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Friday 22 September: Yosemite Park. After a scenic drive though the valley we went for a hike near Glacier Point which is on the south of the valley. It was a great 1.5h hike (2h in the booklet) through soaky forest, snowy hillsides and a great view from the top of Sentinel Peak. For the first time ever Bas experienced a “kletspoot”, together with Kirsten, by stepping into a puddle which was suddenly very deep. Yosemite park was named after an Indian tribe which was purged to extinction around 1850. The park is known for it’s two remarkable cliffs named El Capitan and Half Dome. The first is a sheerwall from the valley going up half a mile or so, the second is half of a dome where the other half splitt off and was carried away by the river or glacier ages ago. After taking a last few sniffs from the remaining forest fires we drove to San Fransisco ending up in a typical American restaurant: somehwere in the middle of fastfood and an European style restaurant.





Foto: Hetch Hetchy lake nabij Yosemite



Saturday 23 September: San Fransico day. With Bart, a mass transit system, we travelled to downtown San Fransisco and walked along the piers, number 1 till 45. At pier 39 sealions had colonized the area around 1920 and were indulged, kept coming back due to the easy herring supply, and are now a tourist attraction. Pier 39-45 is the nicest, busiest, part of this area and here we had a good lunch in an Italian seafood restaurant with very large mussels. If you have ever seen a movie with jumping cars over a hill in a city: it could have been filmed here, since it is another tourist attraction as well as local trafic; you have to go over a hill from seaside to reach part of the rest of the city. The tourist tram over this hill had a 1 hour queue, so we deceided to take an alternative to Mission district to visit some shops and admired the small amount of local graffiti that was worth looking at. San Fransisco is known for being a crucible of cultures with many artists, which were about the only things the city has left after the earthquake of 1906. Which is probably why every scene filmed in San Fransisco is preceeded by a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, nothing else in the city is remarkable.





Foto: winkeltje.



Zag twee beren...
Sunday 24 September: bears day! On the road to Sequoia park we saw a car suddenly smashing into the right shoulder. Looks like he had a ‘klapband’. From the large amount of vehicles next to the road we expect that they don’t have an “APK” (annual mandatory vehicle check) here. The sequoia park is named after an Indian chief and sequoia trees may reach an age of more than 1000 years. They manage to grow roughly a 100 meters high and 10 meters heigh, some of them do at least. The largest one they found is called general Sherman three. Hiking around a meadow with sequoia’s we encountered a mother black bear and two young. We could hear mother tearring up three truncks before we could see her and then the children came into view playing about and basically destroying everything in their path. Seeing these bears up close you wonder again whether you should stay put, run or climb a three. Seeing the young bears climb up a three and play fully tearing off branches, you realize the third option isn’t it (staying putt and making a lot of noise is). We stayed at a safe distance off course; 30-40 meters was their nearest point of passage. After that some kind of badger had taken up residence in a three trunk and was fiddeling about being cute for us tourists. Have seen lot’s of beautifull mountain scenery on almost any other holiday Bas found these threes very special. However, after the bears we kind of forgot about the threes and were focuses on bears only. On the way down we we’re delayed for about a hour because one of the lesser three species decided to flatten itself on the road. In the morning Kirsten already found that our restaurant of choice offered juicy rib-eye. When we finally arrived at the restaurant an eldery woman had put three big pieces of meat on the bbq, so we asked what is was and the answer was ‘rib-eye’. Inside we ordered two rib-eye’s ;-).
Monday 25 September: birthday Bas. Today we drove to Los Angeles, a ‘city’ of 50 by 50km, known for it’s sunny weather and movie productions. The rest of the day we spend at the swimming pool of our hotel relaxing.

Tuesday 26 September: Los Angeles day. We went for a drive though Los Angeles. First stop: Hollywood. We visited the Hollywood boulevard including the Dolby theather, Chinese theather and a smal part of the walk of fame with the stars on the sidewalk from celebrities devided in 5 categories (a.o. movie and music). A star cost 25000 dollar, mostly paid by the company the star is/has been working for. Next we toured through Beverly Hills and felt sorry for these poor asses, who couldn’t even afford a level garden. Bel Air was even worse, although the road and surroundings were well kept. So we fled to the Getty museum. Finally a museum where there is a balance between the value of the art on display and the construction cost of the building. It was a beautifull building, including several Rembrandts. Next stop: Santa Monica beach & pier. A beautifull pier with a small fair (kermis) and a roller coster on it. Last we took a look at the harbour where the Queen Mary lies. Still quite a long ship. We selected a place for dinner here with a nice view over the harbour with it’s changing rainbow lighthouse.

Wednesday 27 September: shopping and reading day. That is: one half of our group went shopping and the other half found a good book to read. Afterwards the shoppers met up with the readers and returned to their pool & wine.

Foto: Getty museum te Los Angeles

Gelegen op een strandboulevard regio Los Angeles
Thursday 28 September: beach dag. It was difficult to find a quiet spot since it was quiet everywhere. Finally we settled and watched the mists rolling in from the sea. It has a nice cooling effect and lasted till noon. All the beaches are very wide and stretch for miles and miles. Sport facilities are seen everywhere including long bike roads through the beach. However we didn’t see many/any terraces or ‘strandhutjes’ (zoals bij Den Haag).

Friday 29 September: today we left for Las Vegas and thanks to the carpool lane we had almost no delays in busy trafic. In Las Vegas we had a room in the casino hotel ‘Circus Circus’, obviously with the theme ‘circus and themepark’, which attracted families.. On our way to Venice, before even getting to the detour of the Encore and Wynn casino’s, we got stuck in a Ross-shop. Bas needed a bigger suitcase and as all the suitcases were dirt ugly as well as cheap, Bas decided to get the one Kirsten found was very pretty (with the Tour de Eiffel on it by night). On the way out we filled it up with clothes. We had dinner at the Venetian again with great mussels in sausage-garlic sauce, and took a sip of wine of the coastline of the sidewalk watching the lights of the Strip.

Weekend: we took the car for a cruise across the Strip and parked it at Hertz. With a transit in Minneapolis, apparently known for elks and midgets, we arrived savely in the Netherlands.


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