Las Vegas looked a lot different in the morning, the concrete hotels looked less glamorous without their lights on. Ah well, i guess one night is good enough for Las Vegas if your not planning to gamble. We drove the quick way back to California, not the engine destroying death valley route. We passed through weird desert town, most looked deserted, with empty houses and old restaurants. It was weird to see such isolation. I wondered what the few people that lived there did with their lives. There was no shops, no services to offer. Ok, no useful services, scrap metal and fencing doesn't really cut it as useful when theirs no one around to offer it to. We decided to go to what was mentioned as a Ghost Town on our map. Calico. When we got their we realized it was a complete tourist trap. And in fact the town we had just passed through was the real Ghost Town, just a little bit more modern, old abandoned houses spray painted with "Keep Out", "Danger" and "God Bless America".

The Calico Ghost Town was pretty much a bunch of old looking Wild West houses, complete with saloons doors. It was very much occupied by buses of school kids. I felt a little duped. I wanted to see old sandblasted huts and tumble weed. This is America though. Ben, the australian with us, immediately made friends with a French Girl who was in the town, and tried to get a place to stay for when he traveled there. It was funny to watch. We spoke to one of the staff their and they just couldn't believe that we had just 'taken time off' to travel. It seemed like a completely alien concept. Maybe this person had never left the desert. Maybe he was a ghost...eh?...eh?

Our journey on the road continued through the illustrious town of Bakersfield, which was pretty damn shit. But we stopped at an 'International House of Pancakes', (IHOP) for coffee, so all is forgiven. After many hours we found ourselves flying through vineyards and orange groves. for miles and miles. We passed over one set of mountains and stopped in the valley before the next mountain range. We got some subway sandwiches who's employees again seemed confused about why a German, an Australian, and two English people were traveling together without their being a punchline, and why we were in their gas station/subway in the middle of an orange grove. Ah well, we erm..'liberated' some oranges from the roadside, they were huge. But i don't think we ever ate them.

The sun went down as we climbed the mountains, we watched the temperature dial drop, yesterday it was tipping 100 degrees, now it was heading the wrong side of freezing. And ice starting appearing on the roads. Now i never expected snow in California, but thats what we got. Eventually we reached some accommodation, a huge hotel cabin thing in the forest. We arrived just in time, the office was about to close and we would have been stuck on a mountain with nowhere to sleep. There was big roaring fire going and we had some beer. Could this be any better?

Yes, because the next morning we had to wake up early again to, as Seb says, "Eat Kilometeres". We stopped for a while in Seqouia National Park to stare at huge fuck off trees, including the very American named 'General Sherman', the worlds biggest tree. It was huge, and would take several hippies to surround it, and about eight big ass Canadians to chop it down. It was pretty cool. The trees only grow at a certain height, above 6000 feet. The air is thin here, the signs warn, take it easy when walking back to your car, benches are provided. Stupid fat Americans. Dejan and I spotted a chance to practice for the high altitude Inca Trail trek in Peru. It was only 15 mins walk but yes the air was thin, and it was hard to walk and talk at the same time, you had to make a commitment to it. God Machu Picchu is gonna be hard. If that wasn't hard enough, we had 20 mins to run up Moro Rock at 7500ft, before we had to make it to a certain road that was only open every hour. We did it, breathlessly. Dejan got vertigo and stayed back. The view from the top was spectacular, snow peaked mountains and one side and a valley as deep as the Grand Canyon on the other. We made it to the road in time, and continued our journey.Destination Monterey!

By dusk we made it into the town, we walked around the really really touristy, Cannery Row, setting to John Steinbecks novel of the same name. He's from round these here parts dontcha know. Monterey is expensive. We went to a cafe which sold $10 veggie burgers, but they were nice...very nice. The next morning Ben had to get a bus back to San Francisco, he was flying to Heathrow later that day. We however had to get to near San Luis Obispo. Seb went to the Aquarium, Me and Dejan went to check out where the Seal Noises we heard were coming from. It was like a gang of them when we found them, most of them were face down in the water in a ring, but some were baiting the tourists for food or perhaps money for crack or summat. It was a noisy sight.

Back on the road, we ended up stopping every five minutes because the views of the Pacific were so astounding. Everytime we stopped the view got betters. Wild waves crashing against battered rocks. It was all amazing. Eventually we stopped at this wide golden beach surrounded by huge cliffs. The light was turning to dusk, so there was a weird hazy glow in the air that is too hard to explain. There were a loads of huge eagle looking birds picking at a dead seal, its skull showing. The place despite clearly being visited everyday and only five minutes walk from the road had a prehistoric air about it. It was beautiful, i didn't wanna leave but the tide was coming in, violently crashing at the rocks around us.

About half a mile down the road, there were hundreds and hundreds of Elephant Seals resting on the beach. The smell was pretty disgusting, but just seeing countless seals all cuddled up to keep warm, occasionally fighting for position. It was bizarre, but again a fantastic sight. One that only happens a few times a year.

By nightfall we had made it to El Paso de Robles, Paso Robles. This was the last night of the Road trip, Sebastian would be heading back to San Francisco, we would be catching our last ever Greyhound Bus to Santa Barbara in the morning. We went for Pizza and drank Mexican Beer. It was a weird end to the week. But we had seen so much in so short time. California has every type of every Country in it. Deserts, Mountains, Plains, and Beaches, its so strange to go through all of these in so shorter time. Like most things on this trip this week has been a taster, for spending more time in these places in years to come. I would love to spend more time in Yosemite and exploring the areas we've seen this week. But next time i guess...