29 nov: Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco

 Robert wanted to visit Amoeba Records as today is Record Store Day, so we went to Haight/Ashbury, where also some other recordshops were located. Walking to "lower Haight" (the other direction from the shops) for some recordstores, we were blinded by all the gorgeous Victorian houses we saw everywhere!

some houses had unbelievable detailed features

one of the many stunning stained glass windows we saw

First recordshop + first Vespa :-)

Too much choice! (with a staffmember that said: "3rd time here allready? Better move here!")

Black Friday lining up around the corner: shop was behind the tree on the right

 Maybe because of black friday, it was pretty crowed on the street but not annoying. Got a very good and strong coffee and we walked up to Amoeba together (end of the street) enjoying the scenery.

I left Robert here and started shopping. Finally I had the time AND the energy to go in every shop I wanted and try on everything I liked. I knew Robert was happy in Amoeba and I was chilling out trying a gazillion floral dresses.
After about one and a half our he called and I walked back up to the big Whole Foods (expensive but nice) where we picked out sandwiches, salad, humus and enjoyed our lunch in the sun. It was one of the best lunches ever, not only because it tasted good. We thought we heard one of the streethippies say he didnt have dogfood anymore so we walked up to him and offered to buy him some, but he said he still had enough. he was pleasantly surprised and I asked to get him something and he asked for a herbal tea :-D

enjoying a fab and healthy lunch outside Whole Foods, the sun, the company, the scenery, and life <3

 Being the 3rd visit to San Francisco, I'm not shocked by all the homeless people, weirdos, streethippies etc anymore (they're everywhere) but it still kinda puzzles me. First of all I'm gratefull that I dont (have to) live on the street, also, there's so many of them! they dont all look like bums... some look very """normal""" but cary big old bags with their belongings or push carts. Or the woman that looked totaly """normal""" untill she stuck her arm in the trashbin to fish for cans. Some look like they really need help, others look like they're just hippies and just dont go with the flow.
Anyway, like last time, no one steps up to you to ask for money. (or maybe I look like I dont have any)

floral floral floral floral dresses (not curtains)

 we walked back to the busstop on Masonic(street, ave, blvd, something) and got in some shops again to ask Robert for advise. his first reaction "really, MORE FLORAL DRESSES??!!" yeah, why?

nice shop with pretty dress that didn fit :-/

Nice shop with pretty shirt that did fit :-D

When it got dark the street seemed to fill up a bit more with shady people (during the day I didnt feel unsafe or anything) so we decided it has been a nice day and get back on the bus (that got twice as expensive since last time we were here, if my memory serves me well?? >> still cheap, just saying, before that gets back to me :-D )

Maybe a 15 minute ride back to the last bus stop and then another 15 minute walk to the hotel.
Now we need to get some food somewhere but Robert felt asleep on the bed. Oh look who woke up while I wrote this!!!

28 nov; Las Vegas, NV - San Francisco, Ca

Guess who woke up at SEVEN AM?!!!  Yeah  baby!!!

We were planning to stop at the same gasstation in Barstow again (because all roads lead to Barstow ;-) but we had a different exit from the interstate to this highway (58) so we missed it. Then we noticed we didnt have much gas left so I freaked out, as this is a "small" highway and I wasnt sure if the gasstations we would see would be open, cos we cant use the creditcard for gas. (maybe we can, can someone please explain) And as it's Thanksgiving, we assume everything is closed. Anyway Robert took the first exit that said "gas".
 
Minor detail: it was a handpainted sign leading onto a small road to some buildings in the distance. Apperantly there was a place called Hinkley somewhere.
Rings a bell, anyone? Film fans?
after maybe one mile we saw a small ran down 50's looking gasstation. It was open, so we parked and Robert went in, though the gasprice was sky high.
I enjoyed the scenery, this was as far from tourists routes as could be.
Robert came back and tried to put gas in but it didnt work. we were messing around and gave up and he went back in. Turned out you have to push that black thing up :-D (isnt that very old fashioned? )
We went back in for coffee... pay attention Europeans, those tiny milk cups arent always milk :-D (in the USA, most of the times they are funny flavored sugary-milk cups) but hey, coffee with a weird taste is coffee too!
the shopowner was very friendly. For some reason he had a scarf tied up around his head. Not like in any religion, but a normal scarf you wear around your neck, tied around his head like it's a present. He asked us if we saw the movie Erin Brocovic (probably misspelled) because this gasstation is in the movie. I did saw the movie, a long time ago, and promised I would watch it again. I tried to remember details, and a local that was hanging around said "its 60 years ago" The movie is based on a real story.
In the end, a small funny intermezzo. It really was a place you dont see to often as a tourist.

aww, a gasstation with the name "Love's" and a lot of hearts on the trim of the roof :-)

and some nice hills with real trees and a lot of rocks, the highway zigzags between it, very pretty.
and now the yellow velvet hills are back.

