Report US trip 5/1/1990 to 7/8/1990 Home | Reports: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 | Route

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Victoria, 8-Jul-1990

Tucson, the old western town in Arizona, became one of the milestones of our trip to the USA. Primarily not because of its beauty, its nice warm weather or the wonderful "Arizona Sonora Desert Museum", but because Reto had to see a dentist for the very first time outside of Switzerland. The toothache started at the end of April in the desert. When we arrived in Tucson on 4/30, the pain became so bad, that Reto no longer hesitated to see a dentist. The guy did a very good job and after two hours on the dentist's chair, Reto felt like reborn. Because a second visit was needed, we spent two more days in Tucson, hiking through the hot desert of the Saguaro national monument, where the cacti still were blooming. We also spent a few hours at Old Tucson, the "hollywood of the desert". Until recently, the place was used to shoot western films, today it is a unique tourist attraction.

Sheriff's office		Old Tucson		Jail
Hawk		Ocelot		Prairie dog

On 5/4 we drove the long way through the hot desert of Arizona to Escondido, California. It was like coming home, when our friends give us a warm welcome. We spent five wonderful days with Debbie, Rolf and their kids Dustin and Kristen. They showed us the harbor of San Diego, the beautiful Coronado island and we went swimming in the refreshing cool water of the Pacific ocean. The temperature was unusual high for this time of the year, up to 110°F ! The ocean was the only place to be. One day, Rolf and Debbie took us to the Cabrillo national monument where the famous lighthouse at Point Loma resides high above the ocean. We had a perfect view of San Diego and the bay with the large battleships of the US marine. In the evening, we saw breathtaking films about the creation of our home planet and the journey of the spacecraft Voyager  II.

Our Joker next to Steeve's house		Skyline of San Diego
Coronado Island		Point Loma

On the last day we spent in Escondido, Rolf's father took us on a very interesting tour through a farm he is working on. We saw huge strawberry fields, orange plantations and large fields of corn. To us, the extensive irrigation plant was a very unusual sight, because at home, precipation isn't a big problem, but enough sunshine is difficult to get !

Farm near Escondido

Orange trees

Huge strawberry

But we also had to take care of our camper, because a problem showed up from time to time. The red warning light, indicating that the temperature of the cooling water was too high, started blinking when we drove on the highway. In flagstaff, we visited a VW-station and we had been told, that the seal of the cylinderhead has to be replaced. This would take a full day and cost about $600 ! But in Escondido, the mechanic could fix the problem by only tightening the screws. To be honest, we didn't thrust too much in this solution, but for the next six weeks, he seemed to be right ...

On 6/11, the time had come to say goodbye to Debbie, Rolf and their kids. When we left, we gave them a travel guide about Switzerland, hopping they will make use of it one day ... We followed the Pacific coast all the way up to San Jose.

Highway 101		Pacific coast
Drift wood at the Pacific coast		"Tunnel Tree" near Leggett, CA

From there we made a side trip to Kings Canyon, Sequoia and Yosemite national park. In the first two national parks, it was quiet and we enjoyed nice weather. On a long and winding road, we drove to the very end of Kings Canyon. In the Sequoia national park, we hiked through beautiful country. One evening, Susanne had a close encounter with a large black bear when she wanted to return from the restroom. It is not known, whether the bear or Susanne was more afraid, but we do know, that in any national park, Susanne will never ever go to the bathroom all by herself after dark !

Kings Canyon NP		Kings Canyon NP		Reto and Susanne in Kings Canyon NP
Marmot		Sequoias		Steller's Jay

On 5/17 we proceeded to Yosemite national park. Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to stay in the national park, because all the campgrounds were already full. Therefore we had to drive each day from Mariposa to Yosemite and back again. But we had a good time anyway. We hiked every day. We especially enjoyed our full day tour up to Half Dome. At the very top, the mountain is so steep that hikers do have to pull themselves up on cables. But the view was breathtaking.

Half Dome		Steep climb		A site with a view

Yosemite NP

Reto and Susanne at the top of Half Dome

Sierra Nevada

On the 22nd, we had the chance to meet Cheryl in San Francisco. It wasn't too easy to find her, but once we were together, we had a lot of fun. We spent a whole day in San Francisco downtown. We couldn't get enough of cable car riding. The next day, we met another familiar person. A former fellow worker of Reto was on vacation in California and it happened, that he was just in San Francisco the day we were there. Together, we visited the Golden Gate national recreation area at the northern end of the bridge.

Cable Car		Main street		Cable car driver

Golden Gate bridge

China Town

Downtown San Francisco

In the afternoon, we continued our journey northward. While we followed the beautiful Californian coast, the weather became first cloudy and soon rainy. It was pouring the whole day we spent in the Redwood national park, but we hiked down to the world's largest tree anyway.

Redwoods

Susanne at the foot of what they claim the world's tallest Redwood

Rhododendron blossom

On 5/27, we left the coast and started our side trip to Yellowstone national park. While we drove trough Oregon, the weather changed every five minutes. But as we visited the Craters of the Moon national monument, the sun came out and we had a wonderful, sunny afternoon. We crawled into the small caves in the lavaflows where the temperature is so low, that the ceilings and the floors of the caves are covered with ice and snow year around.

Lavafield		Marmot		Lavafield
Crack in the lava		Susanne and Reto in a lava cave		Susanne climbing out of a lava cave

On 5/30, we finally arrived in West Yellowstone, Montana, just outside the Yellowstone national park. Even if the weather sometimes was rainy and we also had a short snowstorm one afternoon, it was a very good decision to visit this national park at the beginning of June rather then in August. There was plenty of room on the campgrounds and the roads were not crowded at all.

