Day 4, 21st August 2011, Visalia - Yosemite National Park

Was still kind of jet lagged so woke up at 5.30am this morning, had an ok sleep but it took me ages to get comfortable in the tent. I definitely needed a pillow! Went for a shower, they were probably one of the nicest campsite showers we had for the entire trip. Rang my mum to tell her about our first day and then we had breakfast, we left at about 9am.

In the tent on the phone

Campsite

 Our first stop of the day was Walmart. The first trip of many. We got some super cheap pillows ($2.50 each!!) plus probably sme other stuff too knowing me.



 We also stopped at this old fashioned town thing that was like a gas station with other random stuff there. There was loads of old trucks and an ice cream shop and a cheese shop. Most of us got an ice cream

Cute doggies in an RV

Gary started taking more photos inside the van

We stopped and ate lunch, there was a little park there so Gary of course went on the swings..

Arrived at our campsite at abour 2pm. It was so boiling, hotter than Florida. We had to put the tents up and I don't think I've ever been so hot in my life as I was then. It was so difficult in the heat, plus te campsite was really dusty and dirty, one of the worse we stayed in on the whole trip!

We then went to the Yosemite visitor center. It was our first view of Yosemite and it was so beautiful. All we did at the visitor center was have a look around and get maps for our full day in Yosemite tomorrow.



We got back to camp at about 5.30pm and went for a swim. The water was so freezing but it was nice because it was so hot outside! After a while we all got out because it wa really cold in the water and we all just sat around the pool and had a drink.

At about 7pm we came back to the tents and had a shower which were really horrible dirty ones. I didn't like them at all.

 Art made pasta for dinner, and then we sat around the camp drinking and chatting for a little while.

 When we got bored of that, someone suggested we go to the pub for a while. It was about 5 mins walk from the camp which was good. We all had a few drinks there and Gary and Shannon made up a song about us going to Yosemite which was really funny at the time but I don't think anyone can remember the song now.

It was about 11.30pm when people started leaving because we had to be up really early tomorrow. I wanted to leave too but Gary was being really slow. I don't know what time we actually left, but I was so so tired and fell asleep straight away. Plus I had my new pillow so I was much more comfortable.

Day 3, 20th August 2011. Los Angeles - Visalia, California

Woke up super early at 2.40am this morning. I don't think I went back to sleep, I think I just laid there awake for ages. I don't know what time Gary woke up, but I think he slept a little longer than me. The first thing Gary did when he woke up was do some gym exercises using the hotel room furniture.

Gary exercising

We went for breakfast at 5.45am, Ihop of course, I loved that there was one so close to the hotel! I had Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Mmmmm Ihop :)

We went back to the hotel to get ready to start our tour with Trek America. I was so nervous to meet the people on our trip. We were meant to be meeting downstairs at 7.30am and Gary said we should go down early, I didn't want to but we did anyway, we went downstairs at 7.10am and there were already loads of people there because quite a few tours were starting that day. It was really awkward because nobody was talking to eachother, luckily I had Gary to talk to, we passed the time by trying to spot people from the photos we had seen on the Trek America website.

We met our tour leader, Art, and spent an hour or so filling in forms and going through all the stuff we would be doing. We met all the people in our group, there were 12 of us. Me and Gary, Kirsty, Donna, Volker, Peiter, Lauren, Shannon, Caroline, Aaron, Daniel and Abby whose plane was delayed so she would be joining is later in the day. Once we had sorted out all the paperwork we wet out to the van/trailer and loaded up all our stuff, luckily Gary and I could take our extra suitcase with no problems. We got in and started driving and it wasn't long before we stopped off to see some cool stuff.

Beverly Hils sign

Beverly Hills Hotel

Rodeo Drive sign

Our Trek America trailer

Driving down Rodeo drive

Chanel store

I was excited to see my first In-n-Out (although we didn't actually get to try it until the last day of the tour)

We then parked up and walked down to Hollywood Boulevard. It was very different than we expected, nowhere near as nice as it's pictured to be. There were loads of rappers trying to give you their CD's and ask you for money and just generally wasn't a nice area. It was cool to see all the landmarks there though, and the Walk of Fame stars on the floor.

Mickey Mouse star

Grauman's Chinese Theater

John Travolta star

El Capitan

Kodak Theatre

Disney Soda Fountain (unfortunatley we didn't have enough time to go in)

Outside Disney Soda Fountain

Olsen twins star

Don't Stop Beleivin'

One of the rap CD's Gary got given LOL

Got back in the van and drove up into the hills a bit to get a view of the 'Hollywood' sign and look out over Los Angeles.

After that we had a long drive to get to camp, I think it was actually not that long, like 4 hours maybe, but it was the first day of the trip so it seemed long at the time, but in reality we did way longer drives. We drove up the coast and got our first views of the Pacific ocean. We stopped at a supermarket for alcohol and any other bits we wanted to get too. We spent the drive that day mainly chatting in the van, getting to know people.

First view of the Pacific ocean

A road...

We got to camp at about 6.30pm and learned how to set up our tents, which was acually really easy. We stayed in a KOA Campsite in Visalia, California, and it was a really cute place for our first camping experience. The grass was nice and soft, the bathrooms were clean and close by and there was a swimming pool.

About to put up our tent for the first time

Gary went for a little swim

Art made fajitas for dinner which were really nice. We all sat and chatted and had drinks for the next few hours which was really nice. Art had to drive to pick Abby up from an airport so when she arrived we all introduced ourseves to her and told her she hadn't really missed much today.

Gary helping with dinner 

After we wandered over to the other group's camping area to meet them and chat to them and had a few more drinks over there before heading to bed at about 11pm. We were so tired, sleeping in the tent was really uncomfortable, because we had no pillows! Gary of course fell asleep straight away. I was kept awake even more by Gary's loud snoring and a really noisy train nearby!

Our first day was great, we had a really good time and were so excited about the next 9 weeks!