Our trip to America's South West: we're so lucky to be able to visit such an interesting part of the world!

Pieter and I both have been able to travel far and wide in our lives and it has enriched us beyond words. Travelling, getting to know other cultures, seeing how other people live and getting to understand the choices they make is so important for your understanding of the world you live in!
Learning and widening your horizon - this holiday was perfect for it. This is such a beautiful part of America, so much to see, so much to do.

What will stay with us is the notion of the vastness and the emptiness of this land. There are so many places where not a soul lives, that are uninhabited, where there's only nature (of a stunning sort!).

Here you can stand on the top of the hills, take in the scenery and see nothing made by humans.
Here you can experience utmost silence.
Here you can talk with people who live in a town with a population of 129 souls where the next town is 50 miles away.

Each day has been amazing, fun, warm and special.
Each evening we couldn't stop recalling the day and enjoying it again.
I hope I've been able to convey these feelings to you in our blogs. We loved to write them.

For now: thank you for joining us on this wonderful journey!

We'll keep you posted, kindest regards,

P&M

Our own Infinite Loop

For the last time - our trip is coming to an end - we're driving through the American landscape.
We drive along the old highways, see all the small towns and cities, cross a couple of mountain ranges (think: nice, little round hills) and arrive once again at the Infinite Loop in Cupertino.

Back where we started our tour through the American Southwest and thus closing our own Infinite Loop after 4501 miles. Infinite, because we will relive it ever and ever again.

The last night we stay in a hotel on the beach of the Pacific. For the last time a swimming pool and a hot tub, now with the roaring of the Pacific surf as a sound track. We sleep with the windows wide open and wake again to the sound of the ocean.

Fortunately the morning was foggy. Fortunately breakfast in a restaurant didn't put a candle to breakfast in a diner. Otherwise it would have been far too difficult to leave!

We did our Infinite Loop in 4500 and one mile.
When we parked the car at the car rental we had driven a grand total of 4567 miles. Lucky for us:  petrol is very cheap over here.

We're now at SFO airport waiting for our flight. SFO is a nice airport, with an SF MoMa museum shop where we spent our last dollars and a restaurant with excellent clam chowder.
There's one series of pictures I must send you, then we're off to Holland!

About Mariposa and Merced: the small American town

It was a pity the Mining Museum in Mariposa was closed. Mariposa is one of the goldmining cities, all strung together by the aptly named Route 49 ('the Goldchain Route'!) and we would have loved to see and learn more about this part of the Californian history.

You know the song Oh my darling Clementine? With the text 'dwelt a miner, fourtyniner, and his daughter Clementine'. That one. The miners were called fourtyniners, 1849 being the first year of the Californian goldrush.
A year before someone had found nuggets of gold in his newly bought meadow. In no time they found a Mother Lode full of gold that ran from Oakhurst, just south of Mariposa to the north; all the goldfields lay west along the Sierra Nevada.

Anyway, we had to start thinking what to after the closed mining museum.
We decided to go to the nearest town and that happened to be Merced. Merced was so nice that we stayed for the day, lunching outside and in the sun, strolling through Main Street, holidaying.
In the afternoon it was still near 30C and we were getting tired - and by now we know the perfect solution: a motel with a pool!

For us Merced is iconic for the small American town. We were happy to drive and walk around there, after visiting the must-sees in the past weeks this was a touch of normal, American daily life and, like in Paso Robles, we were enjoying it very much.

Merced is, like the rest of the area just under San Francisco, bilingual in its communication: the town feels very Spanish, up to the point that we were surprised we could still speak English (and be understood!). The warm temps. may have helped too!

Anyway, it was nice to just be happy on one of the last days of our holiday - tomorrow we have to move to the SF area, find a hotel near the airport and prepare for leaving. We have no idea yet what we're going to do exactly. That is of course utmost luxury as well!

Travelling America and finding a hotel: easy does it - or??

Travelling America by car is as simple as strolling along the sea.
Not only the Interstates and the Highways are wide, every street is. Every street.
So no medieval town centres with tiny, winding roads leading you into the pedestrian area (pedestrian area? How ya spell that?), no nervous driving in cramped shopping streets. No nervous driving at all, for that matter, because the speed is way too slow for it.

