Journey to USA – day 9 (Leaving Yosemite National Park)

Before we leaving to next destination, we spent another few hours sightseeing around Yosemite Valley. We grabbed the map, hopped on the free shuttle bus to visitor centre and took one tour package- Valley Floor tour which claim to introduce most famous sightseeing points in Yosemite Valley. Well, it was not a wise choice because the route and the sightseeing places were exactly the same we went through yesterday. 

 

Without much excitement from this tour, we decided to explore several short trails within Yosemite Valley. First be the Yosemite Lower Fall, which only walking distance of 15 min away from visitor centre. The trail path was clean and well-paved, and the streams from Lower Fall was so strong that we can hear the cracking and bashing sound of water even there is quite distance away. 

 

 We moved on to next trail to look for Mirror Lake but we mistakenly chosen the wrong trail – a trail with many fresh and stingy mule fences, that’s really not a pleasant smell. The 5 mile loop supposed bring us to mirror lake reached a dead end because of the rock fall. We returned and used another better trail to reach mirror lake. The lake isn’t big as we thought, but the calm water reflected a spectacular view of surrounding cliffs in Yosemite. 

It was a pleasure to visit this park except the awful smell of mule fences. We then left the park on 4pm, and heading to next destination – the Mammoth Lakes. We’re supposed to go to Mammoth from Yosemite via Tioga pass and June lake loop which take only 2 hours driving. Unexpectedly, we’re told the road was closed due to snowing. Gosh, isn’t now the summer, how come there is snow in Caribbean seasoned California? We decided to use another route, but that will take us 8 hours to reach Mammoth. 

It maybe not a good idea to drive for another 8 hours after a tiring trekking in Yosemite, but we decided to do so partly because we booked the room already. Initially, we chose to use Hwy 108 (Sonora Pass) because it’s the nearest route after Tioga Pass from Yosemite. Before Hwy 108, we went through Hwy 49 and reached Sonora, and it was a scenic but steeply route, and some even with turning curve of only 10 degree! 

After 3 hours, we finally reached Sonora and about to enter Hwy 108. A shocking news from local folks, we were told that Hwy 108 was also closed due to winter season. Again!? We can’t use the GPS because it always guide us to use the shortest road, which is Tioga pass. Instead, we bought a map and that’s really a “back to old time” road trip, and search again the alternative route to reach Mammoth. We moved on, and this time we going to use Hwy 88 from Jackson.

It was already 10 PM when we arrived Jackson, a small town hiding in California’s Sierra Nevada Valley. Yet, we no idea how long it will take us to reach Mammoth from Jackson. We started worry whether our drivers (Dad and Sam) can continue driving even they said they can go ahead, but their exhausted look didn’t convince us. We gave up to continue today’s trip to Mammoth, and spent a night at Jackson’s Holiday Inn Express Hotel.

Conclusion of the day: An unexpected route change in today’s trip, we know that will be more surprise for next coming days. =)

Journey to USA- day 8 (Yosemite National Park)

From LA, we took I-5 north and entered CA-99 North where direct us to Bakersfield and Fresno. From Fresno, took exit 131 to merge onto CA-41 North towards Yosemite National Park. The whole distance was about 300 miles and took us 5 and half hours to reach Yosemite. On the way, we bypassed Bakersfield, Fresno and other small towns. Along CA-99, there are many farms and vineyard.
 

The weather was quite pleasant for first 2 hours, until we met a dense fog in somewhere near Bakersfield, and the visibility was very poor for 15 minutes, only in that area. We then proceed to Fresno and stopped by to visit an underground garden, and spent an hour there visiting the hand-built networks of  underground home, including rooms, kitchen, passageways in ancient roman architecture.


 
One thing that amazed me about this underground garden was the owner managed to design it in such a way that every room (or compartment) the temperature varied 10 to 20 degrees. It was built about 100 years ago, and the owner managed to use the nature airway and the way sun shades into his rooms so each different compartments can have different indoor temperature. For more info, check this link.

From Fresno, we took CA-41 North and another 1 and half hours to Yosemite National Park. Because it is quite close to Yosemite, we can see many alpines along the route, and of cause the signs of “Beware Bear” and “Stop car when seeing mule deer crossing road”. We’re only few miles away to one of the famous national parks in US, and everyone so excited. The CA-41 North ends in Yosemite, we entered the park and paid $25 vehicle 7-days pass, then straightaway look for our camp which located within Yosemite Valley.

Yosemite is part of Sierra Nevada, and its remarkable landmarks that attract millions of visitors annually are Half Dome, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls. Before we reached Yosemite Valley, we bypassed Wawona tunnel and reached the famous tunnel view where we can see a wider and closer view of El Capitan, Half Dome and Bridalveil Falls. It’s spectacular and words can’t tell how beauty they are. For more info, check this link.

 

Yosemite has so much to see and we nearly stop for every 1-2 miles we drove within the park. Alpines, meadows, waterfalls, clear cut cliff and mountains with mule deer, gray fox and squirrels, it’s such a paradise and one of the most beautiful places in the world.



 
 


We stayed one night in Yosemite’s Curry Village within the Yosemite valley. It’s a campground with hundreds camp tents and one tent with 4 single beds, no heaters and public sharing bathrooms, that cost us USD100. Because summer just begun and it was weekend, with lots of travellers, especially students, i think that’s why it cost so much.


We had difficulty to sleep that night, because the temperature reached below 10 degree celcius and our tent was as cold as outside!.

