Tucson, AZ

Leaving San Diego, we headed across the southern border of California towards Tucson, where we would stay with Ali - another MV alum - before heading north toward the Grand Canyon and Utah. Along this drive, the desert changed: out of the barren Mojave, we were now in the Sonoran Desert, with thick brush and the iconic Saguaro cacti. During most of our drive, the temperature was 110 F. The desert scenery, punctuated by red rock mountains, was neat, and very much the classic image of the Southwestern desert.

We paralleled the Mexican border for a short time on the way. Although we didn't get close, the fence must be pretty huge considering how big it looked from the highway...

Looking over the black fence to Mexico

After catching up with Ali Monday evening, we visited the Desert Museum just outside the city on Tuesday. I really enjoyed going there; as I've mentioned, the desert seems so foreign, so I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about it.

In addition to the exhibits, the outdoor walk-thru portion contained many cool cacti species, including the famous Saguaro:

and more odd cacti, like the teddy-bear cactus, named for its deceptively cuddly appearance.  

At the end of the day, we biked across the city to meet two of Ali's friends and to watch the sun set from their rooftop. It was very good, and different from the Pacific Ocean sunset from only two days before.

Tucson was a great stop on the trip: in sharp contrast to many big, bustling cities, this dot-in-the-desert place was funky and different. There are strong activist and aging hippie cultures, which help keep Tucson weird. I don't imagine moving to the desert anytime soon - but I am glad to have been there to see what it's all about. 

San Diego, CA

On Friday evening, we cooked a late dinner and caught up with Jan Michael and his roommate Mike, who is also a Hokie. Their apartment sits right on the Pacific Ocean, with beautiful sunset views and the constant sound of crashing waves just outside.

Looking down the shore from the balcony

On Saturday morning, we went out to watch the VT football game with a group of Jan Michael and Mike’s coworkers – all Hokies as well. We went to Bub’s, the area’s Virginia Tech bar (I didn’t even know VT had dedicated bars outside of Blacksburg…) Since we were on the West Coast for a noon game, we were there bright and early at 9 AM – at least they had good breakfast.

Bub's, San Diego's VT bar

As the game went on, the place slowly filled up with Hokies. The place is such a fixture that the San Diego VT Alumni Chapter even did announcements and raffles during commercial breaks. It was quite an interesting and neat experience.

Afterwards, we walked down to the Pacific Beach pier, which overlooked the busy beach and a surfing competition.

We drove around to see several landmarks that afternoon; these included Mt. Soledad looking over the city, the seals and boulders of La Jolla Cove, and a beautiful, long beach on the island of Coronado. Here, we walked through the very elegant and old-style Hotel del Coronado.

The hills and big houses of La Jolla

The rocks at La Jolla cove

The Hotel del Coronado

Coronado beach

On Sunday, we visited the US Olympic training center outside San Diego, which was only mildly interesting. We did, though, have tacos for both lunch and dinner – Authentic Mexican at Tacos el Gordo for lunch and fish tacos at a local bar and grill for dinner. Two different styles, two different places, and two of the best tacos I have ever had! In addition, Jan Michael took us to a downtown joint named Extraordinary Desserts. The name says it all: they focus on desserts, and they were definitely extraordinary! I knew that Jan Michael was a foodie, and we consequently got some great food in San Diego.

The shared spread at Extraordinary Desserts!

That evening, we prepared to leave on Monday but found time to walk a few blocks down the oceanfront to Sunset Cliffs. Here, we watched our last sunset over the Pacific Ocean – a spectacular end to our time on the coast and sendoff for the journey back east.

The Road to San Diego

Before leaving for San Diego on Friday morning, we toured and explored the Hoover Dam since our campsite was only about 10 minutes away. The dam is awesome and big – bigger than words, pictures, or even visiting it can convey. We walked around the outside and across the dam as well as went down inside to see one set of the hydroelectric turbines.

The visitor center was detailed and interesting, covering the history, construction, and power production aspects of the dam. (Any mention of more currently relevant topics, like the destruction of the Colorado River’s ecosystem or the unsustainable nature of the water and power supply, was strangely absent.) Nonetheless, it was great to get to see and learn about the dam.

The dam from the Arizona side

There are hydroelectric turbines inside both sides of the dam. For scale, each turbine has a steel 36-inch thick center shaft and produces 178,000 horsepower.

