Los Angeles and the Pacific Coastal Highway

After 'roughing it out' in the Grand Canyon, heading back to LA and the de Villiers' was a real treat. 

We arrived on Monday afternoon and had a couple of days of family and home to look forward to. 

When we arrived Kelly was at ballet school and had made lasagna for us, Braam & the girls- we couldn't have asked for a more 'homely and welcomed meal'. 

And sleeping in a bed for a change was heaven. 

Into the thick of things right off the bat!

The next day was clean up day and we spent it washing our clothes, our stinky shoes, tent..well just about everything. Luckily Beatie was around, entertaining us with her no-limits imagination. 

Who knew cleaning stinky shoes could be so much fun!

The afternoon we took the girls to the park and all had another delicious home made meal for supper. 

The air in the de Villiers' house was filled with great excitement because Oupa (aka Wim) was coming to visit, he had just been to Canada for work and stopped via LA en route home. 

Braam and Kelly had rented us bikes to explore the famous Los Angeles coastline , so Albertus, Wim and myself went for a long cycle all along the promenade..

Hermosa Beach 

Starting at Hermosa beach , past Manhattan until we reached the unequivocal Venice beach. 

Cruising along the beach front bike path

On route we somehow missed the signpost for the 'bike route' and took a wrong turn. After a couple of miles when we had loads of trucks and buses storm pass us we realized that something was wrong and that we had somehow ended up on the main highway to San Francisco! 

We quickly asked for help, got redirected and found our way back to the beach and the safety of the 'bike-lane' ...sweat dripping down our backs... Once at Venice beach Wim treated us to a delicious lunch and a much needed beer. 

Iconic Baywatch tower in the background!

That evening Braam was running late at work so Kelly, the girls, Paula (Kelly's mom) and the two van der Merwes went to dinner at their local 'round the corner ' mexican restuarant. As Elouise is attending a Spanish school, she was throwing some Spanish phrases and made us all feel right at home. Clever girl that one. 

Eating out with 3 small children is an adventure in itself and never a dull moment;)

Albertus finally met someone who shares his insatiable love of Nachos chips!

We also got to borrow a car from Dave, Kelly's dad, and while driving to go hike around the Hollywood hills, yes where the famous sign is situated, we got some first hand experience of the crazy LA traffic. Hectic.

On our last night we were treated by the de Villiers to dinner at the beautiful Nelsons restaurant in Ranchos Palos Verde. 

Nelsons family outing

The restaurant is situated right on the iconic Californian cliffs overlooking the vast Pacific Ocean... Watching the sun sink into the distant watery horizon was idyllic and a perfect farewell. 

Once again it is family that gave wind to our sails and now we're reloaded, ready for our last month of backpacking! 

Thank you Braam, Kelly, Elouise, Beatrix and Rosalie!

Route 1 to San Francisco: 

So we had heard great things about the Pacific Coastal Highway (PCH) or also known as Route 1, a very scenic road meandering from LA to San Francisco all along the coast. 

We had rented a car and gave ourselves three days to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Cruising slowly, stopping frequently to enjoy the awe inspiring views and just going where the road leads us. 

Prior to leaving LA we didn't spend much (or any) time planning our trip, booking accommodation or doing any research...we thought we would just 'wing it'... 

Fout. 

We learnt the hard way that being prepared is always a good idea. 

It was weekend, and the route was absolutely packed with people in cars bikes and motorbikes. Everyone needing to stay somewhere. 

So there we were driving around, frantically looking for accommodation- being disappointed when it was full (booked out months in advance), not stopping to enjoy views or a cup of coffee... Tension building up between the newlyweds...Becoming hungry and angry... aka Hangry...get the picture?

Needless to say, at the end of each day we did find some very nice places to camp or a roof over our heads, saw some amazing things and eventually made it safe and sound to San Francisco. 

Things don't always go the way you expected but they always tend to work out one way or another - just got to keep a cool head and open mind! Easier said than done but hey we're learning as we go!

Our first night we got to stay over in a little Danish town, Slovang, which was very strange but also cool in a way! 

Not all is rotten in the state of California...;)

It's like somehow a small Danish village just dropped out of the sky and landed in rural California! We treated ourselves to some delicious danish pancakes early the next morning, which according to Albertus is the best way to start your day!

There was no way we weren't going in...