We visited the colorful Mammoth hot springs, walked along the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and patiently waited for the geysers to erupt. But we also had the opportunity to watch many animals like bison, wapitis, moose, pronghorns and dears. The only animals we didn't see were the bears.

Bison		Moose		Elk in the forest recently destroyed by a fire
Bison on the campground		A visiting moose		Bisons with calves in the forest recently destroyed by a fire
Elk		Giant owl		Mule deer

But we meet some other VWs from Switzerland, there was even a couple from Zurich.

Group picture of VW vans with Swiss license plates

After five days in Yellowstone, we proceeded to Grand Teton national park. The rugged mountains looked almost like the alps. But there was still too much snow in the higher elevations for hiking. Therefore we strolled along the small lakes. On day, we rented a canoe and paddled on Jackson lake for a few hours.

Grand Teton NP

Jackson Lake

Canoeing on Jackson Lake

On 6/9, we left Wyoming and headed back to the coast. But not without stopping by at Crater Lake national park. The afternoon we arrived was sunny and a cloudless sky greeted us. Fortunately, we took some pictures, then the next morning, the sun was gone. Low clouds hang on the rim of the Crater Lake, most of the time, we couldn't even see the surface of the lake. But a heavy snowstorm changed the landscape in only two hours into a beautiful winterday. We hiked down to the lake and admired the extraordinary blue of the Crater Lake's water. The color of the water derives from its cleanness, not from the reflection of the color of the sky.

Crater Lake

Winter is back in June

On 6/14, we were back at the coast. Since we didn't want to miss a single mile of highway number 101, we drove all the way back to Crescent city, where we left the Pacific coast highway. For the last time on this trip, we spent a few minutes in California, before we entered Oregon again. As we followed the coast, the weather became better and better. We watched a beautiful, cloudless sunset at Sunset bay.

On 6/16, we arrived at Olympic national park in the state of Washington. We visited both, the rain forest at the coast and on the west slopes of mount Olympus. But there was more then just rain and trees. We spent a sunny afternoon in the Sol duc Hot springs and drove all the way up to Hurricane ridge, where we had a gorgeous view of mount Olympus. In Washington, the summer started with an exceptional beautiful day.

Pacific coast		Rain forest		Nurse tree
Snake		Squirrel		Marmot
Fungi		Watching animals		Hurrican Ridge with Mount Olympus

As we took the ferry from Winslow to Seattle, we had a breathtaking view of downtown Seattle and Mount Rainier in the back. The first thing we did in Seattle was having lunch at the restaurant on top of the space needle.

Seattle with Space Needle

Downtown Seatlle

Seattle with Mount Rainier

Then we spent the next two days in the Mount Rainier national park. The weather continued to be sunny and nice. One day, we hiked up to camp Muir, located more the 10'000 feet in elevation high on a glacier. We had to hike all the way on packed snow. We terribly missed our skis on the way down !

Mount Rainier		Glacier		View of three neighboring volcanoes
Mount Adams		Mount Hood		Mount Saint Helens

But there were more volcanoes to visit. We spent afternoon of 6/25 at the northern slope of Mount St. Helens, the famous mountain, which exploded and collapsed on May 18, 1980. The next morning, we drove all around the volcano and watched several slide programs and movies about the eruption ten years ago.

Mount St. Helens		Destroyed forest		Trees leveled to the ground
Trees in the lake		Trees leveled to the ground		Emerging live after the disaster

After another day at Mount Rainier, we continued further north. We spent two days in the North Cascades national park, an area which is called "the alps of america". In fact, the landscape reminded us of home, but of course, in Switzerland the land is much more developed.

Susanne and Reto

On 7/3, we drove back to Seattle. we wanted to see the fireworks for the celebration of 4th of July. The weather was real nice and we spent an interesting day in Seattle. At the Pacific science center, we had the chance to see the film "to the limit", which we missed in San Diego last December. The night at the beach was spectacular, the fireworks lasted at least 15 minutes.

The next day, we crossed the border to Canada. The officer in the Canadian immigration office was very nice and gave us the permission to stay for six months without any problems. This was quite a different experience compared to our first visit to Canada last fall, when the Canadians allowed us to stay for only two weeks ! But after good news, there are always bad news. As mentioned above, we had these problems with a leaking seal on our Joker. During the last three weeks, the red light in the dashboard started blinking from time to time, but it always stopped after a few seconds. Therefore we thought, the problem is not serious. But soon after we arrived at Vancouver, the light started blinking again and did not stop at all. So we had to see another VW-station. As we expected, the seal of the cylinderhead had to be replaced. We brought our Joker to the garage and spent the whole day in Vancouver. To our surprise, the people in the VW-station managed to finish the 12-hour job in one day. The next day, we took the Joker on a test-drive to Whistler, a popular resort about 70 miles north of Vancouver. Since the car performed perfectly, we decided to continue our journey as planned. Today, we took the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria. Once more, it was a beautiful, sunny day, we had a wonderful ride on the boat and we spent the afternoon in this nice old english style town. We strolled through the streets of Old Victoria, enjoyed the sun and watched people walking by ...

Tomorrow, we start driving up Vancouver Island and on 7/12, we will take the ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Ruppert. If we can follow our planning, we will arrive at Denali national park at the end of July. If it worked out that way, we will tell you in our next report ...

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Production note: Images have been taken as slides using a Minolta 7000AF camera with various Kodak films. Images have been digitized using a Canon Scanner and have been processed using Microsoft Image Composer.

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