Anyway, this was the pic of that day. A credit to us even hardly sleep at night. =)
 

Journey to USA – day 6 and 7 (Hollywood, Universal Studio and LA)

We had an early flight to catch to Los Angeles (LA), it was 6.30 AM by the time we were in airport. All the US airports wanted passengers to have self check in using their automated kiosk system. It was fast and efficient, and you even can check in your own baggage with baggage tap printed from the machine. Wichita (ICT) is a small city in US that there is no direct flight to LA or the US is too big that we have to make 3 connecting flights to arrive our destination. We made 2 stops for transit to reach LA, one at Denver International Airport (DEN) and one at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS). Another cool travel experience to visit 4 different airports in one day (ICT-DEN-LAS-LAX).


The transit and flight hours took long enough that we only reached LA around 3.00 PM, the LA time is UTC-7 hours. We quickly hopped on the airport free shuttle bus to get our rented car which we made the online rental few weeks ago. We rent Toyota Sienna mini van, and that cost us about USD 800 for two weeks rental.




LA is always crowded with people and mobiles, and so much polluted like KL. We used GPS system and drove to our hotel which was located at West Hollywood and just behind the Kodak Theatre and the Walk of Fame of Hollywood. Two days at LA we visited the LA shopping outlets, Walk of Fame, Universal Studios and the famous uphill Hollywood signs.

Nothing much to shop at LA shopping outlets. But the studio tour at Universal Studio was awesome, from there we knew the filming area of Desperate Housewives, Fast and Furious, War of World and etc. At Walk of Fame, you can find any big celebrity you can name: Jacky Chan, Bruce Willie, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, and even The Simpsons, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and etc. People there drive Porsche, Lamborghini, Benz and carry branded things. Besides, the highway system was awesome, and the minimum driving limit is 80 miles per hour!

We didn’t explore other parts of LA due to time constraint and also have to prepare our California road trip the next day. Anyway, the highlight of
this US trip should be the following days. =)

Journey to USA - day 2 to 5 (Wichita)

The following days begun with early wake up on local time 6 AM, the average temperature on early morning reached as low as 9°C. A sip of hot tea was the best drink in the world in such chilly weather. Breakfast was cereals served with daily fresh milk that we bought from Walmart.



The place where we stayed for first 5 days was a typical American house, with a greenery backyard, quiet neighbourhood. The stays at Wichita we experienced the local American life, relax, forget about the work behind and also recharged to get over the jet lag and the weather,  enjoy the best local foods and attended the commencement of our brother. He was the last child in my fiance's family to be university graduated.


We had a great time with our host - Pam, who is the brother's gf. She is kind enough to host our stays in her new house which she just got the house key one day before our arrival. During our 5 day stays at Wichita, we drove several miles to visit Yoder and Oxford towns, to see the scenery views outbound of the city and enjoyed the foods. Yoder served the best western food i ever tasted, i kinda miss their steaks now. We also visited their annual local event - The River Feast, their famous Vietnam beef noodles, pizzas and the Italian foods. After all, we had a nice weekend in Wichita.

Journey to USA – day 1

With everything packed, we're ready to start our West USA journey with a total 36 hours flight and transit hours from Kuching (KCH) to Wichita (ICT) using both China Eastern and United Airlines. The flight wasn't as pleasant as we thought, the seats were too small and there was no space to stretch our legs. The flight from Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) to Chicago Ohale Airport (ORD) took about 15 hours, added up again the 8 hours transit hours in PVG, 5 hours flight from KUL to PVG and 5 hours transit hours in KUL previously. We're completely exhausted when the plane finally landed at Wichita. Despite the exhaustion after long flight duration, the outside temperature of Wichita was chilly, it was about 15°C. The local time was 8.40 PM (UTC-5 hours), due to daylight saving, the sun just about to set. After we dropped our baggage at our accommodation, we went to Walmart and bought some groceries for our dinner. The jet lag and chilly weather caused insomnia and fatigue to some of us. It took us 2 to 3 days to get over the weather and the jet lag. Jet lag was something quite cool experience because by the time we having it, the kidney could be in Malaysia, liver in Tokyo, but brain in current location. Day 1 was ended with forcing myself to sleep at midnight in a completely strange place.

Travel thoughts: Introduction

The latest US trip gave me many “Wows” especially in my encounters with nature beauty in several national parks. The more i travel, the more i wish to blog about but, the ages i grow, the more i will forget. There is a necessary for me to remind myself how beauty of each place i ever been and keep my memory in writing in this blog. This is a new section in my blog, talks about only my travel experience and the inner secret why i love travel. If you’re a frequent traveller too, please share your thoughts and pictures.

My proposed US trip

There you go.. i going to begin my 3 weeks long vacation in West United States (US) soon, this is the plan: Our first stop will be Chicago Ohale airport, Illinois just for transit flight to Wichita, Kansas. Then spend 5 days there before we move on to Los Angeles (LA), California.

Click to enlarge
Red line is the road trip area

From LA, we will start our West US road trip which covers Yosemite National Parks, Death Valley National Park, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon National Parks. It is about a journey to visit several landmark National Parks in USA.

Click to enlarge
More details of the road trip

The blue line will be the proposed road trip which most likely to be our itinerary, if we can make it on time, maybe we can visit the Sequoia National Park, Mojave National Reserve, Joshua Tree National Park and Palm Springs.

I myself would like to visit the San Francisco Golden Bridge and San Diego Sea World, or maybe Universal Studio. Too bad, we probably can't make to these places because we only spend one and half day in LA. If we happen to go to San Francisco, that will take us another extra two days in road trip and maybe we can't make it on time to Grand Canyon.

Nevertheless, i still look forward for this coming trip, because this is my first long flight journey and my first trip to Mat Salleh territories. It is gonna be fun. Hopefully the American Custom guys treat nicely to me during security clearence. God bless us for a safe trip! *praying