Tehachapi Loop!! cool, didnt see it though.   (look it up if you're a traingeek, its pretty cool)
Yellow velvet hills stop abrupt, we're almost in Bakersfield now, we can see the view between the hills of an endless valley.
Yay we're back in the fruit valley, our first orange trees are here!

Before we entered the I 15 a road took us through Bakersfield. It looked very upclass and it had at least two churches every block.
We took an food exit somewhere in a place called "Buttonsomething" (more or less) Slowly we drove passed all the restaurants... Denny's... isnt that all fried crap? Subway? Neh, not now. Starbucks? Thats not food. Some others we didnt know, and at the end of the street a place that looked a bit old and it was called TASTE OF INDIA. Yes, every single Indian restaurant in the world is called Taste of India. From Hasselt to Buttonsomething, California.
It looked a bit funny inside and we were the only non- indians, and we picked something out.
"is it spicey?" I asked the man and he smiled "as spicy as you want" Ok, not spicy. We got a good meal but a bit weird. Apperantly Indian food all over the world is different.
We wondered if we would have an emergency restroom break on our way but it all turned out ok :-)

The I-5 to San Francisco is long and boring. Sometimes something turns up like the fields with one million cows (maybe even two million) but other than that its just flat landscape and boring. we tried the radio again, didnt sound very good but hey. We found a country station with "country" songs, most of them sounded like pop to us.
Laptop battery died, and it got to dark to crochet, so, boredom. Whats even more boring than the I-15? the I-15 by dark!! we knew it on forehand, but its the shortest route to get there. The interstate 1 along the coast is super, but it took way longer and this was allready an 8,5 hr ride.
But we got there. Familiar citynames and streetnames turned up when we reached the Bay Area,  and we approached the former fabulous Bay Bridge. (nag nag, we dont like the new part, the old one is way cooler) Paid 4 dollars (what a way to spend Thanksgiving, alone in a tollbooth, and still friendly) and there we go! Beautifull lit San Francisco was right in front of us. The gps didnt understand that we were driving on a new bridge (a few meters to the north) and lost it :-D
When we left the bridge we were right in the middle of the skyscrapers. Our GPS, that just started working long enough to send us in the more or less right direction, couldnt get signal here and tilted. It went "turn left on Market. Turn left on Pine (we were on pine) Turn left on California Turn left on this; Turn left on that. Only thing we could do was keep on driving and watch the green lights. Some street names we crossed rang a bell, but thats not enough :-D Finally it started working again and it sent us in the right way (we were allready going in the right direction).
More or less by coincidence we're right across the street from the hotel we stayed in last time. We wanted to go back there first because of the location (Lombardstreet), but it was too expensive 
 and we found this, Town House motel across the road. we selected this because of the location, free parking and fridge on the room, but had no clue what it would look like.

Well, it looks pretty amazing! The owner gave us a very warm welcome and we dragged our stuff upstairs, to find out that the room is very nice, a bit small (and a bit noisy) but clean and pretty and 1000x better than the motel in Hollywood.

we installed ourselfs and ran to the Safeway for a sandwich, but the Safeway, thats always opened according to the website, was closed. Aaaahhh!!! Would have been nice if they put THAT On the website too!!! We understand that businesses close for Thanksgiving, but please let us know.
We walked back to Lombardstreet, looking for a restaurant, or nightshop or gasstation selling food, and ended up in Mel's Diner. Nice place! Fifties looking diner, very cute, and they didnt only sell hamburgers. To celebrate Thanksgiving, Robert had the spaghetti with turkey meatballs and I had the Turkey salad :-)
They had little jukebox thingies on the table and I selected Otis Redding with Dock of the bay, just because its a nice song, but it struck me a bit when I realised he's singing about SF.
Another struggle to find out about the right tip ("help us, we're European" always works :-) ) and we walked back to the hotel.

