For our final day in San Fran, we headed out of the city to Yosemite National Park. It was so beautiful!

This is apparently the most famous view of the park, or so our German tour guide told us anyway. The big exposed rock face on the left is called “El Capitan”, and the half dome shaped rock on the right hand side is creatively known as “Half Dome”.

Our day in the park was filled with walks through some of the most lovely scenery that I’ve ever seen. The place was just so lush and green! I’d love to go back and stay there for a few nights – would be especially cool if I was a mountain climber. Apparently it takes three days to climb up El Capitan – the climbers carry little hammocks that they peg onto the wall and sleep in. How cool!

There was also a bunch of water falls to observe, such as this one – Yosemite Falls, the biggest of them all. Bridal Veil falls is the second largest, and in winter when it freezes, people actually climb up the waterfall! There’s only a three hour window in which they can do it, before it thaws out and people fall to a horrible death. How cool! (Except the horrible death part.)

Our final stop on the Yosemite tour was to see a giant redwood. It was big. Reeeaaaallll big. I thought it was a bit of a waste having all that wood just sitting there, when they could have cut it down to make a lovely house – but maybe that’s just me.

There was actually a second, even bigger redwood just a little further down the path. It was called the “Tunnel tree” because someone had thoughtfully carved a big tunnel through the middle of it. I guess that’s because the pesky tree was right in the middle of where they wanted to build a walking trail.

My goodness that tree was large. Would have been good to see it while it was still alive, but it had been long dead from fire, or lightning, or having a tunnel carved in it – I’m really not sure.

Yosemite was such an awesome place to visit, but it really is a lot to cram in to a single day. But even with a four hour drive each way to San Fran, it was totally worth it.

While were weren’t scooting about in the theme parks, we tried to take in as many of LA’s hot-spots as we possibly could.

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One thing that LA has plenty of is theme parks. Being a roller coaster junkie, I would have loved to go to Knott’s Berry Farm and Six Flags whilst we were there, but our time was limited, so we stuck to the two best know ones – Disneyland and Universal Studios.

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Yes, as a matter of fact I do!

Just jump on the 101 and follow the signs. It couldn’t be easier! I really don’t know why they had to write a song about it.

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Day two of our road trip started a bit later than day one, as we were both a bit tired and slept in. We grabbed a quick breakfast from the local bakery, as well as espresso from the local coffee shop, and then made our way out of Star’s Hollow Cambria.

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After flying back in to New York around 8:30pm on Wednesday night and staying the night in an airport motel, Kristy and I said farewell to Team BaM first thing on Thursday morning, then headed back out to JFK for a 9am flight to LAX. (Wow that was a long sentence!)

With the exception of a few hours between flights, this is the first time I’ve been in LA since I was a kid; and Kristy’s first time, ever! There’s so much to see in LA, so many famous sights, and amusement parks, I just don’t know how we’re going to fit it all in!

My Aunt Rosey was kind enough to take a few days off work to meet us at the airport and also be our local tour guide. As such, we started checking things off our list the moment we got out of the airport, with lunch at Rosey’s favourite – In-N-Out Burger (I highly recommend the “Double Double”). Following that, we headed out to the pier at Santa Monica. It was mainly me that wanted to go there, given that there’s just so many songs written about it, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out that it’s definitely a cool area, but unfortunately all the good rides (e.g. the giant ferris wheel, and the roller coaster) were closed, due to the weather (it was very windy). Oh well!

Santa Monica is also home to the rather famous Muscle Beach. There wasn’t much action going on there though, probably because it was a Thursday afternoon. We also took a quick stroll along the bike path that connects Santa Monica with Venice Beach, which is about four miles further to the south.

Our next stop was the Third Street Promenade – a pedestrian shopping street a little downtown from the pier (think: Queen Street Mall). After a while of walking, I suggested that we stop for a coffee and some people watching. And a good thing I did, because not long after we sat down, guess who Kristy saw coming into the coffee shop?!

I couldn’t believe it – Jeff Probst! And we’re pretty sure the guy he is with is Mark Burnett. I’m sure I’ll always regret not having the courage to say g’day, but then again I’m sure they were happy not to be interrupted, and merely seeing them in real life was a pretty good experience in itself!

Anyway, after the excitement had died down (mainly from me), we quickly drove to Venice Beach, but it was starting to get dark so we didn’t stay too long. Kristy and I had been travelling pretty much all day, so we were very grateful for our hearty home-made lasagne for dinner, and then a comfy bed to sleep in. And boy, did we sleep good!