The two to seven line highways have two other advantages: everyone drives just about the same speed (including trucks and campers) and you keep your lane. Meaning that people drive past you on our 'wrong' side, yes, but you get used to it soon enough.

Entering a three- or fourways is simple too: no funny priority rules, first come, first go.
Everybody keeps to this. And as long as everybody keeps to it, it works brilliant.
The Americans wait endlessy before entering the road (Hwy, Interstate) and only get on to it when there's no car to be seen - so you need not fear cars suddenly appear in your lane.

The Americans do not drive to towns but to roads, ie. roadnumbers. Again: it takes some adjusting but then it's quite simple: 1 North, 280 East, 380 South, Lincoln Street lane, at the end of the off ramp right.

Ok, that was the easy part.
We never figured out the 'organising principle' of the larger towns and cities. Note: the car had no Satnav, and we hadn't brought ours from Holland, thinking we could manage easily because we had good maps!

City centres, for us Europeans the focal point (and the starting point from which to explore a city) are virtually non-existent in the larger cities (I'm not talking NY or SF, although, what would you consider the city centre of these cities?)

And the signposts are not helpful either.
Only a couple of times we saw a 'downtown' sign.
Usually it went like: Lemoore next 4 exits.
On the next sign: Lincoln Bvd next exit, Oak Tree Rd 1.5 m, McMillan Rd 2.5 m., Airdale Rd 4.0 m.

We went to pick the middle one, but more often than not we drove nowhere near a 'centre' and tried to get out again - no mean feat since directions to the nearby hwy's weren't given either.

Ok, we always joke about France with its 'toutes directions' pointing one way and 'autres directions' the other, but at least you know you're on your way out following either of the signs. And since all the roads here are the same size and have the same kind of houses along them it was wildly guessing where to go.
But we've seen a lot of interesting houses, neighbourhoods and all other sorts of memorable signs, and with the good weather we had we didn't mind very much.

We simply couldn't adjust to the idea that the main shops, companies and eateries most times weren't in the centre. We've even seen small towns where all the buying and selling went on along the towns' fringes, ie along the highways, and the town itself was totally residential.

Which brings me to finding motels.

The small towns are simple. You enter via the (old) highway and that's the only street with the car companies, motels, eateries, supermarkets and shops. If the motels aren't situated at the beginning of the town they're at the end, can't miss them.

It gets more difficult in larger towns, because there are more roads into them, and you have to guess along which road the motels are. So we quite often drove up and down through-roads (the old highways) searching, finding in the end a not too good motel (but we had a place to sleep) only to run into all the well-known chain motels the next day. Three minutes from the place we slept.

We noticed something else, something all too visible: the American heydays were in the '50s and '60s.
That was the time when the motels were built - not the chain motels but the classic pop and mom motels and hotels. They were built along the new highways, people were able to buy cars, they started travelling and the motels along the highways flourished.
Then the new Interstates were built because the old highways became too small for the amount of traffic. All of a sudden the motels lay in the middle of nowhere, and the chains built their new and modern motels along the interstate.

The old motels are still there. Some derelict and used to house the very poor, some run by Indians and Pakistani and barely hanging on, and a couple that still somehow manage and are (thus, sorry) run by Americans. A good and old motel is much nicer than a new chain motel. But good and old is not a common combination.
We consider the old motels part of America's social history, but I think we're pretty much alone in that.

Next time we bring our TomTom and drive straight to Super8, Econolodge or the Comfort Inn.
But then we head straight towards our goal and miss all the places we've seen now!

The last Icon - 'Yose' - and some words about tourist infrastructure

At the beginning of our holiday the roads into Yosemite (JoSEMmittie) were closed due to late snowfall. Three weeks later the Tioga pass was still unaccessible - it can be end of May before it opens - but the road to the waterfalls and the famous view of the Half Dome was open.
We did see a lot of snow though when climbing out of the foothills, and temps dropped again to 11, 12C. But a lot of sun and no wind made it a pleasant trip through the mountains and into the park.

At first you don't see it, but after a couple of miles you suddenly understand why Yosemite (lovingly abbreviated as Yóse over here) is famous: those towering, cliff-like walls!

