The trip started in San Francisco where I met up with Ciaran and Jason. We saw some of the sights, including Alcatraz,
and had a fun night out in Haight (thanks to the advice of an Irish barmaid). Then armed with yoga mats (for camping, not meditation) we hit the road in our Toyota Camry (once we figured out how to drive an automatic car - don´t use left leg to break and drive on the right).Our first stop was Yosemite National Park, where we camped for 5 nights and did some amazing hikes, including Half Dome and Glacier Point (Jason ran up both on the first day!).
We left Yosemite to drive through the roasting Death Valley (thank God for air conditioning) on our way to Las Vegas. While it was good to see Las Vegas since you hear so much about it, and Treasure Island was a nice change from the tents, we soon realised the obvious that Vegas isn´t designed for non-gamblers. So while I enjoyed sitting by the pool, the Cirque de Soleil "Beatles" show and the first few of the "all-you-can-eat" buffets, I was ready to leave after our 2 days.
It was back to the camping and hiking for 2 days in each of the Grand Canyon in Arizonia and Zion National Park in Utah. Prior to planning the trip I had never heard of Zion, but it was a highlight of the trip. We hiked to the top of Angels´Landing where the views were amazing (the photos don´t do it justice), we walked up the river flowing through "The Narrows", we had a great campsite next to a river (which was handy as there were no showers), and we celebrated Ciaran´s birthday.
A long days drive back to the Californian coast ended with a rocking student night out in San Luis Opisbo. After 2 nights in that cool town, we worked our way up the coast. We spent a night in Monterey (which is aimed at tourists a lot older than us) and 2 nights in weird but wonderful Santa Cruz where UCSC students co-exist with the town´s crustier side. We went to a stand-up comedy competition which, depsite the lack of beer, was very funny.
Back in San Francisco, we were delighted to find that chilling out in Golden Gate Park lived up to its hippy reputation.
The last night out before the lads headed home included
a Jameson promotion (we each won fetching, matching hats) and live music in North Beach - the perfect end to the road trip.The 3 days on my own in San Fran were on a jam packed weekend. This included the Love parade and festival, complete with totally naked people (all old men) walking around the main downtown streets, and the free Bluegrass festival.
After cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge I came across a charity tennis event. When I was told that Steffi Graf (a hero of mine) and Andre Agassi were playing but that tickets were sold out, I locked my bike, hopped over the security fence and then snuck past the ticket checkers at the court - so it turns out that the unshaven, unemployed version of me will do things differently to the business-casual, public sector worker version! It was totally worth it - as well as Agassi and Graf, I saw Michael Chang, Conchita Martinez and Tracey Austin.
My last day included a snooze on the grass of Berkely´s campus. Outside its library a selection of internationally important newspapers were displayed: there was one from the UK (The Guardian) and one from Ireland, which was the Irish Examiner - if only people in Dublin were as enlightened as people in Berkely!
Very happy with my time in the US.
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