This room housing the turbines is 200 yards long

One of the more disturbing sights is of Lake Mead, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam. It's clear by lines on the rocks where the lake level is supposed to be - and how low it is today. Surprisingly, water is not the first concern: well before the water runs out, the lake will hit the point at which the hydroelectric turbines cannot operate – leaving Las Vegas and southern California without power.

Lake Mead (designed to be full to the white line)

Just 3 years ago, a bypass bridge was completed downstream of the dam to carry thru-traffic around Hoover Dam rather than over it for security reasons. This bridge is huge and has its own walkway, allowing for near-aerial views of the dam.

The bridge, as seen from the dam...

and the dam, as seen from the bridge

We left Hoover Dam and drove (again) across the Mojave Desert into southern California.

A solar power plant off the highway in Nevada

We ate lunch at In-N-Out burger, a famous Western chain, and it was very good (though it was insanely and inexplicably crowded for 2 PM on a Friday.) We drove around Los Angeles on our way down and to the coast, which (as I had would have guessed) required sitting in traffic and a fair share of tolls.

We made it to San Diego in time for a late dinner. Here, we met Jan Michael, a friend through the MVs: he had been a drum major when Jenna and I were freshmen. It was exciting to finally arrive there to spend our weekend on the Pacific coast!

Surfers and the sunset on our first San Diego evening

The Mojave Desert

We left Yosemite on Wednesday, September 11 to journey south down US 395 and the Owens Valley of California. Here, we were getting our first real taste of the desert: dry, hot, and unchanging for miles on end. We made an unplanned stop soon outside the park in Bishop, CA: something had happened to the van brakes during the Yosemite visit that caused them to go slightly soft, and I thought it was best to get it fixed ASAP. I tried a couple of fixes on the car outside of an O’Reilly auto parts store with no luck – so we took it to a small shop to get looked at.

Fortunately for us, only a rear adjuster had broken, causing one rear wheel drum to go out of adjustment – but it would take until the next morning for the new part to arrive at the shop. This gave us an unexpected day of downtime in the small town, most of which we spent writing, planning, and drying out our camping gear from the Yosemite showers. The next morning, the part was installed, and the van was back to normal!

Our first stop driving across the Mojave Desert to Vegas was Death Valley. We drove up and down various basins and ranges on the way, with the rock changing color from grey to brown to red. We also passed the Mojave’s signature sight: huge patches of Joshua trees stretching out across the sand.

Joshua trees in a Mojave basin

We drove through the valley but did not turn off to see Badwater Basin, the lowest elevation point in the United States. More or less, after an hour driving through it, we got the point: it was extremely hot, extremely sunny, and below sea level. The fact that the valley is a national park and tourist destination is somewhat strange to me. The valley is as hot, barren, and inhospitable as you would imagine it to be.

Death Valley

The road through Death Valley

After passing more desert and Joshua trees, we crossed into Nevada and made it to Las Vegas. Our visit here was short: we would camp outside the city at Lake Mead, so we only had about two hours to walk around.

Vegas rising from the desert

We parked and walked down and back a large portion of the strip. I figured the Vegas crowd would be a mostly nighttime crowd, but no: the streets were packed. Rough-looking people wore shirts and handed out cards advertising “Girls Direct 2 U.” Casinos lined the streets, including their high-rise hotel attachments. We walked through the MGM casino; it was upscale, extravagant, and overwhelming. Strangest of all, it all sits and operates in the middle of the desert. (To complete our experience, Jenna and I both bet $5 in an electronic roulette machine. Naturally, we did not win and lost all of it.)

Driving into "the strip"

Like most big, touristy areas we have visited, there was a plethora of odd attractions around, including the world’s largest M&M wall (so they claim).

We headed over to Lake Mead as the sun set to camp for the night. The next day, on Friday, we would make a long and more direct drive to San Diego than we originally planned, getting our lost day back and making it back to the California coast for the weekend!

Yosemite National Park

Leaving the Bay area, we drove straight east across California to Yosemite and the Sierra Nevadas. This was somewhat unfortunate timing in our trip - Yosemite is in the middle of containing the Rim Fire, a wildfire that has more or less shut down the northwestern area of the park. After passing through the Central Valley (where there are almond trees everywhere), we had to detour because of the fire. Highway 120, which leads through Yosemite to the famous Tioga Pass, was closed on the west side of the park.

