72 from my list of 100 things to do in my life . On this day It was fulfilled, what an exciting moment!

Firstly we went to Victorville and instead of taking the highway number 15 to Barstow, we turned left to be on the 66th.

The view changed drastically from 5-lane highway with heavy traffic to narrow road in the middle of nowhere. First time in US we were on the road on our own, just way, scenic views and ourselves.

Look at these classic post boxes we’ve met on our way! They are soo cool!

Road conditions weren’t always ideal, but driving on Route 66th was a lot of fun, especially when you imagine how much memories this beautiful misterious road has.

After whole day of driving we stopped in cafe we’ve encountered near the road.

Unfortunately it was closed, probably for last 40 years or so . At least we could drink some cactus juice .

After visiting Santa Monica Beach in the morning we set out to San Diego. On our way we saw, as usually, really wide freeways and.. signs that Halloween is coming .

It took us less than 3 hours to see first views of beautiful skyline of San Diego.

Firstly we drove to the Coronado island to see the U.S. Navy museum. At least this is what Czarek claimed it to be. We got to the right place, however the view of armed men and control points on the road made us a little bit suspicious. Anyway, we waited in the line and after few minutes one of the guards informed us that it’s not a museum, but the main naval military station and that all people are not stoping there to buy tickets, but to show the permission to enter . Obviously we didn’t have any, tough luck  

Instead of the “museum” we visited the very adorable island.

In the evening we checked in to the hotel which was very close to the Petco Field (baseball stadium).

We had very hard time finding some place to park our car, cause there was a game played on that day and most of parkings were either full or highly overpriced.

San Diego has the most radiculous parking system I have ever seen! You pay like 10-20$ for 9 hours of parking and you can’t pay for a longer time in advance. If you pay at 8pm and want to stay till e.g. 3pm next day they expect you to come in the middle of the night to pay fee for next 9 hours! Ridiculous, but this is how it really works! We thought that it’s reasonable to be able to pay in advance and paid for 18 hours. In the morning we found a nice white slip imitating the official ticket (but it really wasn’t official!). It had also yellow envelope attached to send the check as soon as possible. It was private parking owned by the company Parking of America and after reading reviews in the internet I found out that they cheat people very often giving them tickets e.g. within 3 hours of paying.

As far as nice San Diego is, parking there is really pain in the ass. And it’s not the problem with us who didn’t get it at the beginning, during just one hour I saw three vehicles towed away! Even after parking properly it may occur that there is street cleaning during that night and you will be towed away anyway So lovely! Good luck we just got a ticket

In SD we’ve  been staying right in the middle of the historical Gaslamp Quarter which is also the party district of the city.

I’m not sure how much the number of people there that night was impacted by the game, but the pavements were totally cram packed with people (it was saturday, but on sunday it was still quite full)! So many restaurants, bars and clubs in one place makes the district extremely lively by night and SD seems to be even bigger than it is. San Francisco and Los Angeles seem to have everything spread out a little bit more. Unfortunately I didn’t make photos during a night, but this is how it looks during a day Just imagine people everywhere, change color of sky to black, add few englighted “gas” lamps (electric-powered) and you have it by night! .

Apart from the old buildings, there is also of course a lot of modern constructions in the area near there… mixed with palms growing everywhere . That’s funny that we find beautiful something which for other people (from hotter countries in this case) is totally normal. They would probably see an oak and find it much more appealing that palms – exotic .

as well as place called sea village with tons of small restaurants and gift shops. Pleasant area to stoll around.

After a bit of walking in the city we went to the USS Midway, the aircraft turned into museum. Finally! We were able to go to the museum this time!

After that I met with my friend Magda living in San Diego to talk a bit. She was reallysurprised we didn’t go to any beaches yet. True, San Diego is famous of it’s b eaches, so we couldn’t leave it without going to any. To fix this little issue, the next morning before setting out to Las Vegas, we drove to pretty Pacific Beach (unfortunately not to swim, water was quite cold as usually in Pacific ).

We left Sequoia National Park in the afternoon and started 5-hour drive to Los Angeles. After looking outside the window it was clear we are heading to the south!

We checked in to our hotel in downtown around 7pm and went out for a short walk around and dinner. My first impression – there is police everywhere! Surprisingly, I felt much safer in LA than in SF, where really weird (but really, really weird!) people were on literally every corner . Later on it occurred that just few blocks away from our place is main LA police department, that explained everything It was also quite noisy there, as LA is patrolled with helicopters most of a day.

There was also some shooting on the street for the movie/advertisement of Prime Suspect were people were walking back and forth all the time. We’ve joined them. Does it mean we gonna be famous?

On Thursday we went straight to Hollywood. Maybe the legend of this place brought by movies made me expecting too much, but first time during our trip I was disappointed and so was Czarek. Many buildings are old and derelict, the walk of fame is boring…

and while walking along the Hollywood Boulevard every 30 seconds you are stopped by someone wanting to sell you something, usually some tours. There was nothing to do (unless you are interested in watching celebrities made of wax etc.), so we bought 2 of them, one general to visit nicest and most famous places in Hollywood and another one to see movie stars’ homes.

