Category: Travel Blog

We drove up into the mountains to Sequoia national forest today – consistently beautiful views, and a changing landscape. I really wanted to see the Sequoia trees in the snow – and the few groves in Yosemite aren’t accessible at this time of year (or at least, not accessible without a 2-3 mile hike through snow in each direction – not something I’m capable of at the moment! So we found Grant’s Grove in Kings Canyon National Park – a reasonably easy drive from the valley. A beautiful drive in itself, constantly going up and down mountains – we’ve gone from sea level to ~5,000 feet at least twice today – once to the Sequoias, then back down to the valley, and back up to Yosemite.

The trees were amazingly huge, and the place overall was just magical. Very quiet and still because of the snow, and very few people. I can imagine it gets to be a bit of a zoo in the summer, but at this time of year we almost had it to ourselves. Photos really don’t do it justice – those trees are just unimaginably huge and amazing – some of them have been growing here over 1500 years. The tiny people at the bottom of this picture should give you some idea.

The visitor centre was just about totally buried in snow – as you can see in the photos they’ve dug out a passage to the front door, and there are a few gaps between the snow slowly sliding off the roof, and the snow on the ground.

We caught the last of the sunset in Yosemite just as we arrived through the tunnel – the first sight you get is of El Capitan and Half Dome across the valley from each other. To see it for the first time just as the sun had gone down was amazing.

We stayed in the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite. I was so tired I had trouble stringing sentences together, and it was the first place we came across. More expensive than we intended, but it’s an amazing place. It’s been there almost since the park was declared a national park. I overdid things a bit with all the walking around the sequoia trees – Bryan had to put up with a not very coherent me this evening, and I passed out pretty much as soon as I hit my bed, having been unable to work out how to upload my photos from the camera to the laptop! Thank you Bryan for copying them all over for me – I’m almost totally filling up my memory cards each day, so it can’t be postponed.

The boys and I flew back to LA today. We left Annapolis early, finding this amazing icicle growing outside the garage this morning, and to more snow – including astounding quantities piled up everywhere at Baltimore airport. They’ve closed one of the carparks and piled the snow a couple of stories high – to clear the runways. And the great news – Alex found the camera! It had fallen out of my pocket and wedged in an obscure spot under my seat. Jacqui had looked there Sunday, but it was only visible once we removed some a couple of seats to make space for the luggage.

We flew via Atlanta, and we didn’t have much time to get from one flight to the other. I’d booked on Delta’s website, and presumed that if they offered the connecting flight to LA, it’d be plenty of time to get from one plane to the other. But not so much, Atlanta is one of the biggest airports in the country and the next flight was in a different terminal building!

But the mobility assistance guy who arrived to push my wheelchair was terrific. He got us from one terminal to another (via a dedicated subway that’s entirely within the security zone), and to the gate with 5 mins to spare. I’m so glad we had him along – even if I’d been able to walk that fast, I doubt we could have even FOUND the gate for our second flight in time. I’ve had assistance at each airport – someone meets me at the plane door with a wheelchair and pushes me to the luggage pickup where I’m reunited with Bertha. Without exception, they’ve all been very friendly and helpful. Come to that, everyone here is. Customer service people are obviously hoping for better tips or sales, but even your average person on the street is unfailingly polite and helpful.

Flying over Texas and Arizona you could see the economic issues from the sky – at least in the housing industry. Large slabs of land had been partially prepared for development – and then abandoned. Half built houses, large numbers of new subdivisions with streets and kerbs, but not a single house built or started.

I also saw a huge meteor crater flying over Arizona – after a bit of googling, I think it’s “Meteor Crater” outside Flagstaff as listed in Wikipedia. Huge, perfectly shaped, amazing to see from the air.

My friend Bryan from work met us at LAX – he’s joining me for a road trip to Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, Monterey, and then down the Californian coast to San Diego this week. We got the boys all checked in for their flight to Sydney – and succeeded in getting them exit row seats to give them some more leg room. We tried but failed to get some dinner in the space saucer restaurant – it’s only open part time due to renovations, and we missed them by a half hour. Oh well. After some debate we left the boys to their own devices and Bryan and I set off – we were keen to get as far north as possible to allow for plenty of sightseeing tomorrow! We got as far as Fresno (360 km north of LA). The roads here are generally much better than in Australia – not as well maintained, but built to allow for much more (and faster) traffic.

Driving to Fresno it looked like Holland, except for the occasional hills and mountains on the very distant horizon. Totally flat, and agricultural. A freaky feeling when it’s interspersed with very American strip malls, motels, etc along the road – like they’ve somehow put two continents into a blender, and this is the result.

Mostly another quiet day at home (well, our Coleman-Annapolis home, anyway – thank you to Nikki, Steve, Hannah and Jacqui for making us feel so welcome). Nikki, Hannah and I are all running a bit short on spoons and need the rest, so a quiet day was good. Nikki especially has been pushing herself a bit too hard – with her medication changes and our visit, I think she’s overdone it – but then, that’s not exactly new. Nikki, I hope by the time I manage to post this you’ve had a chance to recover a bit.

