Indiana Stickface and the Gap Year of Doom: July 2011

Apologies once again, dear readers, but our jet-setting lifestyle has limited computer access somewhat. So, are you ready? Can you read ten whole posts and then look at pictures and wish you were with us without breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing while the oppressing grey skies outside mock your very existence? Are you sure? Then read on...

Wednesday 6th July

Golly gosh, what a long time ago, allow us to cast our collective consciousness back through the mists of awesome... ah yes, I recall. We did nothing, again. We were stranded in Salt Lake City until the new temporary plate for the car arrived, and we were feeling optimistic about this day, so we checked out of our Comfort Inn, loaded up the car and lurked in the foyer waiting for the post to arrive. By 7pm it finally dawned on us that the postman didn't like us, and to add insult to injury the Comfort Inn was now full for the night, leaving us briefly homeless. A short foray to the Crystal Inn across the road (motels grow in patches) rectified this situation, and we killed the rest of the evening by toddling off to the cinema again and watching Pirates of the Caribbean 4, which was most enjoyable and should still be in a cinema near you.

Thursday 7th July

Any mail-related optimism suitably trampled by the monotony of the previous day, we needed to do something outside of Salt Lake City. Being boys with a toy (namely Dave), we couldn't resist the allure of the fabled Bonneville Speedway, so what optimism that remained made us leave Ed's phone number with the Comfort Inn before we once more hit the road. For those not in the know, the Americans noticed that the large areas of salty nothingess in this area would be a good place to drive cars incredibly quickly without crashing, and so set up Bonneville Speedway, which is a collection of flag markers stretching out for 10 miles onto the flats guiding drivers aiming to boost their bragging rights. After an hour and a half of dull freeway and a brief side road we were rewarded with the sight of no more road and blinding whiteness as far as the eye can see. What followed could be described by some as mild hooliganism or possibly just boys having fun, but after some successful drifts and doughnuts (and even Simon and Ed having a go behind the wheel) we decided the car was suitably caked in salt and called it a day, especially seeing as Tim and Guy's faces would probably break if they grinned any more. Returning to Salt Lake City we were once agin disappointed by both the United States Postal Service and FedEx and resigned ourselves to another night of waiting.

Friday 8th July

The plate arrived! Finally we could leave Utah! Our elation upon the arrival of the morning post was matched only by our elation at making two tonnes of metal go sideways instead of forwards the previous day, but hey, it had been an odd week. As for the rest of the day, there isn't much else to report. Our aim was to get as close to the Grand Canyon as possible, which to be fair we almost succeeded at. The closest town was Jacob's Lake, Arizona, which had but one eponymous inn; we thought that just because the sat nav said there was only one place to stay just meant others weren't showing up and that it would be a town teeming with motels. However, fate once again tripped us over and laughed at our misfortune, as Jacob's Lake was in the heart of the (rather pretty) Kaibab National Forest and consisted of some trees and one building, which was a very full inn. Disheartened, we found the nearest place to stay to be 35 miles back the way we came in the town of Kanab, Utah. So much for finally leaving the Beehive State. Nope, we have no idea why it's called that either.

Saturday 9th July

So, dear reader, you're two days in and feeling confident. However, those days were uneventful and easy to read. Brace yourself, as now we ascend into the heady heights of Things Occurring. Your brain may implode as it tries to register all the amazing things we experience over the next few days; don't say I didn't warn you.
Some driving (this country involves a lot of that) brought us to the north rim of the celebrated Grand Canyon. Now, I know that you are at this point thinking that there's no point in you having a cheeky scroll down to the pictures before you read on, as you know what the Grand Canyon looks like, and that is where you are very much mistaken. The south rim of the canyon is the more touristy area, and subsequently the more photographed, with the familiar image of desert dropping away to vast red cliffs. At the north rim, there is forest instead of desert, not just up to the rim of the canyon itself but also all the way down to the canyon floor, which if anything just makes it all the more spectacular. Words really cannot do justice to the sheer scale of this place, and it really hits home when you realise that those little dark green specks littering the rock face are in fact full-grown trees. After viewing the canyon from the Scenic Viewpoint at the visitors' centre, we indulged in the most British of traditions, the Soggy Barbecue, as the heavens dribbled and we attempted to use a waterproof bag cover to protect our precious steaks. Meat dry and stomachs full, we decided to have a go at one of the trails down into the canyon itself, which sounded rather quaint in the guidebook. How hard could it to be?
The walk down into the canyon was absolutely amazing, with fantastic views as we descended through various layers of rock under the shelter of pine trees, with the only downside being the constant need to dodge deposits left by the parties of mules, which for a fee carry rich lazy people who don't like having hurty legs to the canyon floor and back again. After a couple of hours' walking we reached a spot with a pleasant view and decided this would be a good point to head back up the canyon. At this juncture I would like to point out that over a 2.5 mile walk, we had descended nigh on 2000 feet, which left quite a steep climb back up in store for us. Needless to say, being plucky and British we clambered at a fair rate of knots, endured mild altitude sickness, clambered at a lesser rate of knots, and soon were back in the car feeling achey but triumphant. Guy drove us into the night and late o'clock saw us checking into a Best Western in the outskirts of Las Vegas.

