After two hot days we reached the Yosemite National Park in the mountains. The road led by a granite rock ravine. We camped in National Forest outside the park and early the next morning we entered the park again so we could explore the gigant forest in cool temperature and without too many other tourists. We thought the trees in Canada were big, but all other big trees we have ever seen is small compared to these trees. Many of the trees are over 2000 years old and have a circumference of 20 meters.
On small country roads we continued south to Kings Canyon National Park. In Sequoia National Park we got another chance to see the gigant mammoth trees. When we came down to lower altitudes the temperature started to rise. Up at the Greenhorn Summit Pass, west of Isabella Lake, we made a short to strech our legs and let our poor backside rest. When we were about to continue Tobias noticed that Ingeborg's 650 were low on air in the rear tyre. After a closer inspection we saw that an old rusty nail had caused the flat tyre. We tried to fill the tyre with the air compressor so we could make it to the next village, but it was no idea. Since it was already 5pm, we decided the best we could was to set up the tent and the try to repair the tyre before it was too dark. With a large portion of strong will we managed to repair the tyre after 3 hours!
The next morning when we drove to the Isabella Lake it was +40 degrees C. We had to take a bath in the lake. We didn't need any towel since we dried in only a few minutes in the warm sunshine. Before we continued to Walker Mountain Pass och 'Death Valley' we filled all our waterbottles with water and tried to ignore the surrounding heat. But the temperature keept rising as we came closer to the Death Valley. 300 km from the Death Valley the temperature was +45,6 degrees Celsius. We drank a lot and soon we started to run out of water. We started to feel tired and dizzy and it felt as if we were going to faint because of the heat. In the next village, Inyokern, we got a room at the first motel we saw. With the air condition on full speed and after a cold shower we slowly started to feel better again. During the afternoon the temperature reached 48 degrees C and during the night it was +35 degrees, even though we were still 700 meters above the sea and the Death Valley lies below the sea. It's no fun at all to drive a motorcycle in temperatures likes this and we realised we had to change our plans. It was impossible to drive through the Death Valley.
We woke up at 3.30am the next morning. In the first morninglight we left California and the heat behind us and drove north and the east for the highland in Nevada. The temperature showed now "only" 33 degrees and we continued to drive east through the desolated landscape and passed AREA 51, were some people say UFO's landed in the 60's.
We reached Utah in the south and spent some days in the Zion NP and Bryce Canyon NP, which lies on 2200 to 2800 meters above sealevel. We spend a lot of time to walk around and experience these beautiful places and we enjoyed the feeling of just "being".
We met a pleasant couple, Chuck and Terri from Idaho, and we spent an evening togehter with them at the camp fire with cold beer and hot dogs.
We can tell you all, that of all places we have seen, Bryce Canyon is one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen!
Early in the morning (only +3 degrees C) we left Bryce with the beautiful red stone puillars behind us and drove to Arizona and Grand Canyon.
It's an amazing feeling to stand on the edge of the abyss and look down. Far, far below you can see parts of Colorado River winding...
