Travels Revisited: USA Roadtrip 2017- Socal

Yosemite is definitely one of the most amazing places I will probably ever see. Tunnel View ->

looks like a painting even in person because of the slight haze over the valley, but also just because of how insane it is.

We had some trouble getting to the visitors center, there was no parking and we had to take the shuttle bus, but the scenery made up for it. Instead of taking the bus back to our car we walked. Some of the path back is now apart of the river so we took a detour across a bridge with a beautiful view of Yosemite Falls.

When we first entered the valley we parked and walked by El Capitan and up to Brideveil Fall. I understand why Brideveil has that name because when you reach the waterfall you can't even see it due to the mist. But from Tunnel View, Brideveil is in full focus. This picture in the right hand corner is actually interesting. Last year I found a retro picture of Yosemite online and used it as my background picture on my phone. The retro picture looks almost exactly like this one that I took just walking back to the car. This is my favorite picture I've taken on the trip because of that and also because I think it's a cool picture on its own. Yosemite is just such an impressive park to see. We decided to watch the Ken Burns National Park documentaries since we are seeing so many parks on this trip.

San Francisco is definitely a place to see. We first drove over the Bay Fridge but realized we couldn't check in until 4 so we drove over to the Golden Gate Bridge to take some pics. We had 3 hours until check in so we decided to go to Muir Woods and that way we would get to drive over the Golden Gate. Lucky for us it was not foggy when we arrived, but it was so foggy when we left San Fran that the bridge disappeared completely. Muir Woods was nice, we took the Hillside trail and gained some height, not enough compared to those trees. The loop trail took about an hour. We stayed in the Marriott Marquis downtown and that hotel was beautiful, they had a restaurant on the 39th floor called the View and it seemed to be a popular spot. For dinner we walked to a place called the Grove, they served breakfast all day and I'm so happy that they did. We had the best food ever. I had a goat cheese and basil omlete with hash browns and toast. If you go to San Francisco go to the Grove, the prices are really reasonable too..

The next day we took the streetcar to the Fishermans Wharf and got clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, which was delicious too. Pier 39 is known for their sea lions so we walked down to there, a sign said most of the sea lions had gone south for the summer but a handful remained. We stopped in a candy store called the Candy Baron. Tons of taffy and every candy you could ever imagine was in that store, we actually saw an ad on snapchat that was for a credit card company but it featured that store in the ad. Lombard street was close enough to walk to so we headed over there to walk up and down the famous street. The right side had 20 or something less steps than the left side and the view from the top was worth the hike. We saw the Painted Ladies square and stopped to take pictures on the way out the next day.

Heading to LA today and stopping in Carmel to see the sea otters and driving down Big Sur for a bit.

Wow what a time in Los Angeles! June 23rd we arrived at 11pm from San Fransisco. We stayed in a really cool beach hotel with only 9 rooms and we were in the Jimi Hendrix room. Apparently a pro surfer stated in that exact room and they had Nike redesign the room to include all of his favorite inspirational people and things.

It was pretty neat and right across from the beach! June 24th we went with my cousin to a Warner Brother Studios tour, I recommend everyone take that tour if you're out here. We got the chance to see so many cool things there. Our tour guide took us onto the ELLEN stage!! I got to take a picture sitting on the Friends Couch on the actual set that they filmed on! We saw back lots and sound stages and learned all the tricks of Hollywood, and there are a lot of them. Very very cool tour. Then we drove up a mountain, saw the Hollywood sign in all of its glory, and walked around the Griffith Observatory.

We watched the movie they had about the observatory and it detailed all of the construction they had just done. Actually was pretty cool because they showed how they lifted the building basically into the sky and built more underneath it. The view from the roof there was incredible you could see all of LA. Then we went to the Dodgers game, one of our many baseball game stops on this trip! The game was super fun, I didn't try a Dodger Dog but I did have a churro so I think it's okay. June 25th- today was a beautiful day so we spent it on the beach! Sadly, we we lackadaisically put on sunscreen and ended up with wonderfully west coast sun burns. Before that it was a lovely day just relaxing on the beach in the 75 degree weather. We had dinner at Ruby's, a 40s diner and it was funny because I was wearing a NC State shirt and the waiter asked if I was a State fan and I said oh I go there actually and he was very surprised. I thought that was funny.

We had a heck of a day- we stayed at Disneyland from 9:30am- midnight. We rode a total of 17 rides and the longest we waited was for Splash Mountain and that was only an hour and a half. We rode Pirates twice and Big Thunder Mountain twice, once in the day and once at night. Our first ride was Space Mountain and that made me quite nauseous. I scored 104,000 points in the Scooby-Doo blaster ride. We watched the Electric Parade and followed it down the street. We rode Indiana Jones 10 minutes after it reopened so there was no wait and that turned out to be one of my favorites! Pirates was very fun too. We went into the Enchanted Tiki room and ate Dole Whip which you can only get at Disneyland and the Dole plantation in Hawaii. What a great day it really is one of the happiest places on earth! June 27th- Today was a recovery day from the 17 hours or something like that at Disney. We actually slept until 4pm. Walked downtown Huntington Beach for Surf city nights. We really liked Huntington Beach they always have something going on. We walked the pier and saw a thrasher shark and ray that were fished up. Watched the beautiful sunset and relaxed intending to leave the next morning for the Grand Canyon. We'll come June 28th and things change. We packed up the car and got smoothies across from our hotel, hopped in the car and our check engine light was on. Keep in mind we got the oil changed yesterday so we were not sure why it was on since the car had just been checked. So we drive maybe 30 feet down the road and the light starts blinking and we can't drive over 30mph. Long story short Libby needed a few repairs done so we had to stay an extra night in Huntington. Which is a pretty nice place to add a bonus day to, we had a nice dinner and saw the Wednesday night thing here. Hot rod cars driving up and down Main Street. It's quite a sight. We're sad to leave LA/ Huntington!! Luckily my car is getting al fixed up here and not in the middle of the desert. Even more proof that the world is small- we were sitting in the car shop place and I hear my name, I look up and it's one of my old middle school friends who actually graduated from my high school too just a year later. She was just as confused to see me as I was to see her- it was wild really.