DOD: Guy for driving into a pole (gently).

Sunday 10th July

44 degrees Celsius. That's what greeted us as we plonked ourselves into our automobile ready for the day's fun and adventures. Try to imagine that temperature. You will fail, as it is hotter than you think. Trust America to think that building a city in the middle of the bloody desert would be a good idea. Anyway, onto our fun and adventures.
As I'm sure you're aware, Las Vegas is a city of infamy and debauchery; perhaps some of you have indulged in it. However, debauchery is controlled by strict regulations if you're under 21, so we drove along the Strip taking pictures out of the window before heading out towards the Hoover Dam*. The Hoover Dam is itself a good example of everything in America: it is absurdly big. There's not much else to say about it other than one side's wet and the other isn't.
Our next stop for the day was Death Valley National Park, which predictably involved a couple of hundred miles of intellectually challenging straight roads before we hit the park itself. Arriving in the park, we turned a corner on a mountain and had to stop simply for the surreality of the view. We had stopped at the appropriately named Hell's Gate and the view across Death Valley is like nothing else on Earth and certainly like nothing any of us had seen before: jagged mountains block the horizon while the valley floor is filled with what looks like a misplaced area of Mars, with nothing but rocks and the occasional clump of sand dunes. Death Valley is of course one of the hottest places in the world, and when we reached the valley floor the car's thermometer read 50 degrees Celsius. That is officially Bloody Hot, and we had to jump out of the car to experience it; the closest analogy I can think of is if you were a very tiny person surrounded by very big hairdryers but without the annoying noise. So yeah, a tad on the warm side. This absurd heat was starting to take its toll on Dave - we'd already been brave and turned the air conditioning off to stop her overheating - and the steep roads down the mountain on the far side of the valley proved too much for the brakes, necessitating a stop in a layby amid quite a smelly cloud of smoke. While we left Dave to cool down in the shade of the mountain, we got chatting to the inhabitants of the other vehicle in the layby: three friendly German guys (thankfully with perfect English) whose car had complained in a similar manner to ours, and so they had taken the opportunity to have a barbecue and watch the sunset. Before long they had decided that we were their impromptu guests and insisted we share their dinner and beer with them. Now, when I say they were having a barbecue, I don't think I communicated the sheer panache with which they accomplished this - we were given a rather delicious chicken salad and then lobster! Our gratitude suitably expressed and Dave seemingly cool and less smelly, we set off into the night and eventually found a motel.

HOD: Guy for finding Ed's shades. Ed had dropped them when leaving the car halfway through Death Valley, which meant we had to drive back in the dark to find them!
DOD: Tim for hitting a pole (noticing a theme here?) and then a rabbit. Murderer.

*Simon's Historically Interesting Tidbit: The Hoover Dam was not in fact built by President Hoover! Herbert Hoover was President of the USA at the start of the Great Depression and closely followed a policy of doing nothing at all about it. The Hoover Dam is named after him, even though it was built under Roosevelt (Hoover's successor and bitter opponent) as a way to stimulate the economy. Roosevelt named the thing after Hoover out of spiteful irony because it turned out to be a Very Good Idea to actually do something constructive.

Monday 11th July

This was our first of two days in Yosemite National Park - that's right, three national parks in as many days. I'm not even going to attempt to put the beauty of Yosemite into words, we'll put some scenic pictures in with this post to try and get the idea across but it really is an absolutely magical place. The day consisted mostly of driving along the trails and stopping whenever we saw something pretty, so we made slow but pleasant progress. The only real thing of note was when we stopped at a rather impressive granite mountain and made a spur of the moment decision to climb it, then saw when we were at the top that we weren't actually at the top and climbed some further until we were. The smooth granite made for a fairly easy climb - even for Tim in sandals - and the view from the top was breathtaking, even if that was in part due to sheer altitude. Come evening we left the park via the fantastically dramatic Yosemite Valley and stopped for the night in the town of Merced, which was far enough away to not be too expensive but still close enough to be driveable for our return to Yosemite the next day.

