Back to Los Angeles

We're now in the part of the trip that hasn't been planned in quite so much detail as the early part. The ANRA Summer Nationals were the second last event we had planned on attending, with our next planned commitment being the GoodGuys show at Pleasanton the following weekend.



Last night we booked rooms in Los Angeles and San Simeon. San Simeon is a town on the coastal route back to San Jose, as we've decided to head back from Bakersfield via Los Angeles, taking Route 1 up the coast through Santa Barbara, past Big Sur and on to Monterey and Santa Cruz.



Once again we hit the I-5 for the run into LA, this involves some pretty hefty hills and can put a bit of stress on a car during the heat of the day. This is the second time we've done that drive in the last couple of weeks, and the second time we've seen a car on fire on the side of the road during the climb. Knowing what was coming, we'd broken up the drive by stopping for lunch at a Fosters Freeze somewhere in the hills we were driving through.



When we got back to Los Angeles, the first thing we did was to check into our hotel room, then we headed off to do some of the things we didn't have time to do last time we were in LA. These included heading down to Santa Monica Pier and visiting Hollywood (in particular the Capitol Records tower area) at night and driving down Sunset Boulevard, again at night.



We also had dinner while on the Santa Monica Pier, at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co., Bubba Gumps is a chain of themed restaurants based on the movie Forrest Gump, all featuring memorabilia from the movie.



I ended up with quite a few photos that I'd been hoping to get at some point and had resigned myself to not actually getting on this trip, so it's been quite a good result from the extra night in Los Angeles for me.



Today we're on the road again, taking the scenic Highway 1 along the Californian coastline and stopping overnight in San Simeon, just south of Big Sur.

ANRA Summer Nationals Race Day

Today was Race Day at the ANRA Summer Nationals, at Famoso Raceway, near Bakersfield, California. We got out to the track about 10am (racing started at 8am) and watched some pretty cool racing for a couple of hours before heading back to Bakersfield.



The Famoso Raceway was originally built as an airstrip during World War II and after the war was converted into a drag strip by the Bakersfield Smokers drag racing club. In 1959 Famoso hosted the first March Meet, a meeting that is still running to this day, making it one of the longest running drag strips in the world.



After the finals were rounded up at Famoso, we headed back in to Bakersfield, stopping in at Camelot Park, near the hotel we're staying at and taking a few swings in the batting cages there. We also spent a little time in their amusement arcade before heading back to the hotel and then out to local fast food joint Wing Stop for dinner.



Tomorrow we're going back to Los Angeles before heading north to San Jose, where we'll be based for the rest of our time in the United States.

ANRA Summer Nationals at Famoso Raceway

Today we headed out to Famoso Raceway, about 20 miles north of Bakersfield, to check out the American Nostalgia Racing Associations Summer Nationals. Today was qualifying and we got to see the full field running through their paces.



While most of the cars represented cars that could still be running at National Opens in Australia, there were also some HAMBster class cars running. The meeting also included a concession to modern race brackets in the form of Junior Dragster and Junior Comp racing. The J/D's are much the same as we see at home, but the Junior Comp cars were something new to me. These are a little larger than a normal J/D and are fitted with a 4 cylinder motorbike engine and 6 speed gearbox, while still running over the eighth mile, the resulting car being limited by class rules to a 6.90 second ET.



Tomorrow is race day, and we're planning on getting there nice and early, as unlike most meetings at the Perth Motorplex, Famoso's race day starts at 8am and finishes at 5pm. If you're in the area, it's an event well worth checking out.

Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia and the Drive to Bakersfield

We took some time out from the road trip to visit the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia this morning. Aside from some issues with woefully inadequate parking and a 'Road Closed' sign that apparently didn't actually mean 'Road Closed', we had a great time and even with the hour or so lost trying to drive to the grove and then driving back to the hotel to catch the shuttle, then finding a carpark full of cars at the grove itself, we still made it out of Yosemite with enough time to get to Bakersfield, our next overnight stop, at a decent hour.

The Grove of Giant Sequoia is actually split up into an Upper Grove and a Lower Grove, and refers to part of the park where around 450 Giant Sequoia can be found. While the trees are not actually the oldest living things on the planet, or the tallest or even the largest, they're in the top 2 or 3 on each of those categories and are definitely some of the most impressive natural wonders of California. To go to Yosemite National Park (or to live in California) and not to spend a couple of hours wandering around this grove would be a real tragedy.

The tree's have a relatively shallow root system, and for their protection, most of the trees are fenced off to keep people from disturbing the soil around the base, however, I was saddened to see some people (and no, not Americans for a change) jumping the fence to pose standing at the base of some of the trees.