After breakfast we drove up the coast and visited a small and quaint little village, Morro Bay, with its big monolithic rock gazing steadily over the calm waters of the lagoon...

Morro Bay lagoon

The drive along the coastal highway is quite superb even by our the high Cape Townian standards! For the most part the road hugs the coastline with graceful ease,  showcasing its spectacular views of both the vast Pacific Ocean and the (for the most part) dry, jagged coastal mountains with its scruffy Monterey Pines! Well until it zigzags you up a mountain pass with stomach turning corners, followed by nerve wrecking descents! 

We were hoping to stay in Big Sur but most campgrounds were closed due to a recent forest fire... So we ended up staying in a really cool redwood forest just outside Santa Cruz, called the Henry Cowell Redwood State Park, and got to camp in the shadows of these gigantic and magnificent trees. 

Not bad for a camp spot!

The park was only a couple of miles from this really authentic logging town, called Felton which we drove to for dinner the one night and breakfast the next morning - the remnants of the big logging industries are still very evident all over town and did give the town quite a unique feel! 

The logging town of Felton

Our third and last night we got to spend the night with Spencer, Kelly's brother, in a beautiful seaside town, Santa Cruz. 

The town is probably one of the most iconic surf towns in the world. Home of surf wear tycoon Jack O'Neal and Mavericks legend Jay Moriarity, the town has, despite its fame, managed to still hang on to its authentic small town roots, and above all its unfaltering love of surfing...At any given time there are at least 100 surfers in the water catching (or waiting to catch) waves. 

"The Hook" surf spot in Santa Cruz...I know it looks pretty flat...

The vibe is infectious and after watching the locals go at it we just could not resist the urge to get in the water! So we borrowed surfboards from Spencer, rented wet-suits and headed to Pleasure Point which is one of the famous surf spots but one that's also still accessible to the "average joe's". 

All geared up and ready to go!

Albertus got some impressive waves, and I mostly just lay on my board watching all the exciting activity. It was great fun! 

Pleasure Point surf spot...

After our morning surf we got some breakfast and coffee and hit the road north again, to San Francisco. We stuck to the coastal highway once again and passed through the iconic and laid back Half Moon Bay, home to the iconic big wave surfing spot, Mavericks...Which apparently was set to get some monster swells in the coming weeks which was a crazy thought given the benign conditions that prevailed as we drove by...calm before the storm...

We soon entered the busy cosmopolitan of San Francisco, and headed to the airport to go drop off our rental car. The scenery of the Californian coastline was really something to see and it definitely set the tone for our next adventure...a week in Yosemite National Park! 

Thanks for the rad time Cali!

A little taste of LA and the start of our RV adventure: Zion National Park

While we initially planned to do our RV trip from Chicago to LA, a sobering reality check hit home when we reviewed the quotes for such an endeavor! The drop off fees and mileage alone made up our initial budget for the trip! So we went back to the drawing board and reviewed our options...Traveling with an RV is still an expensive means of travel for a backpacking trip so we found the only way to still incorporate it was to find a good deal, which is usually when the rental company needs a motorhome to be taken from one place to another. Fortunately we found such a deal within our time frame, where the RV had to be picked up in LA, California and dropped off in Phoenix, Arizona 15 days later. We looked at a map and saw that we could fit in most of what we wanted to see and do on our initial trip within the alloted time so wasted no time in securing the booking!

And since we were planning on going to LA anyway, Kristi's cousin Braam and his family stay there, we could head to their place for our a couple of days, plan our trip, leave some stuff at their place and then head to the rental center to pick up our RV...

We arrived in LA on Sunday, September 11th, yes flights were cheap that day, and had to pick up the RV on the Tuesday... Braam's home is fortunately quite close to the airport so it was only a short uber drive to their place - LA as those who have been there will know, is huge!

It was great to see Braam, Kelly and the girls again. It was also the first time Kristi and I got to meet little Rosilee, who's just the sweetest little blue-eyed girl!

On our first afternoon we got to go over to Kelly's folks for a Sunday afternoon barbecue, which was really great, Dave, Kelly's dad comes from Utah so he gave us some valuable tips for our trip and then of course the BBQ ribs were amazing!

Sunday family meal in LA

The following day Kristi and I headed to the Manhattan Beach County Library to crunch in some research for our upcoming RV trip, we found a nice quiet room with wifi, laid out a bunch of maps and travel guides, grabbed some Starbucks and got to work...

