Roadtrip part6.

We left Modesto in the morning and started to drive towards San Francisco.
On the way there we spotted something. Something big and blue.
With yellow letters.
IKEA.
Yippee!
There we got some REAL FOOD! No more $1 side-salads or burgers.


And of course I needed some snacks too:


I <3 IKEA.

It was easy to find San Francisco. But it wasnt easy to go around San Francisco! It was nearly impossible! At least with a car! I felt so bad for Marke because she had to drive, but couldnt regret not getting a drivers license. Not at that moment.
After a while we found our hotel. It was an old hotel/building. The room was tiny..but there was something very charming about the hotel. This view from our room must be one(or maybe the only one) of the charming things:


One of the main attractions in San Francisco was on a walking distance: UNION SQUARE:






Before going to the next VISFP(Very Important San Francisco Place) we stopped by at one of the best places ever: JAMBA JUICE! I got my usual: Aloha Pineapple<3

Sipping my Aloha Pineapple we slowly(we werent in a hurry! finally!) walked to Chinatown. It was seriously like a little China! Only turists and a lot of chinese people and chinese shops!






There was also a tiny little Italy! I was to mesmerized to take a lot of pics of it, but I got one:


I can't remember what was the name of the shop, but they had all kinds of sweets there.. and toys. And whats the most important: they had SKUNK-PLUSH TOYS! So I bought two of them for "my kids". And then I got a small bag of popcorn for free! Not just any popcorn but somekind of caramel popcorn. Ah. Delicious!


We stopped to eat them and let the Tig(g)er stroll around the park like the people there did.. No one looked Tiger in any weird way.



Everyone minded their own business there.. People there had some really unique looks.. But I didn't dare to take any close pics of them. But I'll do that next time I go to San Fra. By then I'll probably have a better camera too.. And I'll take million close-ups of all those unique persons! That's gonna be a blast!




It was already getting dark, so now we had to hurry so we would see the seals or whatever those creatures are that bark and howl.
Here's some pics on the way there and there:








We didn't go into Alcatraz, but we SOO saw it from Pier39! HAH. I thought it was faaaaar away from the coast and that it would be HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. But nope, it was close and it was relatively small.
Here's a dude I met at the Pier39. I almost thought about flying away with him. Having my happy ending.


A real jailbird!





San Francisco was truly beautiful. One of my favourites of all time!
And this wasn't the end off San Fra! We would be waking up in San Francisco! And spend more time in there!
But before the day ended, I had to get something to eat.AND DRINK! So we went to Walgreens and I got some puddings, milk and orange juice.
Luckily we had a mini refridgerator in our room so my food stayed edible.


We had a refridgerator, but no AC! Can you believe it! Sure, it was SAN FRA and it was supposed to be very cold or even cool, but it was warm! So the night was very hard..it was so hot. I think I slept maybe 4hrs.. And in the morning we realized that our check-our would be at 10!! And the clock was about 9 by then!! So we had to take a quick shower(in a tiny shower closet) and put on some clothes and take the bags and get out!

Because we didnt have too much time(we had to get our car out of the parking place by 3pm) we decided to take a bus to the Fisherman's Wharf. Luckily a nice senior citizen helped us out! Yes we got into the bus(which cost $2) and rode it about 3 or 4 blocks and then it stopped! They had changed the route a little.. So we had to walk.. well, at least we saw more San Fra.. and a lot of people running, riding their bicycles and skate-boards. No wait! No skate-boards! Skate-boards were prohibited there! WEIRD! In So-Cal everyone's got a skate-board..or at least most have one.







At the Fisherman's Wharf we saw some Hell's Angels too! And a hippie man singing! I gave him 2 bucks.






We rode the Tram too!! Or whatever that vehicle is called. Hah. It cost $5. To do things in the right way, even once during our roadtrip, we decided to stand on the edge and hold on the pole. It was fun.

(I'm so lazy now that I'm just gonna post pics of the Golden Gate Bridge. After all, what there's to tell about it. It looked like it looks like in the pictures! It was there. Just stood. Red. Longish. Could have been longer. Could have been more red. Some people say it orange though! I think it's red!






After seeing the Bridge, we left SF and headed to MONTEREY.
About that in the next post..

Roadtrip part.4 Las Vegas- Bishop/Mammoth Lakes

One of the best things about roadtrips is, that you are free to do what you want and go where you want. And when you want. We had a good plan where to go and when to go and we managed to follow it pretty well. In the morning, when we were supposed to leave for Death Valley, we were supertired and agreed(=woke up when the alarm went to, glanced at each other and fell asleep again) to sleep a little more. When we eventually got ourselves on the road, it was pretty warm already. And getting warmer every minute.
A lot of people told us: "DO NOT GO TO DEATH VALLEY". Of course we did not listen to them. But I'm very happy that we didn't. They told us to skip Phoenix: we didn't and it was (kind of) awesome. So there we went,to the Death Valley.


