The California Connection

Wednesday, we headed for Fresno,   http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=fresno&ie=UTF8&ll=37.094622,-120.080566&spn=1.844554,3.702393&z=8&iwloc=addr picking up fresh fruit and nuts from the San Fernando Valley. Roads liberally dotted with vineyards, olive & orange groves. Ideally situated for Sequoia National Park. The Vagabond Executive - tho' not at all executive, served as a roof over our heads for two nights. The highlight was a cooked breakfast served on polystyrene plates, and coffee served on same. Our second night was a "Home Town Buffett" - all you can eat for £6.00 - steaks included. This was enjoyed after a full day - Thurs - at Sequoia -  seeing the largest longest living life form on earth today - wow.  Lots of snow and so able to have some good snowball fights.  American accent not improved much.

  Helen says: Friday, we decided on a relaxing morning, which lasted till 9am! Headed 45miles north to Oakhurst via a 'Target' superstore to pick up the last camping bits and bobs we needed. Lovely warm weather to be replaced by much cooler air, tho' bright skies as we arrived in Oakhurst. Found good, simple motel lodging and after eating at "Crab Cakes" headed up to Yosemite. Amazing beauty as we climbed up to 7000ft.  All slept amazingly well last night.  Awoke on Saturday to a cold, crisp, bright morning. Denise not feeling too good, so decided to stay put so the rest bundled into the 7 seater and headed back up into the park hoping for a spot of ski-ing for the lads.  As we hit 3500ft the snow started falling. We reached the top and started the descent only to find some cars stopped, and on the advice of a couple that there had been several accidents further down, with even 4 wheel drive vehicles slipping around, we thought it prudent to turn around and head back. Bri drove masterfully back down thru treacherous conditions - amazing how quickly the road conditions had worsened.  The steep zigzagging barrierless roads didn't help. At one point a 4 wheel drive pickup approached us with his back end swinging towards us - how he missed us we don't know. Got back down safely and picked Denise up and went for a Mexican meal and found the KH ready for tomorrow.  John and Millie played Mum and Dad and oversaw the washing onsite whilst Caroline played big sis and entertained the lads with endless games. 

  Hi sam here, so here's some more info of our trip so far, after "playing games" with Miss Winkworth our games master!! And going to bed, we woke early this morning (07:40ish), and we went to have breakfast at a local cafe
(well as the sign outside said "Eggs Bacon and Things!)
We had:
Brian; Toast, jam, cereal, coffee, yogurt.
Caroline; Bacon, egg, pancakes, coffee.
Denise; Eggs, fries, coffeee.
John; Toast, jam, coffee.
Millie; Coffee.
Russell; Sausage, eggs, pancakes, Pink Lemonade (UGH!!!)
Helen; Toast, jam, eggs, coffee. Sam; Pancakes. (I KNOW you don't belive me but its true!)

At 1:00pm (our time) we went to the local congregation named Oakhurst (The ladies toilets were so AWESOME!(not that i go looking in the ladies toilets!!! No i just got told they were.) where 3 congregations use the hall one at 9:30am, one at 1:00pm and one at 3:30pm.
Will write some more later but going to "play games" with Miss Winkworth again and some of the other gang so, TTFN


 Caz says: So the meeting in Oakhurst was very good. Denise did my hair and there are some embarassing pictures that hopefully will never see the light of the internet. We all prepared beforehand by sitting out in the sun between our two parked cars. John took us thru the study and we all answered. Got to the hall early as the brother who owns the cafe we went to this morning for breakfast said 12.30 start but when we got there we found it started at 13.00. But it gave us time to look around the hall. It was open and no one else was there! Managed to impress everyone with our English/Welsh/Irish/Australian accents if not our answers. People are having trouble with pronouncing my surname and I am thinking of officially changing my name to Caroline Noonecanpronouncemysurname. It would save considerable time. We met a nice sister called Carma who had moved here about 3 months ago. She was really helpful as she had moved from San Francisco and her husband used to work on the BART transport system. We are hoping to keep in touch. The boys especially want to go visit as she has a Wii machine. She was wearing hi heeled boots -"These are my two hour sit down boots, not my walk around boots". After the meeting we went to the steak house and ate... again! I won't give you the low down on all the individual meals but it involved ribs, chicken and sausage with rice and fries and milkshakes. A typical meal in the American venacular and as usual on plastic plates. John is now having difficulty doing his laces and is wondering what else he can do while he is down there. He is paying the boys a quarter to take off his shoes for him!

