Today I went into Death Valley. The scenery was awesome, it was a bit hot though, a little bit less than 50 degrees Celcius. When I entered the park I encountered a number of Joshua Trees:

The whole park was hot and dry, some riverbeds where covered with a hard crust of salt and dried mud. When you walk over it it cracks and you step in the empty spaces underneath the crust.

After having a Ceasar Salad and a refreshing beer at Furnace Creek, I went to see Badwater. With 86.0m below sealevel it’s the lowest point in the USA. That definately was the hottest area I encountered:

After Death Valley I headed for the Gold Coast Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, where I would be stying for two nights for just $ 32,- Check out that room, not bad is it?

An impression of the day:

When I woke up this morning I headed next door to the El Mono Coffee house for some coffee and some internet time to finish my last two posts about Yosemite National Park. Again the Humming Birds were hovering around my head so when I was done I tried to photograph them; this appeared to be quite tough as they were not really happy with me around while they were drinking nectar or sugar water. I did manage to make a few photographs though; here’s one:

Around 10:45 I left Lee Vinining and set my TomTom to head for Death Valley. The first reasonably large settlement I reached was Mammoth Lakes, and as my phone charger was broken (cable rupture) I went to the local radioshack and got a new car charger for my Nokia N73 to replace the broken one.

From Mammoth lakes I continued on, and I suddenly noticed some very old Model T Ford’s on the side of the road. They were parked on the lawn of a small Antique shop (The Antique Hotel), selling the usual memorabilia but also these classic T Ford’s. I had a chat with Jack -the old man running the store- about the T Ford’s and restoring them; he even sold one to a German who brought it back to Germany and won the 1st price with the classic cars club he was a member with. The prices of the classic T-Fords ranged from about $ 11.000,- up to about $ 18.000,-. Shipping to Germany was about $ 2500,- so for -let’s say- € 11000,- you can have your own classic T Ford in excellent shape in Europe

After Big Pine I stopped a couple of times to watch the beautiful scenery of the Sierra Nevada before I reached the town of Lone Pine. It was actually about the last proper town before heading into Death Valley. Because I did not yet have any accomodation and accomodation was sparse in the valley I decided to stay for the night at Lone Pine. I drove to the nearest Motel that had free wireless internet available and got myself a room.

Unfortunately the guy charged me about $ 98,- for the room which is a bit much for my budget at the moment. So, thinking of my travel plan, I decided to have a look on the internet and try to book a room in Las Vegas in advance. That was a good decision as I stumbled across The Gold Coast Hotel & Casino on tripres.com and they offered a single room for two nights for a mere $ 33,32 (the second night was even free!) and I even received a $ 10,- voucher for Planet Hollywood (the Governator’s chain of restaurants)! Looking at Google Maps it’s even not that far from The Strip, so I immediately booked it. This brings my spendings of the last couple of nights down They are probably hoping I will loose all my savings at their casino, but unfortunately for them I do not intend on doing so

The plan is now to leave early tomorrow morning to go see Death Valley, and at the end of the day to check into The Gold Coast Hotel in Las Vegas. I’ll have an extra day to go see Vegas before I will leave for Grand Canyon National Park on Saturday.

But first, I’m going to cook (microwave) me a simple low budget meal (baked chicken florentine), watch Goldeneye on the telly and have some Ben & Jerry’s Crème Brûlée ice cream for desert Yummm!

Today I went shopping, drink beer, have lunch at the Museum of Modern Art and packed my bags for tomorrows departure. First I went to Macy’s and they had a lot of nice clothes for very affordable prices. For example, I bought a pair of Levi’s Red (the most expensive Levi’s pants) for $ 49,- (= € 33,36); try that in Holland! After getting for $ 170,- worth of clothes (Yay!) I bumped into a Ben Sherman store which had a sale going on. 50% off of a lot of Shirts and Polo’s! Excellent! So I got myself 3 shirts and 3 polo shirts for a mere $ 120,- (= € 81,69). I got myself a new wardrobe! I’ll probably go get more in Boston After shopping I saw some street performances and I went back to the hotel to pack my bags and download some new music and films for my iPod

This morning I have booked my car with National from aug 17th until sep 25th (Boston MA): a midsize Pontiac G6 (Power Locks/Windows, CD Player, Air Bags, AM/FM Radio, Automatic transmission, Air Conditioning, 4 or 6 cylinder engine, Power-Assist Steering, Tinted Windows, Dual Mirrors, Tilt Steering Wheel) for $ 1,728.79 (= € 1,158.79).

I was initially looking for an economy car (a Chevrolet Aveo):

But as the total rent for the Pontiac G6 for these 40 days was about € 150,- more I decided to choose the more comfortable car. It’s a little bit less fuel efficient (21 miles per galon = 8,87 km/l) but as gas prices are still quite cheap in the USA (compared to Holland) I decided on the luxery car instead

So now that’s all done, I can take a shower and head for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts!

Today I slept in, I’m still a bit tired from my jet lag. When I got up I first got myself a pre-paid simcard from the AT&T store on Market Street (number: 415-269-6625). What surprised me was that pre-paid is quite expensive here as you even have to pay $ 0,25 per minute for incoming calls! Ah well… as long as I am reachable again After that I had a Mozarella & Eggplant sandwhich and walked around the Financial and SoMa (South of Market street) districts where I stumbled upon a little bit of Utrecht in San Francisco:

This is actually the art store that owns utrecht.com, the domain I have been trying to claim for a while but unfortunately they somehow don’t seem to forget to let the domain name expire The stupid thing is that they actually don’t even use the domain, as it redirects to utrechtart.com. Grrr… Continuing my walk I found the Martin Luther King memorial and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately the is always closed on wednesdays so I’ll have to come back tomorrow.

As I had just seen a Ducati Monster ride by I was actually thinking about what kind of motorcycle I would like to get when I will be back home. I don’t think I could do without, especially not in summer And it would be a shame to let my 75% no claim discount expire. So while I was walking around SoMa I bumped into two cool motorcycles parked outside, both of which might be interesting to get back home:

a 2004 Triumph Thruxton 900…

…and a 1975 Moto Guzzi. This one is probably the cheapest

From the Financial district I walked down towards the water where I had a great view of the Bay Bridge (not the Golden Gate bridge) and I saw a sea lion swiming by. From there I walked down the water and headed for Pier 33 where the Alcatraz cruises depart.

Near pier 29 I found a nice with a lot of people sitting outside, and selling german Weissbier So I got me a pint and sat in the sun. Next to me were two women who started talking to me, when I said I was Dutch they started talking in Dutch to me. They appeared to be indonesian and emigrated from Almelo to the USA in 50s. After two beers I was off again, walking over to Pier 33 to book a Alcartaz cruise for Friday. However, when I got there the cruise was fully booked already and the first available cruise was on next Tuesday. A bit too late for me as I will leave on Sunday :S So I walked onto pier 40 and had a look at Alcatraz from over there instead.

The cool thing is that at there is a huge colony of sea lions living on the floating docks of Pier 39:

From there I walked to the Fisherman’s warf, where a lot of sea food restaurants and tourists shops are located. As it was already past seven I walked back to the hotel and got some chinese takeaway food on the way. Now I’ve got some time to give my feet (and blisters :S) a rest…