 

27 nov: Trona, Ca - Las Vegas, NV

We started the day with another great homecooked meal; eggs and bacon and "biscuits" and some fruit. while we were enjoying our food, Robert said "Americans sure know how to make their bacon" they do!!
we didnt have a lot of time as we had a long drive to Vegas. With pain in our hearts we said goodbye to our friends, after promising to be back.

[while I write this, Las Vegas appears up in the distance. GOOD heavens its such an ugly town by daylight!!] Oohh now we have some time left we're going to get lunch at the same Trader Joe's where I murdered this laptop last time. Thats going to be interesting.]

Because of heavy storms and rainshowers, we had to chance our plans. the road through Death Vally was closed so we're not able to see Zabriski point, the sanddunes etc. Zabriski only with a huge detour, so we decided to let it be and drive straight to Las Vegas, esp because we expected buisy roads.
Another long drive trhough the desert, but this time it was only boring and not scary anymore (the desert can be scary I think) on our way we saw lots and lots of parked RV's that had dirtbikes with them and a lot of dirtbike riders in the dirt (oh great how well derscibed)
We passed the town of Red Mountain, population 130, with old old houses that looked like they would fall apart, old rusty trailers, lots of abandoned houses and sheds. Most of the rundown houses had very nice cars on the driveway :-)

We drove to Barstow where we got back on the I-15, but first we needed to get gas and coffee. Getting gas in the States is always a challenge for us (just like getting showers to work) but we did ok. Its a bit difficult because we dont know how big the tank of this car is.
For some reason we always end up in Barstow :-)

Great! I dropped my Barstow coffee in the car and it missed my laptop by INCHES. It did soak my seat. yay.

I-15 to Vegas, kinda boring after seeing it one time (and that one time was 2005 :-) stopped at stateline/Primm for bathroom break. Funny to be back there, we saw CCRevisted there 6 mnts ago! Also found nice sunglasses. tried to pay with my creditcard (never had one before, we were always able to pay with debitcard in the USA)it went kinda like "like this?" "no, like that!" "oh, like this?" "no, otherway round!" "like this?" "no, strip on that side!" "like this?" no, turn it around!"
then "sorry, I'm European" and the girl laughed out loud.

Check in at the hotel was at 3pm, and we were too early, ... so last minute discission to go to ... Trader Joes to get lunch and roadsnacks for the trip to San Francisco tomorrow (actually planned that for this evening in a different shop) it was weird to be back at the place were I killed my laptop. This time it survived.
It was a nice experience in the shop. First of all, when we walked in, they played Fogerty with Rocknroll Girls on the radio! AGAIN yeah I cant just go in a Trader Joe's quickly nomatter what I tell myself (Or Robert) picked out a healthy lunch, bought bulk fruits, and I found oatmeal without sugar, the same I use at home! I dont know if I'll be able to prepare it in hotels, otherways it will go home with me :-) some other stuff and we had lunch in the car, and then we drove to the Hard Rock.

So, Las Vegas AGAIN!

We checked in, friendly guy (everyone was very friendly, incl the random staff worker who waved bye bye to us when we left the parking on thursday morning. we smiled and wove back. I hope he understand he made our morning) I asked the man "will shops and things be closed earlier because of Thanksgiving tomorrow?" he laughed and said "this is Vegas baby, nothing closes earlier"
Ok!!
He seriously gave us a MAP of how to get to our room :-D
We had a good deal with the room (booking.com, and no they dont pay me) and it was ofcourse very nice. Not as huge as our 4 persons room 6 years ago, but still very laaaarge. Nice bed, superb matrass, everything nice. we sorted out our stuff, looked up some adresses again and went into town.

first stop: the Neon Museum. It had crossed my path earlier and a while ago I started reading about it, and I could make Robert enthousiastic for it too, so that was our first goal, a tour at the Neon museum by night.
We didnt book the tour so we hoped we could fit in.
First of all, our GPS never heard of N Las Vegas Blvd (he did know S Las Vegas blvd) but i managed to find Neon Museum between points of interest.
We drove north on the Strip (is it still called the Strip there?) passed the Pawn Stars shop, with a line of people in front, and Fremont street, with lots of light and it looked really cool at first glimpse. GPS told it was right there at Fremont, so we drove around the block a few times but didnt see anything. we wanted to turn around but no u-turns alowed so we drove quite far and then we all of a sudden saw it in the distance!
Well, it was closed. Bummer. At home, i especially looked for it on their website but it didnt say ANYTHING about being closed earlier today!! I was really really bummed and taking sneak peaks in the yard with all the unlit neonsigns didnt make it any better.

