Death Valley & San Francisco

August 7th,

It’s been a busy couple of days! I am at San Francisco airport, waiting for my plane to Cody, Wyoming for the second part of my trip. Time flies, I’ve already been travelling for 3,5 weeks and the first part of the trip is over. I said goodbye to the rest of my group this morning. Even though I was kind of done with camping and packing up my stuff everyday I am going to miss it. I have spend three weeks with these people (in close quarters as well) and it’s weird to be on my own again. But it’s just for a little bit though as I will meet lots of new people on the ranch. I am very excited for this part of my journey, for one I am really looking forward to being on a horse again! But I am also really curious about the rest of the group, I have now idea how many people there’ll be. 

So what have I been up to the last couple of days? After we left Las Vegas we travelled to Death Valley, the hottest place on earth with a heat record of 57 degrees Celcius. When we were there it was ‘only’ 49-50 degrees but it was definetely hot. We walked across the salt plains for a bit but you couldn’t go far as even the wind was burning hot. I know I feel this way about every place we went to but I don’t think I’ve ever been sweating this much in my life. Back on the bus the aircon couldn’t handle the heat either so we did whatever we could to try and cool down, including listening to Christmas songs. I do think it helped a little bit. When we reached the visitors centre we laid down on the cool floor tiles. 

Thankfully we didn’t have to camp in Death Valley (I did see a campsite along the way!) but instead we stayed in Bishop. Bishop has ‘hot springs’ which were basically puddles with warm water. It was really nice though and by the time we had set up camp and eaten it was dark so we could see the stars while bathing in the hotsprings. At one point it started raining and because of the dry air the electrical cables above us started crackling, it looked really cool, like small fireworks!

We drove to Yosemite national park the next day. The drives on the last part of the trip were a lot shorter than before, which I appreciated. We reached Yosemite quite early so we drove around for a bit and visited a couple of scenic viewpoints. We walked to the giant seqouia grove to see these enormous trees. There was even a tree that had been cut down which you could walk through, it was actually big enough to serve as a tunnel (although you did have to crouch down a bit). It was a really impressive sight. 

Our campsite was located just outside the National Park and we were all excited to set up camp for the final time as we would spend two nights there. There were two other g-adventures groups there so our group wanted to have a party. I didn’t really want to join in on drinking games and stuff so I just hang out and chatted with a couple of the other girls. Unfortunately for the rest of the group, the campsite had really strict quiet hours and they were all really loud. The owner of the campsite came up a couple of times to warn them, after which they moved to the river. The owner still thought they were too loud though and unfortunately we were asked to leave the camp the next morning. I was annoyed that we had to pack up camp again and go to another campsite, but I had expected as much. I woke up in the middle of the night when everyone came back to the camp (we had already gone to bed) and they were all screaming. I almost yelled for them to shut up and let us sleep. Eventually I did fall asleep though. 

We spent another day in Yosemite, visiting the highest point in the park called Glacier point. We had an amazing view of the valley. After that we went back down into the valley and had some free time. Ushar and I decided to just have a chill day and after we checked out the visitor centre we just sat in a meadow for a bit, reading, talking and enjoying the view. It was beautiful out there, it kind of reminded me of the Alps. In the meantime, the guides had found us a new campsite. Unfortunately it was in Sacramento so it was a long drive and we arrived at the campsite around 23.30. We were all so tired we didn’t want to set up the tent so we just slept under the stars. It was quite cold so I finally got to use my sleeping bag! I was so tired, Wencke had to try and wake me up five times the next morning. 




After packing everything up and cleaning all the dishes and other supllies we had with us on the trip we packed the trailer for the last time. It was a short ride to our hotel in San Francisco but unfortunately most of the rooms weren’t ready yet so we all just hung out in one of the rooms. In the afternoon, we went to pier 39 to take a bout tour around the bay so we could see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge up close. It was really cold and windy and I got sprayed by seawater on the boat so I was freezing, a completely different feeling from what we had experienced the past few weeks! When we got back from the tour the sun had come out again so we warmed up a bit and went for dinner. The diner had arcade games as well so we played around for a bit after which the rest of the group went out for drinks. Ushar and I walked around the city for a bit. We wanted to take the cable car but we couldn’t find the station. Ushar was convinced it was around there somewhere and eventually we did find it. We walked around the shopping area for a bit                                                                          and than headed back to the hotel.

The next morning it was already time to say goodbye. Even though I was done with camping and excited to head to Wyoming for the next part of my trip, it was still sad to say goodbye to everyone. We had an awesome trip, with loads of fun and laughs, amazing views, exhausting hikes, lots of sweat, visited awesome museums and I got to meet great people from all around the world. So let's see what the next part of the trip brings!

On a side note, we figured out part of the Skinwalker mystery! Apparantly Lewiss went to the toilet in the middle of the night and he shone his flashlight on the rock wall. When he did that, someone else (Jackson) flashed their light so he moved his beam and than the other light went off as well, so he shone his light again, as did Jackson and so forth. That doesn’t explain the guide or the protective wall of rocks around us but it does ease Jackson’s mind a bit.