After we left Yosemite, we headed for Bakersfield, stopping at Fresno for dinner at In'n'Out Burger and also to investigate a random noise that had started coming from the Cadillac as we hit the off ramp. After tracing this to the front right hand wheel, we were just about to pull the wheel off and investigate further when we found the wheel bearing cap had come loose behind the hub cap. We fixed that up, checked for the noise and when it was gone, hit the road again for Bakersfield. Interestingly, when we hit Bakersfield the noise returned, so perhaps the bearing cap may need to be replaced at some point.

Leaving Tahoe for Yosemite

The drive down from South Lake Tahoe was a fairly interesting one, with the windy roads of the Californian highlands providing a real change from the Nevada highways we'd been used to seeing. We took Ebbett's Pass through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a drive which involves some very tight roads climbing to around 9000 feet, at which point not only was the Cadillac running a little short on breath, we were too.



We stopped at around 8400 feet at a little lake, which appears to be called Kinney Lakes and I walked down to the shore to take a few photos. The walk back to the car was maybe 150 metres with a climb of around 10 to 15 metres, but by the time I got back to the car, I was feeling like I'd run a marathon. It definitely made me feel out of shape, considering that we passed several cyclists who showed no sign of needing to stop for a breather on the long climb. We then jumped back in the car and kept on driving, stopping at the town of Arnold, at a much more oxygen rich 4000 feet. We've actually spent quite a lot of the last 2 weeks around 4000 feet and above, which is a bit of a shock to the system for 3 Aussies brought up less than 100 feet above sea level.



While in Arnold, we took the opportunity to refuel the Cadillac, check the oil and water and to grab a bit at local burger joint Giant Burger. Giant Burger's signature burgers are only a quarter of a pound, but are definately Giant in taste. They are a more simple and effective formula than some burger joints we've visited, and it's been rewarded in the awards plastered on their walls. They also have some of the best onion rings I've tasted for a long time and topped it all off with an awesome butterscotch milkshake.

Pushing on from Arnold, we kept going to Yosemite, with only a small hiccup as the GPS confused us by taking us on some of the most out of the way roads into the Yosemite National Park, which we eventually worked out was due to the Garmin's 'avoid tolls' setting plotting a route that avoided the main entry gate to the park. Once we worked out what was happening, we switched that little feature off and got back on the main roads, which may or may not have been a good thing, considering the amount of roadworks going on in the park at the moment, but at least we payed our way.

We stopped for a couple of photos inside the park, where we had a pretty good view of the Upper Yosemite Falls, and part of the valley floor, not that I've yet worked out what most of the things I took photos of were. On a sadder note, my Canon 1D Mk III sustained it's first damage (and I'm about 99% sure this is the first time I've damaged any of my Canon's) when the tripod I had mounted it to toppled over. This was also the first time I'd mounted the 1D to my tripod with a long lens attached, and I immediately retired the tripod in question from use with the 1D. On a positive note, the camera works fine, there's just a couple of scratches in the finish of the body and a tear in the rubber of the eyecup.

We then jumped back into the traffic crawling through the roadworks on the road to the Wawona and Fish Camp areas, and eventually made it to our overnight accomodation at the Wawona Hotel with about half an hour to spare before the restaurant closed for the night. The Wawona is one of the oldest hotels in the park, with most of it's rooms having only shared bathroom facilities. None of the rooms have televisions, phones or wifi access and the majority of the Hotel has been maintained in a mid-19th century style.

South Lake Tahoe

We're now on the road to Bakersfield for the ANRA Nostalgia meeting this weekend, and have stopped for the night in South Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is a huge lake in the mountains on the border of California and Nevada. During winter it's a ski resort and during summer it's a holiday town on the shores of a huge lake.



We're staying at the Lakeshore Lodge in South Lake Tahoe, just on the California side of the border, and according to their website, the area's only "all lakefront accommodation". Our room is less than 50 metres from the waters edge, and the only thing between us and that water is the sand on the shore.



For dinner tonight we took a walk to a small pub called 'The Brewery', who brew their own beers, and I had one of their 1/2 pound Build Your Own burgers, with guacamole, cheddar cheese, blue cheese crumbles and bacon, along with a stout beer they call Bad Ass Ale, which reminded me very much of the Margaret River based Bootleg Brewery's Raging Bull ale.

Saying Goodbye to the Salt

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and eventually we had to leave Wendover and the Bonneville Salt Flats. Before we did however, we paid a visit to the Wendover Airport and their small museum devoted to the World War II history of the town, including the training of the B29 crews involved in delivering the first nuclear weapons used over the towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.



When we left Wendover, we headed west towards our next overnight stop in Winnemucca, Nevada, but along the way we had to stop off in the town of Elko, where one of our friends has been living for several years. Lee and Sherry are now back home in Perth, but it was good to see the town they've called home for the last five or so years.



Our overnight stop was a small motel in Winnemucca called the Town House Motel, and it was a very refreshing surprise after the accommodation in Wendover. Of all the things Wendover has to offer, it appears great accommodation deals during SpeedWeek aren't one of them, so clean, fresh smelling rooms with wifi provided were a great surprise in Winnemucca.