Our three day roadtrip from San Francisco to Las Vegas has been one of my favourite parts of our US trip. The scenery was breathtaking and it was nice to get out of the city to see some of the great American wilderness. Our party of six expanded to seven with the addition of Nick’s girlfriend Sim, who had been working in Germany and flown into San Fran to meet us.
We were lucky enough to secure a lakefront house at Pine Mountain Lake near Groveland for our first night of our trip. The house was an amazing, somewhat outdated, 4 level home straight from a teen movie or horror film – actually, mash those two genres up and this house would make a perfect backdrop. Complete with our own private dock and great views over the lake at sunset, we could have spent days here.
The next day it was off to Yosemite to check out the Valley and Tioga Pass Road. Yosemite was simply stunning and far surpassed my expectations. The journey took us past waterfalls, mountains and meadows. No bear sightings unfortunately, but I did hand-feed a chipmunk and minor animal encounters can be cool too…. but really nothing is as cool as seeing a bear in the wild and so I’m a little disappointed about this.
Our second night was spent at an unmemorable cabin in Lee Vining. There isn’t too much going on in Lee Vining but if you do end up in that neck of the woods, make sure you check out the Whoa Nellie Deli at the Mobil Gas Station – I’m still dreaming of the fish tacos with mango salsa.
The last leg of our trip took us through Death Valley National Park before hitting the desert flats in Nevada. Las Vegas was as party hard and crazy as expected. Vegas can be summed up by pool parties, limo rides, gigantic margaritas on the strip, roller coasters, terrible nightclubs, free drinks while playing the pokies and a pretty epic apartment at the MGM Signature. But what really happens in Vegas stays in Vegas so I’ll leave you with that.
Chasing the Cheese 