Nikki took me to Annapolis downtown late in the afternoon so I could take some photos. Lots of pretty, old style shops and lots of snow (what’s new?). Steve took Hannah, Jacqui, Alex and Scott to the comic book store again – the boys were elated to discover that the owner is knowledgeable, helpful, and happy to post whatever they like to Australia – at very reasonable rates. They’ve had a lot of trouble finding what they want in Australia, and even when they do, it’s two or three times as expensive (even including postage). So I’m guessing quite a bit of their future income is going towards graphic novels.

I spent a lot of the day packing, working out what goes with me for the next 2 weeks in California, and what goes back to Australia with the boys. Hopefully I’ve got it right and won’t be lugging around too much extraneous stuff the next fortnight. I’ve been a bit worried I’ll lumber myself with more luggage than I can manage (knowing I’m not the best at packing light, ROFL). We’ll see how I cope, but I’ve managed to reduce it to about 15kg in a duffel bag I can carry on Bertha – plus Bertha, her charger and all her parts, plus about 7kg of hand luggage (mostly laptop, cameras and lenses – what else would you expect???)

We drove into DC today. As everywhere else, the roads are partly blocked by snow, and the traffic was worse than we’ve seen anywhere else (including NY).

As we approached the city, we saw Marine One leaving, presumably with the President on board, since there were two additional helicopters flying in formation. Again, like with New York, it was a bit eerie seeing sights that are so familiar, yet not. Weird feeling, like you’ve walked into your TV somehow.

Alex has become very interested in taking photos this trip, which has mostly been great – except when we both want the camera at once, LOL! Sadly, we lost the second camera today – the one I bought in Times Square last week. Somewhere between the National Museum of American History and the car it went missing. Hopefully someone handed it in in the museum – we’ll give them a ring next week.

The museum was fascinating, we saw the original star spangled banner, a display on slavery and a 200 year old house which has been relocated from near Boston, showing various stages in its occupation. Alex was thrilled to see C3PO in the “flesh”.

We were pretty limited in what we could do by a combination of snow and the number of spoons all of us had, so we drove around a bit and saw some of the sights from the car, including the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. Amazing how they’ve built temples to all these old Presidents – a very different attitude to past leaders than we have in Australia, or even than the British have to their royalty.

We stopped at the Lincoln memorial, got out and took a bit of a walk (or in my case, wheel) around. The reflecting pool (which runs between the Lincoln and the Capitol, and is over 600m long) was frozen over, with tourists walking on it. Apparently someone fell through the ice a few days ago, and had to be rescued (it’s less than waist deep, but the ice made it hard to get out). That doesn’t seem to be stopping everyone else, though.

In various ways it’s clear that America is still struggling economically. Homeless people outside the Whitehouse, no money for plowing or salting the roads, many roads aren’t being repaired properly, and there are potholes everywhere. And this year the kids have missed a lot of school due to the snow. Normally, that means they extend the school year by a week to make up the days. But this year, they won’t, since there’s not enough money to pay the extra wages (teachers don’t get paid during vacations here, so it’s a big expense). Unfortunately, there is still plenty of cash to fund two wars 🙁

Alex, Scott, Jacqui and I walked to the front of the Whitehouse, as Alex was keen to take a few pictures.

OK, I’m cheating and doing two days in one. But honestly, we’ve done very little. We’ve caught up on our sleep – which I badly needed. My health’s doing well, but this week of relaxing and doing not too much has been badly needed.

We’ve spent plenty of time catching up and hanging out – we’ve all missed each other while the Colemans have been here. Steve, Scott and Alex have been playing Magic and a bunch of other card games, and we’ve all been watching the Olympics.

We’ve also been to the shops – as if we hadn’t done enough shopping in NY! Scott and Alex now have enough clothes to last them for a good few years (and can stop wearing the jeans I bought them when I was last in the US in 2006, we’ve now re-stocked). My bankruptcy will be announced shortly.

The snow is endless – they’ve been busy plowing and salting, but there’s literally nowhere to put it. In some locations they’re carting it away in trucks and dumping it in remote locations.

This photo of the carpark at the local Westfield (yep, they’ve got ’em here too) gives you some idea – this is what it looks like pretty much everywhere – snow stacked several metres high wherever you look, blocking access, parking spaces, whatever. Footpaths are all non-existent, and most roads are only partially plowed. I don’t have any issues driving on the wrong side or with different road rules, but I’m really glad I’m not trying to drive around here.

To add to the problems, there’s a shortage of salt and plowing equipment (because of the extreme conditions) and because of the economy many cities and states just don’t have the money to pay for sufficient or timely plowing – after the last storm they delayed for a day because they couldn’t afford to pay the Sunday overtime.