Dail and Willis across America

Hello Friends! Willis and I are having a blast traveling across our country. We started out from Seattle on Tuesday afternoon, July 22 and made it all the way to Portland! WOWOW! We spent the nights with friends Sue and Quince--who helped me get our trip planned. I had a high level vision before we left Seattle, but hadn't even begun to execute on it. (Microsoft friends--note the language is still with me!) Wednesday was Sue's birthday, so it was nice to be with her for a morning celebration at the Bipartisan cafe.

Sue had plotted out the day's route to Emigrant Lake Park. Though she had never been there, she had heard stories from her parents about camping there and figured it would be wonderful--she was right. Willis and I got our system going with our first night of camping--putting up our tent, a stove-cooked meal of spaghetti (yes, yes, I am famous for my spaghetti), a romp on the playground, complete with flying high on the swings.

Thursday, July 24 we were off to Lake Tahoe--unfortunately, the northern California fires impacted our drive that day. Mt Shasta was pretty well socked in. It was nice to arrive on the shores of Lake Tahoe that evening and be up and away from the smoke. We camped at Sugar Pines State Park and put all of our food in a bear box. Evidence of critters was all around the next morning--I found three of our empty plastic containers scattered among the bushes, tops removed and chewed. Bears? Squirrels? Marmots? Willis in the night looking for a snack? Lake Tahoe water truly is crystal clear--and cold! Too cold for me for a leisurely swim, but a quick dip was just right to see us off the next morning--Friday, July 25 we headed to Yosemite. Of course, visiting Lake Tahoe set me on the back roads to Yosemite--lots of wild driving, but we arrived safely at our campground outside the park. The Telegraph fire was really impacting the area; lots of smoke and drifting ash on our tent that night. Having spent time in eastern Washington during wildfires, I head learned that you just go about your business until someone tells you differently--so we did. Saturday, we headed into the park. Magnificent and awe-inspiring, even with the haze from the fire. Everyone should see El Capitan and Half Dome. We snagged the last two seats on a two hour tram ride with a National Park ranger through Yosemite Valley--this was great for me as I didn't have to drive and look at the scenery at the same time--and Willis didn't have to shout "Mom, keep your eyes on the road!" The valley was incredibly crowded, and I was glad to head out and through the park on route 120/Tioga Pass going east. This turned out to be my favorite part of Yosemite--getting up and away from the crowds and (still) the smoke and seeing the true wilderness of Yosemite.

By early evening, we were driving through the Mono Lake area and paralleling the Sierra Nevada mountains (which we had just crossed via Yosemite). Stunning, absolutely stunning. The colors, the sunset, the mountains. We camped at Brown's Town campground in Bishop, CA that evening. We had polished off the spaghetti the night before, which we had been eating for--well, you can count--a few days, so I had to dig deep into my culinary recesses for our evening meal.

Looking ahead to the next day, we had two choices for getting to Las Vegas (high on Willis's list): skirt Death Valley by going north around it, or go right through it. My AAA travel book said Death Valley should be avoided at all costs in the summer time. So, of course, that is a double-dog-dare-you for me. I bought a gallon of anti-freeze, topped off the engine's cooling system, added three bags of ice to our cooler and we headed into Death Valley. Willis immediately said "Hey, this looks a lot like Africa!" When we drove across Botswana in 2006, we saw similar scenery--desert, shimmering oases, salt pans...so we figured we were veterans at desert crossings. This really was an incredible drive--about 5 hours to cross the entire desert, with amazing and unusual canyons, salt pans, shrubs and sand dunes. We emerged from our air conditioned car to walk to the top of the sand dune ridge about mid-way through Death Valley. Intense, very intense. Turns out Death Valley temperature for the day (Sunday, July 27, 2008) was 115 degrees farenheit. Whew!

We made it to Las Vegas that night--quite a contrast to come out of Death Valley into this crazy, wild, over the top city in the middle of the desert. Today we are off for sight seeing on the Las Vegas strip--and then to the Grand Canyon. I'll get photos posted soon, so check back in a few days for more trip reports and PHOTOS!!!
Lots of love to all of our friends--Dail and Willis