Okay, number two on the list then: the Pawn Stars pawnshop.
we parked and got out full of excitement because it was really cool to be there, we used to watch it all the time at home (its not on anymore in Belgium) Then a guy walked to his car, saw me and said "it's closed! they closed at 5 today!"
WHAT?! No!
yes!
Well, thats how it is, and it wont change by getting really pissed off, so we looked around, looked in the show through the window, took pictures and everything. It was not the real deal, but fun anyway.
All the time cars kept stopping in the parking lot and people with happy faces got out untill you heard someone say "its closed!"
Robert looked into the shop and said "you know what would REALLY piss me off? If I saw a Creedence poster on the wall that I dont have yet for a good price" :-D

Next stop on the list was a recordshop on E Sahara blvd, that was supposed to be opened till 11pm today. After getting lost and driving 25 times around the block, we found out it was CLOSED.

we sat in the car and wondered what now. Well, never give up, so we went to the next adress on the list; ZIA records on W Sahara (turned out to be near Trader Joes)

They were OPEN OPEN OPEN <3 <3 <3
Spent an good hour there, I thought it was a bit of a weird shop (qua people) Robert liked it but he didnt really find anything. In the mean time I looked at the other stuff they sold like band merchandise and stuff from movies and tv like Dr Who (I should have bought the Dalek stressball) and guitar-shaped spatulas etc.
We bought a present for someone and when we paid it was clear that they never have tourists or out of towners around but hey.

We still needed to eat, and we decided to go back to Fremont street,we would have all the time for that now, and we wanted to do that for a while too.
We parked somewhere and walked up to Fremont Street.

The first time I got to Las Vegas, years ago, I was dissapointed to see that the casinos on the Strip didnt look like the imagine I had in my head. It took a few years to find out, that the image of Las Vegas I had in my head, was actually downtown Las Vegas, Fremont street, like it was in the old days, with cool 50's and 60's stuff, incl the waving cowboy neonsign.

So, stepping up Fremont Street was quite a shock. A few years ago, they build some kind of roof thing over the street to display a lightshow (called "the Fremont Street experience") but for me that roof made it look like a mall, Robert said it too later.
Las Vegas never fails to amaze me. Everytime when I think I've seen it all :-D
There were girls dancing on bars not wearing much. There was also a guy dancing on a bar, at least that's something. There where lots of "actors" walking around waiting for you to take your picture with them. We saw a few Elvisses, Batmen and Kiss-members, but most types were showgirls, or half naked girls wearing "naughty" outfits. Boobies and buttcheeks everywhere. Some girls were only wearing nipple "thingies" (like burlesque dancers). I thought the showgirls were cool, esp the ones that were covered up a bit. (I'm getting old :-D) with pretty costumes and pretty make up. (some of  those girls just showed off their boobs and butts) some of them were really flexibel!!! Had my picture taken with two really pretty girls who could lift their legs in their neck (almost) but it's on Roberts camera so it might take a while to show up online.
So, with all the half naked women walking around, and being in America, I was a bit surprised to see all these families with (young) children!
We both liked all the neon lights, and I finally saw the waving cowboy :-) Too bad of that "mall-feeling" but it was still nice to be there.
We saw the famous "Heart Attack Grill" where you can eat for free if you're over 350 lbs (for the europeans: REALLY FAT) The waitresses are dressed like nurses and the customers get a hospital shirt to wear :-) )outside was a scale to step on, wich I did. i cant remember how much it was and I looked at the numbers going "??"

we decided to leave this part of Fremont and walk ahead. (other part of Fremont). This is downtown Las Vegas and we were prepared to see a lot of weirdos of all kind but it wasnt that bad.  Smaller casino's here and bars and also some fun neonlights.