The smoky road up the Sierra Nevadas near Yosemite

We had to drive about 40 miles north to take the Sonora Pass across the mountains, then drive south and back into the park from the east over Tioga Pass. Sonora Pass was much slower and windier than Tioga, but despite the extra time and miles, we made it to Yosemite.

Tioga Pass winding along the mountainside

Due to the fire, we could not access the western part of the park - including the famous Yosemite Valley and Half Dome. We camped in the Tuolumne Meadows area, a high valley on the east side.

That afternoon, we hiked up Lembert's Dome. Despite Half Dome being the most-famed dome hike, domes are all over the park, formed by smooth, polishing glacial action on one side and rough, eroding glacial action on the other. I was amazed by the hike - it was so neat to walk along these huge rock structures way up in the air. Everything about it - the formation, rock types, geology - was so neat! It's a surreal feeling to be on top of one. The hike was tough, too: we were hiking up from 9,000 ft to almost 10,000 ft, which made it distinctly harder to breathe or have any endurance at all.

For scale, look for the people on the rock in the center of the picture!

The fire affected us here, too. It was easy to make out the outlines of mountains and forests along the skyline, but the view was predominantly one of smoke. We would learn later that the mornings were clear as could be, but smoke would generally start filling the Tuolumne Meadows valley around 2 or 3 PM.

The smoky view

The next morning, we got a late start due to the cold: the temperature was around 35 F both mornings we were there. We set out on the Glen Aulin trail, which winds along a river through the valley. It was a spectacular trail and one of the best hikes we have done on the trip!

The trail through the meadows crossed some beautiful views as well as huge granite slabs. The meadows were golden and dry; the forest was piney, sandy, and dry. The neat part was again admiring the granite outcroppings - the trail and riverbed would change seemingly arbitrarily from sandy forest to pure granite and back.

The High Sierra forest

Lembert Dome (the previous day's hike) from afar

Tuolumne Meadows

Trail crossing a granite slab

Near the end of the trail, the river became steep, and the trail opened up to views of the surrounding mountains. This remote stream was breathtaking, almost like it was out of a movie.

Just from this limited and hazy visit to Yosemite, I really liked it - it ranks with Glacier as one of the top national parks I've seen so far. The beauty here was unreal, and I want to visit again to see the famed valley when the fires calm down.

From here, we packed up and left around 6:30 AM the day after hiking Glen Aulin: next stop, Vegas!

San Francisco, CA

The journey through Napa Valley brought us into the Bay area for the weekend. Early on Saturday, we got up and headed to the Golden Gate Rec area north of the Golden Gate bridge. Here, we walked around for a while in the early morning, listening to the Pacific Ocean and watching the seals lounge on the shore.

Looking to Point Bonita - the mouth of the bay

We crossed the famous bridge into San Francisco.

We visited many of the popular places along the water in the city - including Fisherman's Wharf, the original Ghirardelli, and several markets and piers. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday with no fog - the beaches were packed, and droves of bicyclists and runners were out everywhere. In addition, there were dozens of sailboats out on the bay - possibly gathering for a race. It was a very "San-Fran" kind of day there.

Looking up one of the ridiculously sloped streets

We left and went to the Mission District to meet one of Jenna's friends who lives in the area for lunch. The area had an odd feel; it is a traditionally poorer-looking Hispanic neighborhood that is transitioning into a trendy, young/hipster place. We walked through Clarion Alley, which is permanently covered in ever-changing graffiti.

A friend I met through work the past two summers at NASA had agreed to let us stay the weekend at his house - an old, very "Californian" home a few blocks from Stanford that was quite a neat place, surrounded by lemon-lime trees, olive trees, and two gigantic palm trees. It was a treat to stay there; Silicon Valley is home to ubiquitous great food, coffee shops, and nice neighborhoods (I saw no less than 6 Teslas just walking around.)

We took some downtime on Sunday to catch up on writing and explore the area for a while. We walked through Stanford, a pretty, sandy-brick campus that is also very much California-style. I liked seeing it since it was a break from the norm: 95% of college campuses seem to use more or less the same brick architecture.

Palm Drive - the entrance to Stanford

The central quad

With laundry, grocery shopping, and errands done, we were ready to leave early Monday morning on the way to Yosemite National Park!