Crunching in some last minute planning!

At the end we managed to work out a viable route: first heading into South West Utah via Las Vegas (maybe try and give our budget a boost!) and then up to Montana to the Western entrance of Yellowstone, after a couple of days in America's first National Park we will head down to the Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, which is a short drive south from Yellowstone. After a few days there we will head down to Eastern Utah where we will explore some of the crazy parks out there before finding our way down to Phoenix, Arizona which we will then use as a base to visit the Grand Canyon National Park... I know it's a mouthful but we ran the numbers and it looked doable! Guess we'll just have to wait and see if we were right or absolutely bonkers!

After a short drive to the RV rental center, Cruise America, in Carson, LA we signed some papers and got started with a instructional video while our RV was being prepped. We booked a 19ft unit, which is quite compact but advisable for anyone rving for their first time, unless you're more than 3 people of course... After waiting for about an hour we finally got shown our RV, who shall be known as Harvey the RV from henceforth, and received a brief overview of the vehicle...Then we got given a map of the area, the keys and off we went!

Getting out of LA was no laughing matter, there may be 9 million bicycles in Beijing but it felt like there were 9 million cars in LA that day - and it was only like 11:30! Anyway we eventually found our way to interstate 15, cranked up some country music and watched the buildings give way to dry cactus covered cliffs as we headed into the Mojave desert towards Nevada...

We reached Las Vegas around 17:00 and briefly gazed around at the unbelievable extravagance of this desert oasis. While the glitz and glamour of the casinos were luring us in like a moth to a flame, our GPS kept us on route to our destination...the nearest Walmart super-center...just let just me explain...I know it sounds absurd but the Walmart offered two things we needed - low cost, bulk purchasing and free overnight parking in their parking lot! Moerse classy!

Our overnight parking/camping spot at the Las Vegas Walmart

Zion National Park

The next morning we hit the road early and headed north east to Utah and our first National Park, Zion! It was a four hour drive so we arrived in Springdale, which the town situated at the base of the park, at around lunch time. We booked a spot in a RV park in town but since the park literally surrounds the town we had a nice setting with the massive red canyons towering all around us. 

Zion and Springdale have put in place a great shuttle system that takes you from town into the park and then to also to most of the hiking trails in the park. 

Zion and Springdale shuttle system

We decided to do a late afternoon hike and hopped on the shuttle that took us to our trail, hidden canyon. It was a relatively short hike up to the canyon but with the afternoon light we really got some great views of the mountains and the spectacular colours that emerge at that time of day...

Enjoying one of the many viewpoints on the Hidden Canyon trail

It was a great introduction to our Zion adventure and we couldn't wait for the hikes we had planned the next day.

Great to be out on the trails again!

That evening we got a fire going, poured some wine and enjoyed our first campside braai on our trip - camp fires were not allowed in South America...

It's something we love from back home and thus were quite in our element sitting there in our camping chairs near the warm glow of the fire under a clear desert sky...

Diep gelukkig!

There are two must do hikes when you get the chance to visit Zion. Angels landing, which is a great monolithic rock sitting right in the heart of Zion Canyon and the Narrows which is a river that runs through a narrow canyon. We did both in one day, and it's very doable...

Since the desert temperatures can run up to the 30s even in autumn, we opted to do Angels landing first in the early morning hours and then hit the Narrows in the afternoon.

We again jumped on the very convenient shuttles and headed to the starting point for our hike up to Angels landing...The hike up has been made much easier with the construction of a series of switchbacks that lessen the gradient of your ascent. The sun was just climbing over the eastern mountains so the valley was slowly lighting up as we made our ascent...It was really awesome.

Initial switchback section of the Angel's Landing trail in Zion

Then when you get to the top of the switchback section to a place called scouts lookout, you get this insane view of the valley below and the last climb up to Angels landing. The last section of the climb is not recommended for those with any fears of heights since the trail is narrow with big vertical drops on both sides...For those who like the thrill, it's a really cool trail with great views all around!

Last section leading up to Angel's Landing - looming proudly in the background

They called it Angels landing because the natives believed that the rock was so high that only angels could land there... Once at the top we just parked on one of the borders overlooking the valley, basked in the morning sum and enjoyed the unbelievable views...

It's really worth doing if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods!

