We left Wyoming and after 2 days we reached Idaho and 'Craters of the moon' a huge and bizarre lava landscape in the midst of extinct vulcane, reaching as far as we could see. The volcanic ashes crunched like snow when we walked. We stayed for three days and explored the fascinating area. We climbed some vulcano craters and dared ourselves into some caves, which had developed during the outbreak in the flowing lava. Sometimes we had to crawl. At the surface it was 35 degrees C and in some caves it was so cold that there were icicles in the ceiling.
We only reluctantly left this impressing place with it's gigantic lava fields and drove southwest through the desert looking landscape of Nevada. This offered only monotonous landscape without alternation.
In Battle Mountain we got permission of the Sheriff to set up our tent at the local playground, the only green area in this dusty, bone-dry, brown landscape. We were happy to find a place to sleep, but unfortunately our night rest were disturbed when the sprinkler started at 1 o'clock in the morning. We had to get up and move the tent and bikes away from the sprinkler system.
After Reno, we passed Mount Rose Pass at 2800 meters above sealevel, and left the dry landscape of Nevada for a while, and reached Lake Tahoe (California) at 2000 meters above sealevel. Lake Tahoe is the most beautiful lake in the states, some people says. We stayed by the lake and enjoyed the cool wind and then we collected wood for the camp fire we needed for the night. It gets really cold durng the night at this height.
In the middle of the night a sound woke us both up. When we looked out from the tent we saw a bear walking comfortably by the camp ground.
we drove through the mountains and some mountain pass (approx. 2800 meters above sealevel) and then pass some vineyards and orange farms until we reached the west coast and San Fransisco. It was cold and foggy. It was already afternoon and we immediately started to look for a campground. We searced for several hours without any luck. We wandered around the streets of san Fransisco and were sent in all different directions by helping people. We made a last try and drove on a small gravel road through an area with expensive houses. Suddenly the road was closed due to an road construction site. It was already dark and Tobias almost collide with a deer, so we decided to camp right there between the road machines and concrete lumps.
In the morning everything was harsh. We drove to The Golden Gate Bridge and had planned to take some beautiful pictures of the bridge... Yea right... This time of year it's always foggy, so we only got foggy pictures. Then we drove over the famous bridge and through the city without any problems. Then we drove south on the famous HWY1 for a while before we headed east again. The temperatue slowly raised from +13 degrees C to +37 degrees.
