Yosemite & Sequoia National Parks

You are going to need to look closely at the piccies to work out what we did between Zion and Yosemite. We'll know who has looked at the website! The meadows of yosemit were beautiful, but cold at 7000+feet. We were lucky enough to get a campsite too! Yosemite is stunning, but its granite and forest, so more similar to home (NZ), and to be honest, I think the milford road is just as spectacular. But it was a worthy destination. We had a whirlwind tour; we'd like to have been climbing, but no shoes. Someone needs to give them lessons on fire fighting - on the eastern slopes there was a scrub fire outside the park. Choppers and planes were bombing the upwind side and protecting the road which was not evern down wind. No effort to wet or make firebreaks downwind. We were left thinking, what the ****?

After yosemite, we headed down to Fresno - a city of around 300,000 on the trail of a rabies shot. No shots (see Joshua tree page), but it was good for chris to realise how much better her riding has gotten. Lots of fun dragging off cars at the lights in 8-10 lane traffic (sorry mum!).

From there we headed back into sequoia national forest to see the giant trees, then down to the coastal plains again, and then back up again to lake isobel (like central otago but amazing burgers) to avoid all the traffic headed to LA.  A nice few days, but steep windy roads meant long days. The it was a quick scoot around the satellite towns of LA (about 1hr out, in rush hour none the less) to Joshua Tree, our last pitstop before the border.

Our generic carcature of americans continued. So here it is:
Washingtonians: A split personality, one side ultra nice (a little fake?), green and socialist minded, the other gun touting rednecked liberals.
Wyomingian: Didn't really have enough to experience, except that they drive fast, and are very geared to tourism and the outdoors.
Utahians: Chilled, down to earth, understated, great sense of humour and very content. Our favourites.
Coloradans: Also like utah, just without the understated bit (tend to be a little louder and drunker)
Californians: Nice enough, but self absorbed, a little demanding, and very much the centre of their own universes. Oh, and they drive too fast and too close to bikes!  (al was nearlly rear ended twice, and chris once). Space cadets in the desert are hilarious!
Arizonians: friendly but more anal and regimented, especially goverment workers. 
Nevadans: fun, friendly, service oriented but generally nice to be around. We loved our stay at Hilton Grand Vacations las vegas. Best staff of any hotel, ever.

All in all, the US of A was great, with stunning and diverse landscapes, cool wildlife, friendly people, great quality roads (at the cost of health services and development), although a tad racist (towards mexicans and indigenous people) and the coffee ain't that great. A really good place to travel, and reasonably cheap ($15-25 per night to camp or free on BLM lands, $50-75 for a room, $15-25 for two for a meal or $15-$20 per day for groceries, plus cheap fuel!). Just don't get sick!