Great viewpoint of Zion Valley from the top of Angel's Landing

The walk down was relatively quick and all together the hike took us about 3 hours and unless you have some vertigo problems I wouldn't say it's too strenuous...

After the hike we took the shuttle back to Harvey and headed to our next campsite, Watchman, which is actually located in Zion Park. 

Now as I'm sure most people will know, living in an RV demands some basic tasks that come with the house on wheels adventure. Being our first time all these came with somewhat of a learning curve and none more so than the RV dumping procedure. It's actually a straight forward task of parking at the dumpsite, pulling out the dumping hose (a big plastic pipe), connecting it to the sewage outlet on the RV and placing the other end in the sewage hole. Then you just open the valves to the toilet and runoff water tanks (in that order) and voila, you let Harvey do his numbers 1 and 2...Simple right...Ja not for our first time! 

Being first timers we asked the people from the RV at the other dump site if we could watch them do it first, which they agreed to somewhat reluctantly - the Swiss guy gave a "that's kinda gross look" when I asked...None the less we watched the whole procedure and it looked relatively easy especially with that Swiss precision! 

Then came our turn and the whole Swiss family and a German family who now joined the party got out to watch - probably to help but we felt like they were just watching, the one German even had his camera out...

I did everything according to the book, got out the plastic pipe, and got ready to attach it when the Swiss guy shouted, "nay nay! You have to put on some protective gloves". We didn't have any so a little Swiss kid brought me an extra pair, and after thanking them, I put on the gloves like an old practiced surgeon, took the pipe again and reached down to open the sewage outlet. Then came the shenanigans...The minute I screwed opened the cap a massive stream of excrement (thank the heavens only urine) came rushing out, flowing all over my arm and the pavement! I then tried to screw the cap back on to stem the flow but that just made the stuff spew out more violently! This obviously caused much commotion from the onlookers (and entertainment for the kids), the German guy with the camera even starting taking pictures! 

I eventually secured the cap back on and the torture stopped, turns out the valve for the toilet tank wasn't sealing properly or at all which meant there was no way to stop the stuff from spewing out when opening the sewage cap...This created a bit of a predicament, but thankfully one of the Germans came forward and with that characteristic blunt German perspective told me to park the RV so that the sewage outlet is right above the dumping hole and then to just pull open the cap again and let the waste pour straight into the hole...

The whole party of onlookers helped me get the parking right and then I had to perform the sanitary task again of opening the cap and letting all the stuff flow out but this time it at least hit its target and I was somewhat more prepared...The valve for the other tank worked fine so theoretically you could attach the pipe and pull the valve out to let the runoff water pour down the drain, but we already had the RV parked over the dumping hole so we just let the grey tank run empty like we did the black tank...After the show the Swiss and German families took to their vehicles and wished the two us of lots of luck for the next dumping endeavor! Never a dull moment with us South Africans hey!

"Lug dai been Harvey, ek het 'n Walmart sakkie oor my hand so jy kan maar laat loop..."

After a thorough scrubbing down, we headed to our spot, made some lunch and had a short snooze before we had to go out again.

For the Narrows hike we headed out around mid-afternoon, so it was still hot but we reckoned if your going to be hiking by a river in a canyon there will be enough reprieve via the shade and the water.

We first had to walk all along the river till we reached the mouth of the canyon but we thought you just continued walking along the river bank, instead we found out that you actually walk in the river the entire way! So we tossed our shoes and hit the river old school style, barefoot. The water was surprisingly cold, like Clifton cold, so I first had to do the flamingo walk to acclimatize my feet...I'm sure the Americans must have thought I'm from some aboriginal tribe, practicing a river walking ritual!

The Narrows of Zion!

The walk was really cool, the canyon walls rise directly from the waters edge which made for some dramatic scenery as you ploughed on through the river! Our feet could only handle a couple of miles up the river - my memories of running up the vineyard rows over thorns and rocks seemed all but a distant dream and offered no muscle memory for my now well softened feet!

Kristi venturing deeper into the maze...

It was another great outing and also a must do when visiting Zion... 

Afterwards we headed back to our camp for one of our favorite times of the day, sunset around the fire!

Zion offered a great way to start our RV adventure with amazing scenery, great hikes and lovely campsites...

What a way to start!

The next day was a long drive up through Utah, via Idaho and into Montana, to the Western entrance of Yellowstone National Park!