And something called "Container Park" At home thats something you bring your waste for recycling, and we took a look because it looked pretty. They stacked freight containers and inside each were little shops, galeries, bars and restaurants. Very nice done.
Lot of security people walking around, (like in the casinos) all very friendly, and willing to talk about what was going on here.(this project)

we were getting tired and really hungry and decided to go back to the hotel. By the time we were ready to eat, we were so tired and confused about what Karl told us about getting the "backstage pass" card and getting a good meal somewhere, so we just walked in one of the restaurants and ordered spaghetti and something I forgot the name of, but it was totally not what I expected. Still good.
After the meal we were ready to gamble a bit, and I won 5 dollar but lost them again. Yeah, we're the big fish :-D
I hope I'm able to post the little video I shot, when I won a bit!
Time to go to back to our huge room and to bed.

26 nov: Los Angeles, CA - Trona, Ca

Did I just see a Greyhound from the corner of my eye?
Another beautifull day, leaving LA it was 70°F/20°C allready
on our way to Trona, California. Getting out of LA went smooth. Bit crowded on the road, but now we're on Highway 14 and traffic is normal, and we see impressive rocks.
Woke up early again this morning so I tried to upload the pictures, but the motels server doesnt allow uploads.
Back to bed, slept a bit more (who of you called us at 7?! :-) packed the car and went to the 7/11 around the corner for some more snacks. Robert found something that looked like an "eclair" but it was just a long donut, I found out by tasting it. Luckly I only took a tiny tiny bite!! (and spit it out straight away, yuckerdeyuck).

Ha! highway patrol with a radargun sticking out of the window :-D (I assume)

we're driving in a valley, surrounded by yellow mountains with small bushes on it, no grass or trees. I think I just saw eternal snow. there are beautifull ranges, old trailers and small towns, and now a small lake.(we're in Palmdale now)

slowly we're getting used to the GPS. It's from a friend and way different than the one we have at home so it caused us some headache, but its working good, so far. And that speed limit sign on it is in KILOMETERS TOO hahaha "wow, speedlimit is 105 mile here?" NO. (thats about 180km omg hahahahaha)

(some "Boring Desert Blog" stuff deleted here.)

A few years ago, I googles Trona, CA because our friend Karl lives there. He always said he lives "in the deser" and "there's nothing here" so I got curious and started reading on Wikipedia. Its a small town next to a dried out lake, with a big plant that gets the minerals from the lake. In the middle of absolutely nowhere, and, turns out there was something to see called "the Trona Pinnacles". What? yeah, I started reading about that too, and it didnt take long to realize we now had two reasons to go there.

The Pinnacles are a group of rocks/hills in the middle of the desert. It looks so freaky that many movies were shot there like planet of the apes, because it looks like something from outerspace.
It's in the middle of the desert and you can only reach it by dirtroad. I was a bit worried on forehand because we drive a simple small car, and tried to find info on it. Also did our friend Karl, and he said we should be ok if we looked out a bit. Still, the only wish I had was to see them at least, even from a distance.

we found Trona just perfect, the GPS didnt let us down. About 25? miles from the city we saw mountains that looked like a big heap of big pebbles.
When we passed some other mountains, all of a sudden a roadsign for the pinnacles showed up and there they were, in the empty distance of the desert, in the middle of some mist, like a fairytale or a science fiction movie. It was SO beautifull.

Trona looked a bit like it had its glory days a while ago. And as we were told, a lot of people left since the seventies. A lot of buisnisess were for sale and/or about to fall down and some houses too. (but it wasnt HALF as bad as some other towns we saw later) Also, it was just a bit of a culture shock of us Europeans, we've never been in small deserttowns before. theres plenty of space, it's not like someone needs the space for something else. If something gets old in Europe, they get rid of it straight away because they need the space.

We were warmly welcomed by Karl and his dad Earl and we were just in time for the lunch, a very tasty spaghetti with bread and salad, mmm... Earl said a prayer before we started, and allthough I'm not religious I was touched by his words. It was so great to be at their place! we sat down and talked about a lot of stuff, then Earl showed us the garden, I was surprised to see that he was able to grow vegetables and tomatoes in the dirt! (=zand) that was also weird to me, their garden existed of dirt instead of grass. Totally normal in a desert town ofcourse, and to me it added to the whole experience of being in a special place.
after several attempts to pet their cats, who all clearly thought "who are those stranger in my house" we went to the pinnacles.

