Day 2: Donner Pass

Awoke bright and early to the mournful cry of a train horn, funny how things like that can arouse me so quickly! Decided that 6:45am (3:45am NZ time) was a little early to be getting up, so went back to sleep :) Woke up much later on, seems that I was rather exhausted, I guess plane-sleep doesn't count for much. Got ready and hopped in the car and headed up the hill. First stop was Alta…

Alta is little more than a few buildings, but it is lovely and peaceful. The whole place radiates that sleepy Sunday morning feel and the pines dwarf everything.

"Main" street of Alta / Cars sunning themselves, check out the snow plough on that thing!

Around the road a bit there is another wow place, American Gorge. The view from here is amazing, gazing out over a massive valley with pines everywhere (no photos, sun was all wrong). I found a cowboy hat spiked on a branch, which I thought a little odd. Tried it on&#x...

Back to the States – Day 1, NZ to Colfax

Well here I am in Colfax, California! And what a journey it has been. Three weeks ago I booked my tickets and I was excited as. Then those 3 weeks stretched out and it's felt more like 3 months. And to top it all off, Friday morning, just 2 days before I was due to fly out, I got a very nasty surprise regarding my terminal and provisional tax payments – so much of a surprise that cancelling the trip entirely was looking quite likely. Luckily about 3:30pm on Saturday afternoon the revised numbers came through and I decided I could afford my trip after all. Wow! Uncertainty at that hour of the game is really nerve wracking!

But it all worked out and so with just 24 hours till lift off I managed to get my suitcase all packed and down to the airport in time. Flights over were very straightforward, even with all the extra security screening (although watching Aliens and Planet of the Apes on the plane led to some interesting dreams). Breezed through San Fran no problems a...

Coalinga to San Francisco

Woke up really early on the 14th and packed the car, then went in for breakfast. I was really excited to find they had real cereal and milk! It's been a good 6 weeks since I had something wet for breakfast and I wolfed down two bowls full. Read the local newspaper which was very narrow and quite tall. Lead story was about all the destruction that the previous days storm had wrecked, including a death on the I5 not long after we'd driven past there! Other big story was that Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governator of California, had introduced legislation requiring an ignition-linked breathalyzer in certain counties for DUI offenders.

After breakfast we jumped on the road and headed a short distance up the '5. Turned off at the San Luis Reservoir and headed down towards the coast. Much smaller roads here. All along the '5 we'd seen signs labelling the land a "congress created dust bowl"; did a bit of reading and turns out they've lost their subsidized water here and the land is rev...

Barstow to Coalinga

Woke up to a cool (for the desert at least), windy day on the 13th. Since we still had a day+ to get San Fran I turned it into an impromptu rail fanning day; after both the UP and BNSF main lines out of LA run through Barstow! So drove around a bit and saw a few trains in not much time, then drove down the old Route 66 again and lay in wait. Sure enough I was soon rewarded with a UP/BNSF crossing…

Nice GE ES44AC on the front (almost identical to a dash 9 or AC4400) but a boring SD70 coupled to that. I poured on the gas to chase the BNSF but it was hard work catching it, so went into waiting mode up the road a bit. Sure enough I was soon rewarded by a hot BNSF intermodal romping along at a good 60mph. So with Ange on the camera we paced along side it, then I got what I'd come for: a red signal. This meant the train slowed right down to a stop while an opposing trains screamed past, then the magic happened: a full 0 to 60, flat-t...

San Diego to Barstow

Woke up earlyish on the 12th to a cool gray morning and packed everything up, then headed off on the Interstates for the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Got there, paid $9 for parking in the middle of nowhere (*#%#!?!) and made our way into the park. After about 5 minutes of walking past shops and cafes and bookstores we saw some animals.

First up was aviary with some ducks… hmm… and a few other odd birds. We then worked our way over to the cheetah enclosure for feeding time, which was very popular.

 

The cheetahs were quite patient waiting for their lunch, and knew to wait on their little concrete pads. Oh and there were 3 of them there; not bad for a solitary animal. The keeper was in there with them too, handing out their chunks of meat; good luck seeing that at Orana Park!

After that was over we went on a safari tour on a weird snake train bus c...

San Diego Zoo & SeaWorld

Had a lot to do on the 11th. First up was the zoo. Didn't take too long to get there, but boy was the car park impressive! Cars and cars and cars and cars. Was as bad as the A&P show in Chch! Had quite a walk and there was a queue not just at the ticket booths, but also at the entrance! After 5 minutes or so we got in and headed in the quietest direction. As luck would have it we found the Tiger Trail and soon came across the tigers themselves, who were cuddled up to each other and sharing a log. One got up and the other quickly grabbed its log and paraded very proudly around with it. They then followed each other around, showing off their log. At one point one dropped it into the stream, but rather than leaving it it quickly scampered down to the bottom and waded in to rescue its log. It then emerged very proudly holding LOG, as Ren & Stimpy would say.

  Cuddled up / Sitting watching

LOG

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