It made our visit there a bit more entertaining, as professional guides were able to tell interesting stories and present the area in more interesting way it seemed to be at the first sight.

By the way, all lamp posts in main part of Hollywood had posters of Polish Film Festival which will be held there in Octover  

And here is mine second note about LA: it’s covered with smog, yuck!

Next morning (ok, it wasn’t really morning already, nights in LA are so much fun!) we went to the Universal Studios, which is a bit pricey (77$), but a lot, lot of fun! Shows presenting how special effects are created

virtual roller coasters, (you feel like you are riding the rollercoaster when are not really moving anywhere!),

tour through Universal stages where movies are recorded (where everything is faked…),

the biggest 3D cinema in the world (you watch King Kong and T-Rex fighting around you, as screen surrounds you)

and much, much more!

We spent there whole amazing day and we still didn’t manage to see everything, hopefully next time! 

In the evening we went to Santa Monica Beach to see it during night (where we were stopped by the police, cause Czarek likes ignoring some/most of signs;P Luckily policeman just asked whether he can read in english and wished a good stay in California ) and on our last morning in LA we checked it once again, during a day  

It was also first cloudy day while we are in California, but who cares, we were just about to set out to San Diego!

As I wrote in the last post, this morning we set out to see what we’ve missed yesterday… giant sequoias! While going higher and higher the temperature was… increasing and the road signs were asking to turn the air conditioning OFF! I suppose driving on the steep roads with A/C turned on may harm your engine, but it’s just a guess to try to explain those signs, I’m not good in engines . Anyone knows the correct answer?

Soon we’ve entered the park and were watching the great views.

There was some road works and road was open only during short 10-minute spots once every hour. We had to stop for a while together with other people willing to see sequoias.

After starting to drive again, it occurred we took the wrong way and accidentaly ended up on the Moro Rock:

Considering this landscape, it wasn’t really that terrible mistake

After couple of miles more we finally reached the Sequoias grove and the trees were really amazing! Sequoias aren’t the highest trees in the world (even that some people may think so, redwoods are on average 20m higher having as many as 100 meters in height), but their really big trunks make them look incredibly huge and impressing!

Lot’s of sequoias we saw were actually half-burned. As we read later, park administration doesn’t even try to distinguish the fire once it starts, as when they were doing it, sequoias stopped to reproduce themselves. Looks like they need some good burn-out from time to time .

Our final stop in the park was General Sherman, not the highest, nor the widest, but the overall volume of it’s trunk makes it the largest tree in the entire world!

On the way back crazy mountain roads made our breaks burning a bit and then we discovered what “L” in automatic gearbox is for . Ehh in the manual one everything is so much more intuitive .

We really enjoyed the park, as apart from trees which we definitely expected to see, it has surprisingly many places offering breathaking views, which is a nice addition! It’s definitely worth to spend a day there!

After spending weekend in San Francisco our next destination is somewhat closer to nature – Yosemite National Park. The most popular part of it is enclosed by almost vertical mile-high cliffs Yosemite Valley. It’s about 4hours drive from SF, so we reached it in the afternoon and made hikes with really beautiful scenery.

We also wanted to go to the Mariposa Grove where Giant Sequoia trees grow, however the way on the steep roads took us longer than we’ve expected and after coming it was so dark that even with help of car lights we were hardly able to see anything

We really want to see sequoias in a daylight, so we’ve modified our plans and tomorrow will first go to the Sequoia National Park and later set out to Los Angeles. Hopefully we will see some of those giants!

Normal travellers probably wouldn’t even think about leaving San Francisco while staying there just 3 nights, but geeks like we couldn’t resist visiting Silicon Valley which is just about 60km away!

Firstly we went to the Intel Museum presenting the history of this company and computers in general (focusing on Intel Chips, of course ). You could even sent an e-card with greetings mentioning Moore’s law (which we’ve obviously did!). and buy Intel i5 chip earrings for 200$ (which we’ve obviously did not… ).

Our next destination was Facebook where we’ve met Damian, Czarek’s roommate from Warsaw who was doing internship there.  We’ve spent nice time visiting the buildings, eating free lunch and writing on the (real!) facebook wall.

By the way we visited the Stanford University Campus which was just few blocks away. To be honest, it wasn’t bad, but University of Washington’s Campus in Seattle is nicer .

It was already hot…

and our AC didn’t give up, so didn’t we!

We continued our trip and went to the Google headquarters in Mountain View, Microsoft division which was near there and Apple in Cupertino located at loop-shaped street with fancy name “Infinite Loop” . Only IT company could come up with this kind of name;P

After whole day in Silicon Valley we speeded back to SF to see the Golden Gate bridge before the sunset, we left this must-see at the very end…

And we were there on time!