Tuesday 12th July

Once back in Yosemite, we started the day by ambling around a sequoia grove for a few hours and generally having our minds blown by the sheer enormity of the sequoias themselves. Pictures below. This actually turned out to be quite the serious trek, much more so than the mountain the previous day, which proved rather unfortunate for Tim and Ed who absent-mindedly just saw that it was sunny and once again wore sandals and flip flops, respectively. Their feet got quite dirty, and by quite I mean very. Emerging from the grove we stopped at a picnic point for our final road trip barbecue of pork chops and corn on the cob, fending off flies and a remarkably fat and people-friendly squirrel. Content and full, Tim had fun driving up the twisty road to Glacier Point, where we watched the sunset across Yosemite Valley before leaving the park and returning to Merced ready to drive through California the following day.

HOD: Simon for being an excellent wingman to Ed on top of a mountain.
DOD: Tim for briefly grounding the car on a sneaky curb (or as we like to call it crashing. Again.)

Wednesday 13th July

After a couple of hours on the road we arrived in San Francisco, eager and optimistic about finding a room and getting to exploring the city. Driving around San Francisco was utterly surreal, due to the way the city is built on very, very steep hills - if anyone's seen Bullitt they'll know what I'm talking about, but if not just have a look on Google Images, as it really is absurd. You can be driving up a hill and seeing nothing but sky as you crest it, then realise you've got to go down the other side and pray your brakes work. However, even with Guy's excellent city driving skills it soon became apparent that we weren't going to find anywhere with a vacancy within the city itself, as for some strange reason everywhere was full. And when I mean everywhere, I mean everywhere. Come 9.30pm, we finally got the very last room in a motel in Santa Clara, which is 45 miles away at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay. This left us quite disheartened, particularly bearing in mind how excited we were to see the city earlier (Simon's been before and had told of its wonders), but some tapping away at smart phones got us the number of a hostel in downtown San Francisco which might have a vacancy, so we turned in with all our hopes pinned on a phone call the following morning.
PS, Happy Birthday to Graham Cross this day!

Thursday 14th July

Our hopes and prayers were answered as a phone call found that the Adelaide Hostel in San Francisco did indeed have a vacancy for the four of us for the next few nights - indeed, dear reader, I write to you from said abode this very moment. This glimmer of accomodation did come at a price however - $180 a night for all four of us, as all they had was a private room as opposed to dorms, which is double what we've been paying most of the way across the States, then $20 a day on top of that to keep Dave parked safe and sound, which is cheaper than parking on the street, but still... Our wallets hurt. At least dinner's cheap, with the hostel offering it for $5 a head, which is at least mild relief. Anyway, enough about money. Once we'd dumped our bags we set off on an afternoon expedition to Golden Gate Park, made it back just in time for dinner and then were pleasantly surprised by the hostel's Thursday night special: free wine and cheese! As you might guess, we slept well.

HOD: Ed for sorting out the Adelaide Hostel.

Friday 15th July

We got up early today in order to get to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, as for some reason it's free between 9 and 10am, and any opportunity to not spend money at this point is not to be sniffed at. The garden is a pleasant little box of tranquillity in the middle of the city, with trickling waterfalls, shimmering koi, shady pagodas and impressively big bonsai that make you feel several feet taller than you really are. After an hour or so we wandered across the park to experience the enticing excitement of the excellently named Exploratorium, which combines a planetarium, aquarium and zoo under one big glass roof. Those crazy Americans. This kept us out of trouble for another couple of hours, and then it was time to leave, for we had an appointment to make. We walked through the city, Ed, Simon and Guy stopping briefly at a Ben & Jerry's boutique for some ice cream milkshakey goodness while Tim "got lost" and ended up in a guitar shop whimpering. Then some more walking brought us to our destination. Yes dear reader, 6 weeks into the trip, we had decided it was time for a haircut.
However, this was to be no ordinary haircut. Reason the first: instead of an Olde Ynglishe Barber who would whip out a razor and charge a tenner, we had ventured upon an expensive salon. Reason the second: we swore before the trip to all dye our hair in New York as a bit of fun. Better late than never. Two and a half hours (!!!!) later and the results are below for you to see. Those paying attention to the tweets will already know.

And so dear reader, you have reached the end of this most gargantuan of posts, and we have caught up with our blog, so we're all happy. Now feast your eyes on the pictures below, which I'm told are worth a thousand words each, which saves you some reading and me some typing. Until we meet again, adieu! (This applies to both you the reader and to this web page, god knows when we'll next find a computer and be bothered to do this.)

Edit: HOD: Tim for staying up til 2.45 to do the blog and pictures while Simon and Ed sleep. Honorary mention to Guy for keeping me company.

PS Our car's up for sale now! The Millenium She-Dave has served us well over these many miles but now her time with us is at an end. If you're in San Francisco and want a car, let us know! Similarly, if you're in the UK and want a car far worse for your money than anything else available locally, let us know and we'll leave you to sort out the importing costs and your own sanity.