We left our gracious hosts Joshua and Dominic in Oakland, San Francisco, and we took the US famous "Pacific Highway" and drove the Pacific coast towards our first national park visit - Sequoia and Kings Canyon national park. Like its australian sibling "Great Ocean Road", this drive must rank among the best coastal drives in the world, with its beautiful scenes of clear ocean, rugged shores and sandy beaches. On the way we saw a vast colony of huge elephant seals just lounging on the beach, and the sumptuous Hearst castle, with its famous history of 20s film parties and posh visitors.
Kings Canyon and Sequoia NP were completely breathtaking. The views overlooking the mountains, v
alleys, canyons, fantastic sunsets and most of all the forests of hundreds of gigantic trees. We have never seen anything like this before and felt like small ants againts the wonders of the nature, which are thousands years old.
From this peaceful environment we headed towards californian party city, Los Angeles, where we didn't spot any stars (just the ones on the walk of fame), but we enjoyed the immense villas in Beverly Hills, views of the Hollywood sign and our new hosts Josh and Lynne took us to an LA fringe film festival. We saw "Does your soul have a cold?", an american low budget documentary about japanese depression which was followed by a Q&A with the director, certainly wasn't one of the mainstream films and didn't get as much as advertising as Die Hard 4, but it was a great way to experience the true arts environment of this bustling metropolis. Los Angeles is also the city of the rich, famous and beautiful - we toured Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Santa Monica, Malibu beach, Mulholand drive - all the places so familiar from the movies, just the movie stars are missing, as they are hiding behind the high walls of their wealthy mansions as big as a whole street.
LA was crazy, vibrant, with lots of traffic, so we were longing for something more empty, vaste, hot... And we ended up in the desert, in the small town 29 Palms, which is in the middle of the Joshua Tree National Park. And yes, if the name sounds familiar to you, you are completely right. The famous CD Joshua Tree by the band U2 was written in this desert, in this national park, in the motel Harmony Inn, we are staying and writing you this blog entry. Yes, the spirit of U2 is surrounding us, and as it is approximately 40 degrees outside (109 fahrenheit) we are going to jump into the famous pool and open a bottle of californian wine...
See ya later alligators!
PS: And happy birthday to my friend Kate:)!
2 comments:
Ahooooj! Thanks a lot for all your wishes :)))
Now, after 2 bottles of champagne, i am one year older, happy... :) But i miss you!!!!
Enjoy your travel in America and take care!!!
Mam vas rada, tak se mejte krasne!Apropos, i have 2 new birds :), so we will make them friends :)
pa
Kacenka
Haha, things we never told you. Dominique is a crazy U2 fan - she has like 40 cds hidden away somewhere in her closet. She's been a front row concert girl too many times to count. It may have even influenced her choice of husband, Joshua, as in the Tree, as in the National Monument, as in the album. So many Joshua's on your trip recently.
However, truth be told, this Joshua loathes U2 (sorry Lenka). Somehow Dominique and I have made it despite this.
Have fun in the desert kids. Enjoy the pretty colors, avoid the mormon fundamentalists and have a 3.2 percent alcohol for me.
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