It was allready 3pm and we feared we wouldnt maybe make it in time as you cant go fast on a dirtroad. before we turned on the dirtroad, they allready appeared in our sight. Goal set, lets go!  It wasnt even a gravel road... just dirt, with some sharp rocks. we slowed down to 10 or 5 mph and followed the tracks of other cars around mud puddles. In the distance the Pinnacles were waiting for us and they didnt seem to get closer for a long time, but I was allready satisfied that I was looking at it. Karl said the road wasnt as bad as he thought.

we stopped halfway to snap some quick pictures, also with the sight (someone shot at it, what added to the experience :-D )
And there they were! It took us more then a half hour creeping up on a dirtroad, but we made it! we saw some other people, who waved at us, and parked the car somewhere.


What I loved was that it still was so pure. The road was marked with small pebbles like you would do in your garden, there were a few signs explaining about the pinnacles and that was it. No welcome center, no parking, no toilets, nothing.
we just parked the car somewhere and got out.
The first thing that struck me was the overwhelming SILENCE.
It must have been the quietest place I've EVER been too. It felt like walking around with earplugs in.
we messed up the silence with talking and laughing and taking a gazillion pictures of eachother.
When I got myself back a bit, we walked up on the hills. It looked like gravel hills but it was a very soft squisy path. After some more pictures I left the men alone and wandered off, taking pictures of everything untill my camera battery died.
Words nor pictures can describe what it was like there. And that silence, wow. Its a perfect place to go, set up a camp and spent sometime with yourself thinking about life and meditating I guess.
Maybe because of the silence, or the way the rocks were positioned, the sound carried really far. From a big distance I could completely hear where the men were talking about.
I walked around in a dried out riverbed, looked at little dead bushes waiting to become tumbleweeds, touched the rocks, that looked like they were made of vulcanic stone, but although they were "poreus" it was something different, almost from outerspace.
I really didnt expect to be able to actually touch the rocks, I would have been happy with just seeing them in the distance, so I was quit happy.

WARNING*** my pictures dont caption the Pinnacles at all, and also there were other Pinnacles I didnt take pictures off. Robert made a whole bunch of real cool pictures and will post them when he can. ****

After a while I went back to the others, who were around the corner and showed something I didnt see yet. Some more pinneacles, further away, and all in a row. It was beautifull and while staring at it for a while, and all of a sudden, I was looking at the most beautifull sunset I've ever seen. The setting sun threw a warm orange glow on the mountainrange in the distance behind the pinnacles, and when it got more further down, it colored the pinnacles, and in the end, only the mountains, with darkened pinnacles in the foreground. We stood there and stared at it in total awe.

It was time to go back home, though I could have easily stayed there for a while, I wanted to see the starry sky in the middle of the dark desert. Maybe next time. when we were back at the car we notices the big mountain in the far distance on the other side of the vally (sorry forgot the name) had its snowy top lit up PINK in the setting sun. It was so beautifull.
We had to kick ourselfs under the butt, get in the car and leave.
I kept on looking over my shoulder at the rocks in the dawn. What a lucky person I am to be able to visit this and witness this, together with my sweetie and a dear friend.

One more thing; at home I tried to look up info on the pinnacles (or Tronacles as we called them) about the dirt road and didnt find much, and totally nothing on the dutch America forums, with members seem to prefer to go  to Death Valley and Grand Canyon en-masse. One part of me wants the whole world to see this beautifull place, on the other hand, I hope it stays like this, with its dirtroad marked with pebbles like a garden path and no toilets, info-center and parkin space.

Back home where Karl cooked us dinner, tasty steaks and ... "does this potatoe has a name?" LOL i think its called stuffed baked potatoes?? and salad.
We had a long conversation after the dinner and talked about a lot of things. What really stuck with me was how gratefull they both are to live there in the litterally quiet desert town, away from brutal forces of nature and big city live. And for the lack of mosquitoes!

Unfortunately were were both exhausted and around nine we had to get into bed.
The bed was so big we got lost in it, Robert said next morning "I wanted to cuddle up but I couldnt find you" hahaha!!
Had a great night of sleep, but unfortunately our inner alarmclock went off around 4 am.