Granite Bay, Yosemite, Boise and all the nice stuff in-between

14th of May - evening

We arrived in Granite Bay, where Susan lives with her family. Daniel got to know Susan some time ago when they met in Switzerland.
We stayed in the yurt you can see in the picture.
The house, the yard and the yurt are in a very nice area with everything around us just green.
We were a little bit tired after that day because we visited Alcatraz and drove to Granite Bay, so we fell asleep pretty fast.

15th of May

We moved out to a boat ride at the nearby lake. Swimming in the clear freshwater was so pleasant and there was no salt we had to rinse off.










Swimming costs a lot of energy but that was no problem because we had a delicious, nutritious dinner that evening. We showed our pictures and talked for a while before we went to bed.

16th of May

We had to say goodbye since Yosemite National Park was waiting for us. We took one last picture with the whole family.
Thank you for hosting, Susan, Mike, Allison & Jess and for the great food and everything else!

We drove to the Yosemite National Park where we stayed the next three nights. You can see our campground in this picture.
After looking around and having a barbecue we roasted some marshmallows over the fire before we went sleeping in our tent.

17th of May


It was hiking time, so we tried the Vernal Falls / Nevada Falls hike, about 6 hours round trip.

The mist trail... you will get wet, you might get soaked :)
Vernal Falls in the background.

In front of Vernal Falls

The view down from Vernal Falls.

Emerald pools

On top of Nevada Falls, after about 1600 feet (~500meter) elevation gaining. Daniel felt a little bit sick so he stayed at the Vernal Falls

A very curious squirrel at the Vernal Falls.

Sunset at halfdome.
We stayed another night in our tent after having dinner in Yosemite Village.

18th of May

You have to be aware of bears in the park. They can open cars to get to the food inside and you have to store everything inside a bearproof container.

We liked the trail the day ago and decided to choose anothe rone, a longer one with more height difference, the Upper Yosemite Falls trail.
This picture was taken BEFORE the hiking.

The view from somewhere halfway at the trail.

Upper Yosemite Fall from a distance... we had to go up there.

On our way to the top.

Almost there...

Anybody afraid of heights? It is just a 2000 feet (600meter) dropoff...

Finally, after 4 hours, on top of the falls, more than 2600 feet in height gaining (800 meter)

The way back... beautiful landscape

This picture was taken AFTER the hike... notice the difference ?

We had dinner and took a shower before we went to our tent and slept, it was an exhausting day...

19th of May

Roy tried swiming in the nearby river... the water had a temperature of about 50°F (10°C) so it was a short swimming.
We left Yosemite, heading towards Lee Vining and the Mono Lake.

A lake somewhere at the road, the water was not warmer than the one in the river...

Picture time

We drove to Mono Lake, a big lake near Lee Vining (Nevada).
The lake has 3 times more salt than the Pacific Ocean. It doesn't even taste salty, it is too much salt to taste it.












You will float in that lake, just like in the Dead Sea. We forgot our newspaper but you can float on the water surface and read newspapers :)
We arrived in Reno in the evening, had a great dinner in a steakhouse, found a geocache and went to our hotel where we stayed for just one night.

20th of May

Driving Day !

500 miles (800km), 8 hours, from Reno (Nevada) to Boise (Idaho)

8 hours consisting of sand, some small bushes and trees but mostly pretty much nothing but desert.

We arrived in Boise in the evening and checked in at our hosts house.

21st of May

We visited a cave, the Kuna Cave.
The cave is about 50 feet (15 meter) deep and .25 miles to the south and .25 miles to the north (each ~400m)
It was very dusty down there but it was so cool to have a self guided cave tour where you can do whatever you want.
We bought something for barbecue and some other things before we drove back to our hosts house.

We had a nice barbecue together with our hosts and some neighbours.
That is how the evening ended and this is how this blog post ends...











coming up: another day in Boise, Yellowstone & Glacier National Park

From Santa Barbara to San Francisco

7th of May

We took the famous California No. 1 highway in direction Monterey. We drove through Big Sur, an area with beautiful beaches.