Then the waterfalls that drop from them. We were so lucky to come here in early spring, because the waterfalls were massive - after spring the amount of water diminishes rapidly and from the end of August on they're dry till the snow starts to melt again.

Early spring also meant beautiful light, green foliage, blossoming trees and shrubs, purple-blue hazes over the meadows. On the valley floor so pleasantly warm you'd think it was a summer afternoon.

We'd have loved to stay and do some trekking near the Half Dome, but the whopping $250 they asked for a basic cabin made it a nono. So in late sunlight we left the Park, asking prices in the various hotels on our way down: 280, 250, 160 and 120 a night. The Comfort Inn in Mariposa was 60, nice hotel, still in the mountains.

This Mariposa brings me to something completely different: tourist infrastructure.
In short: there is none.
More nuanced: Grand Canyon and Yosemite were signposted, Bryce only at the last moment, as were Lake Tahoe and the London Bridge.

A petrified forest nearby? A famous geyser? A trail to a waterfall? We drove around having no idea where to find them. Asking resulted in vague answers - yeah, that's west from here.
After we finally managed to locate the Mariposa Mineral and Mining Museum of America, enthusiastically suggested by the hotel manager 2 miles south of the museum, we found it closed: it's only open Fri-Sun and this was Wednesday.

There are leaflets, enough of them, but with scant driving directions. The people behind the information desks are enthusiastic and cooperative but they don't always know about opening hours or alternatives. On the roads no signs whatsoever.
We think that a missed opportunity, to say the least.

Look at France: 10 miles before you reach the city limit the great billboards start telling you what is to be expected: a cathedral, gardens, a bell tower, a palace and a glass factory. Then on the road billboards with exit numbers how to get there, and you're sure to find it because you just have to follow the signs.

We have been wondering about this. Not used to tourists all over the place? No one is interested in the Mining Museum anyway so why signpost it? (chicken-and-egg?). No idea.
But on the signposting (and tourist) front there's a world to win.
Business opportunity here, I would say!

Petrified: 'a sight to behold'

Oops, almost forgot: pics of the petrified forest.
Too interesting to keep for ourselves.
By now I've read several times how wood gets petrified, it has to do with the tree being buried for millions of years and water seeping in, replacing the carbon in the cells with silicate - but really, I still don't understand the whole proces.

Try Wikipedia if you want to know all about it. Do check out 'petrified wood polished' (Google images). You'll be amazed.

On our way to greener pastures: crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

After the Aquarium Experience we drove through Carmel, an extremely posh town south of Monterey. We were told Carmel was even more expensive than Beverly Hills (!), that Clint Eastwood had been mayor there and that you needed a permit to wear high heels. The town is cobblestoned, women would wear 12' heels, sprain their ankles and sue the town (!!)

The place is full of art galleries and small life style shops, but we felt no urge to go shopping there. Instead we drove the ocean road, lined with houses that sell for millions.
Quite a lot of them were on sale, btw.

Anyway, we ended in a shabby but very cheap motel in inland Salinas and next day we headed north.
For the first time since we had left SF clouds blocked the sun. By the time we got near San Francisco it looked like rain.
One plus though: no toll on the Golden Gate Bridge, Sunday!

Yes, we've seen The Bridge, and we crossed it.
That was funny too, I mean, you're nearing one of the most famous bridges in the world and only the last second you actually SEE it. From the SF side you go through a park first, then a residential area, then trees again and finally, hey presto! Toll booths and The Bridge.

The first time you cross it you're so nervous you hardly see it. But it's large. And high. And pretty impressive.
At the other end there's a viewpoint. Famous View over San Francisco, Famous View over the Golden Gate Bridge.

We drove on towards Napa, left and right a very flat and very boring landscape, over us rainclouds. The town Napa was first and foremost a line of car selling shops, no motel to be seen.
We ended up in an expensive Inn & Suites, but they had an indoor pool and hot tub.
So there we spent the major part of the evening, while outside - for the first time this holiday - it started to rain.

Later we found out that this hotel was actually one of the cheapest. Most other hotels in Napa started with room prices of $350 and up! No wonder, if you know the green pastures that make up the Napa Valley.
We were to find that out for ourselves the next day.