The views were aaaaaaaaaaawesome. If I had to choose between Grand Canyon and Death Valley, I'd choose Death Valley. I wanted to jump over there! Put on some light, protective boots and just run and jump and roll. But I didn't maybe because of the unwanted audience that included some italian turists who laughed at our mascot/pet Tiger.




When we saw the BADWATER-sign we stopped to think: should we go there too? We are here already. It's not that faraway, just about 30mins drive. We decided to go there. We asked Pentti the Navigator to help us. We shouldn't have. On the halfway there, he said: "You have reached your destination. You may go now, but I'm not gonna help you carry your bags." We shut him down and found the place on our own.
It was very weird place. The sealevel sign was up,up,uuuup on the wall of the nearby mountain. So we were at the bottom. As low as it can get in the US.





There was only one souvenir-shop on our route in Death Valley. And there I found something awfully cute and irresistible(I resisted though, but I regret it:( )

AAAAAW<3 I wish we had seen that Kangaroo Rat or whatever, but they are noctural animals and we weren't there during the night. Sniff:(

We got this from the shop(for free):

Plus some papers including stories how people have died there. And one paper said that if we happen to meet a mountain lion, we should let the ranger know about all encounters with mountain lions.. PLUS, if the mountain lion attacks, we should fight back. Isn't that selfevident?
Here's one plant I saw there:

And no, it's not dead. It's totally alive and feeling well.

In one point we got hungry(okay and the car overheated and started humming VERY LOUD!) so what did I do? Use the tools the environment gave me of course and started to prepare my lunch:


After a while, we got some guests.(I bet the smelled the toasted marshmellow..) They were a woman and a man. From Germany. Okay, now I guess it's time to admit how we trashed all the germans during the first days of our trip. Where ever we went to: there was germans. Speaking very loud. And disturbing our "peaceful" trip. Well, this time we were happy to meet germans. Because these individuals actually were able to speak ENGLISH! They even talked english to each other, since we were present. Not like most germans have done in past: talked german no matter who's there. They adviced us to just wait. They first checked the car though, but thought it was ok..Just overheated.
We waited 30mins-40mins and then continued driving. We found one veeeery great vista point and stopped there. There was this bird I tried to photograph:


But soon, there was something else too. Not just the funny bird.
I saw something big coming.. Something EXTREMELY LOUD. And fast. And it was coming right AT US! Marke screamed something to me. I guess it was something like "Watch out Jonna!!" and then we pulled ourselves to the ground. And covered our ears. The noise was excruciating!! Did I already tell you what was it? It, or well,there were two of them! THERE WERE TWO FIGHTER AIRCRAFTS!! The other one dived into the canyon next to us and the other flew right above us. I mean like superclose. Illegally close. Close enough to scare a shit out of us! When we discovered that we had survived a fighter aircrafts' attack on us!(Someone had told them about us!!Uh-oh!)
I didn't get any pics of them. Like I said, they were fast. And I was scared. But it didn't take long that we were both laughing hysterically.

When we got out of Death Valley( alive! A MIRACLE!) we headed to greener places. We saw some mountains(including the one with Mountain Whitney). We were supposed to camp at some campground called French Campground. On the way there we saw deers or some things like them.

..We also spotted some COWS! I wanted to go and hug them(can't remember the last time I hugged a cow. Animal-cow. Not human-cow.)


We found the campground after stopping at Bishop's McDonalds for some $1 side-salads.. The campground..well, there wasn't really space to camp.. Just for our Volvo. So we slept inside the car. Once again. Me on the backseats and Marke on the second frontseat(not the drivers' seat.. streering wheel would have been on the way of the good nightsleep.) I slept. Eventually. It was okay. Even though almost wanted to die while thinking about the next night that we were supposed to spend in a tent on another campground in Yosemite.
Trying to sleep there..On the backseat wasn't the biggest problem. But this was:

Bear-box. We had to put everything that smells inside that box! So the bear wouldnt try to get inside our car in hopes of getting some late-night snack. Like our $1 dollar salads! Or the rest of my pink marshmellows! Or my shampoos! Or worse: my make-ups!
No one came to steal any of my things during the night and both of us survived too.
About Yosemite I'll tell you on the next post.
(Or maybe on the one after the next one..well, in some point I will)