Denise says: The highlights of my day were doing Caroline's hair, seeing everyone laugh and meeting the sisters at the hall. They were all so warm and welcoming. That's it. It's nice to widen out in Jehovah's family. Now I'm ready for bed.

Tuesday 18th March -
Thursday 20th March

No access to wi-fi due to a couple of nights under canvas at
Anthony Chabot National Park.  
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=10176991874977300152,37.759449,-122.105129&saddr=9999+Redwood+Rd,+Castro+Valley,+CA+94546,+United+States+(Anthony+Chabot+Campground)&daddr=&mra=pe&mrcr=0&sll=37.74151,-122.113869&sspn=0.114298,0.2314&ie=UTF8&ll=37.753344,-122.264099&spn=0.457117,0.925598&z=10
Sooo cold at the high altitude. This park and camp was 30 miles east of San Francisco. We commuted into the city by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transportation) the first day to do the touristy bits - Pier 39 etc.,and by cars the second day! Trusty Sat. Nav. struggled under the shadow of such tall buildings, but enjoyed the tramcar power plant and museum, complemented by a true Chinese meal in Chinatown.



Millie has got us all addicted to the Starbucks coffee shops, but thankfully, half the price of the UK. Conveniently located next to a true American Safeway, with more food than you can throw a stick at.

Motel near Sacramento ready for our sojourn to Death Valley. If we don't get out, come looking for us before the vultures do! Need to be back in Las Vegas for flight to New York on Thursday next = still with Bryce & Zion National Parks, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam............another 1000 miles to add to our 1500 miles so far.....Phew.

 Sam adds: Here are a few more points that we enjoyed about San Francisco. Although the BART has a grand name, it's really very similar to the London Underground, but the cars are much wider and are carpeted with more comfy seats, hence then the price goes up $9ish per person for a 30 minute jorney round trip, but a nice convenient way to get into the city. Pier 39 was VERY much like Blackpool set up for tourists [but not to our liking.] When we got back to the campsite and woke up the following morning it was an interesting sight to see everybody working non stop to get everything packed away neat and tidy ready to move on to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then it was a long journey to Sacremento where we stayed the night.

Friday 21st of March

Travelled from Sacramento down to Death Valley  
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=812753008913025458,36.542890,-118.047500&saddr=sacramento&daddr=US-395+S+%4036.542890,+-118.047500&mra=pi&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=6&sll=37.387617,-117.333984&sspn=7.346982,14.80957&ie=UTF8&ll=36.879621,-119.575195&spn=7.396347,14.80957&z=6
 - at the 'back' of Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Stunning landscapes around Lake Tahoe - vistas like you've never seen. Huge mountains ranges, for the most part covered in snow, set against a vivid blue sky. Very difficult to capture on film, but John having a good go with his new video camera.

 Helen adds; I have never seen so much snow and spectacular scenery before. Amazing. All desperate for the loo, two garages not helpful, public toilets closed due to three foot of snow I entered the California Highway Patrol office who were most obliging and let us all in two at a time!!

Saturday 22nd of March

We left our reasonable overnight motel accomodation at Lone Pine
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=death+valley&ie=UTF8&ll=36.607359,-118.064527&spn=0.001813,0.003616&t=h&z=18 (hotel in centre with swimming pool)and descended into Death Valley for the 130 mile trip to Pahrump for our most special meeting of the year. Pahrump turned out to be a desolate place - with a Kingdom Hall, but no accomodation.

We unanimously decided to contine another 80 miles to Vegas. Wi-fi come into it's own again when a friendly mechanic allowed us to tap into his connection. We obtained accomodation at Las Vegas in the "Golden Nugget" Casino. It was a glitzy sort of place, but very comfortable for what we paid - the same as we would pay for a Travelodge in the UK! We swam in the newly refurbished $30 million pool - replete with shark tank. The slide took you through the glass tank, and out of the other side - wow!