We walked along a nature trail and found a geocache. The landscape was beautiful in this area.

And as one knows: Beautiful landscape leads to nice pictures :)
After walking that trail we drove to Hearst Castle, a famous mansion in San Simeon.

We moved on after visiting this national landmark, driving through the beautiful landscape. The highway goes up to the mountains where it offers a stunning view of the mountains, the beach and the ocean.
We arrived in our hotel in Monterey and had Sushi for dinner which was very good.

8th of May

We explored Monterey on foot.
Walking is a nice way to see some interesting things in a city like this. You don't have to worry about getting a parking lot and it is very flexible.






 
While walking through the city we found some geocaches which led us to nice places.
The Fishermans Wharf is a touristic highlight in Monterey, and so we visited it and took some pictures.
There were many seals hanging out in the sun while people are watching and taking pictures of them.
We also visited a farmers market where they sold a bunch of different foods.

9th of May

We had seen some places in Monterey, but we decided to take the scenic 17 mile drive this day to see why it is so famous.
This route leads you through a forest to some nice places like this one where the waves of the ocean broke in an amazing way over the rocks.

After arriving in Santa Cruz, we checked-in at the Torch Lite Inn this night, a small but nice motel in a good neighborhood.
We went to the farmers market in this city because we liked the one in Monterey. This one was smaller but also very interesting because of the people there.
A lot of Hippies and just friendly people, very nice.

We were back in the hotel quite early so it was swimming time!

10th of May

We had a nice breakfast when we found an advertisement for the Mystic Spot, just 5 miles away. We drove there, because they say there is a magical force and you can experience strange things...
Well, basically it is a weird house built on a mountain where you can take pictures with optical illusions.

Roy is supposed to look like he is the smallest person in this picture.

We moved on to San Jose where we visited the museum of technology.
You can type in your name on a screen and a robot sorts wooden blocks to equal your name.
We drove 50 more miles till we reached our destination for this day: our hosts in Oakland, in the Bay area, close to San Francisco.

11th of May

We took the metro (well, it is called BART in the Bay area) to the city and started with a breakfast consisting of donuts and croissants.

After walking through downtown a little bit we moved on to chinatown, which is the largest of its kind in the USA.

We went on to Lombard street, the steepest one-street section in the world.

After downtown and chinatown we took the tram to Twin Peaks. It's the highest elevation in San Francisco and you have a great view from up there.

12th of May

We did some hiking with our hosts this day.
In this picture you can see us with our hosts Viqui and David with their puppy Doris, thank you for hosting us!

After hiking and a car tour through some parts of the city we bought groceries and made a delicious dinner, everybody just loved it :) Spicy beef meatballs in tomato sauce, served with rice pilaw and a potpurri of eggplant, squash and bell peppers.

13th of May

We met another couchsurfing host and two of his surfers and moved on to a bike rental store.
All in all we were 6 people riding through the city of San Francisco.

Of course we visited the most famous place in San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge !
Daniel had a flat tire in the middle of the bridge but we were able to fix it and went on crossing the bridge.

The view from the other side is even better. It is simply amazing to see that huge bridge and the city in the background. Even though the bridge looks that big, the Bay Bridge which goes from Oakland to San Francisco, is much longer.
We had dinner in Chinatown Oakland, very good and more than enough Chinese food.

14th of May

Our last day in San Francisco.
We took the ferry to Alcatraz, the famous former prison on an island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.
We followed an audioguided tour and felt quite like a criminal behind these massive walls.

We were glad that we could leave the island again whenever we wanted to, unlike the prisoners who had to stay there for 15 to 20 years or even longer.
Visiting Alcatraz is a thing you have to do while visiting San Francisco, it is a nice experience.






All in all San Francisco is a beautiful and amazing city with so much to do and to see, but after these 4 days we had to leave and move on to our next destination: Granite Bay.

coming up: Granite Bay, Yosemite National Park