America the Beautiful

Posted 20 October, 2007 by graham in usa

…is the name of the multi-agency park access card we bought for $80. In practice this means we can go to any National Park, National Forest, State Park, Country Park, anything owned by the Bureau of Land Management, or any of a variety of other conservation / management agencies. There’s a lot of land protected out here. In fact there’s a lot of land full stop.

We drove up from Pasadena to Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Park to see the most massive trees in the world, particularly the largest organism in the world, General Sherman. Then up to Yosemite, where we got snowed in. They closed the access road we camped off of. In practice this worked out great because they salted the road but didn’t officially re-open it, so it was only accessible from our campsite: Yosemite just for us!

Next we drove down into the Eastern Sierras valley, to enjoy some hot springs (clothing optional – it’s California innit) and see the oldest living organisms, the Bristlecone Pines. The tallest tree is up in the North of California and the widest in Oaxaca, Mexico, so that’s the end for the records. We drove through Death Valley, which really is as dry and dusty as it sounds, through Vegas, and we are now in Zion National Park, Utah. I’m writing this from the Springdale library, a lovely new building with over 12 computers, charging $1 a day for Internet access. And some books and stuff.

The amount of space out here is amazing. We’ve driven for hours on a straight road, with just dusty scrub-land on either side. Luckily we have a 40 hour / 32 CD audio-book of Don Quichote to listen to. Gas is cheap, our S.U.V. is massive and comfortable, the food is plentiful, filling and cheap, the people are friendly and helpful, the landscape is amazing, the local beer is good, and just cos I can, I might just go out to a range in the desert (which is everywhere), and fire some really big guns. God bless America the Beautiful!

This post has (2) comments

The land of plenty

Posted 4 October, 2007 by graham in usa

From the happy land of Bhutan, we are now in the land of plenty: the U.S.A, in Los Angeles. This clip sums it up nicely:

We’re hoping to head to Arizona and New Mexico on Monday.

This post has (0) comments