We went to the memorial - the first of 3 meetings was Spanish, the second two were English, so whilst waiting for our meeting at 8 o'clock, we all enjoyed Pizza. The Cheyanne area  in Vegas was expecting a combined total of 1,000. Cheyanne is one of hundreds of congregations in Vegas - of all languages. We enjoyed an attendance of 275.

After a leisurely Sunday morning in the hotel pool, we left for Zion National Park. We travelled about 100 miles, and located a beautiful campsite in the town of Hurricane.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=las+vegas+to+hurricane&sll=36.250918,-116.460571&sspn=0.932472,1.851196&ie=UTF8&z=8

We sat out in 75 degrees with clear blue skies. When the sun disappeared, we took shelter in the site launderette, where all the lasses were catching up on the washing!!

Tuesday 24th March
After an unexpectedly cool night, John and I spent some time cooking a heart-clogging bacon & egg breakfast, with jam doughnuts and coffee to follow.



Touring the Canyon was another of our fantastic experiences. We've just got back after a full day. The 80 degree sunshine has sapped our energy, so now thinking of showers, and dressing for a meal - still in Hurricane, spending our last night under canvas, and then heading in a clockwise direction to Grand Canyon for a hotel ready for Wednesday in Grand Canyon National park. Thursday will see us back in Vegas for our early morning flight back to The Big Apple.

HI FROM ME: CAROLINE - (MISS WINKWORTH)!!!


Tuesday 25th March 2008
After a late start (got up fairly early but didn't realise that we had changed time zones when we crossed the border so in fact it was 2 hours later than we thought) made our way around to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  Denise and I have found the solution to happy camping and that is to have a foldaway John with you to put up and take down your tent!  Also good to get up late so that he has already put away his own and is able to help with yours.  We can sell you a foldaway John for $50 if you want one of your own for camping trips.


Wednesday 26th March 2008
Headed back to the Canyon and took the shuttle bus around to a few points. Nice and breezy so cut down on the temperature a bit - perfect for walking.


 
2750 miles travelled on the Californian leg of our holiday.  Bring on New York and Niagra!


Thursday 27th March 2008
Spent the day travelling from Grand Canyon to Vegas - via Hoover dam. Very impressive. John, Helen & boys were dropped off to 'peer' over the side and enquire about tours. Very busy. Queues of traffic and people horrendous, so very difficult to turn around and pick them up on the narrow two lane road. Bri driving one car, Caz the other. We were a mile away peering over a ledge in radio contact. The police prevented them walking on an unpaved road, we didn't want to re-negotiate the queues of cars again to pick them up, follow the traffic to the other side of the dam, turn around to queue once more for the return journey. Braveheart Caz jumped in her car, and disappeared in a trail of smoke to rescue the miscreants. 30 minutes later, Caroline reappeared, her mission of rescue accomplished! Whoops all round. Our cars were duly returned to Dollar, and they kindly 'shuttled' us back to the hotel. A short walk found us enjoying a truly fabulous Indian meal. Such restaurants few-and-far between in the U.S of A.

Friday 28th March
4:45 am found us waiting outside our Best Western hotel in Vegas. Taxis were reluctant to commit to picking us up. One taxi turned away saying we would need a van for all our luggage. He said he would radio for a van. We were left high and dry for 45 minutes. It turns out that their company doesn't even have a van. He was quite happy to leave us waiting!!! Further cries for help found us being shuttled in 3 taxis at a cost of £7.50 each cab - not bad once the service eventually arrived.
Eventually, all worked out like clockwork, and we arrived in JFK airport New York Mid Afternoon. By the time our rental cars were sorted, we were driving through Manhattan at rush hour. John did so well. He was glued to our tail, well wouldn't you be???
Now in Strousburg Pennsylvania in a Hampton Inn.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=2101785308030849271,41.002590,-75.149430&saddr=40.988192,-75.184937&daddr=&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=8&sll=41.058644,-74.794922&sspn=1.743733,3.702393&ie=UTF8&z=8
Comfy beds - here we come!!

Saturday 29th March
Off to Batavia, (pronounced Batayvia) a little town with excellent hotel facilities 50 miles east of Niagara.
We had also located a Kingdom Hall  address there, so made perfect sense to stop there for 2 nights.

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