Since leaving Las Vegas we have covered over 500 miles, the majority of which it feels have been with a sheer drop to the side of road. Now, whilst neither of us make a habit of randomly falling off the road, seeing a several thousand foot drop to the side of you makes it feel a whole lot more likely. Luckily, we managed to stay on the road, and bar cramp in finger knuckles from gripping the steering wheel quite so tightly, all seems to be good.
Yesterday we spent the day driving through Death Valley, one vast expanse of nothing. Some amazing scenery with the mountains either side, and phenomenal temperatures - the highest we saw was 117 F or 47 C. We took a detour to Badwater, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (282 ft below sea level) and other than a brief stop at Furnace Creek, headed straight through the valley. We headed out up and over the mountains and on to our overnight stop in Bishop. We stumbled across The Pizza Factory for dinner which was fab, always a good sign when you walk in and it is full of locals! Talk about Carb overload!
Up and out early again this morning (following breakfast in the Hotel Reception - very random!), heading straight for Yosemite National Park. Gordon drove intially with Amy proving her navigation skills aren't improving - apparently when asked how far the next turning is, "About an inch" isn't an appropriate answer! Once inside the park, Amy decided to drive the Tioga Pass, expecting it to be ultra scary (felt safer in control), but was pleasantly surprised - not as many sheer drops as the previous day :-) Yosemite was absolutely beautiful, some gorgeous views again and several more hundred photos. Have officially never seen such twisty roads before though, I swear we were doing complete circles at times.
Time was disappearing, so we decided to go out to Oakhurst for our night at the Hounds Tooth Inn. We will pop back to Mariposa Grove in the morning to see the Sequoia's on the way (though in totally the wrong direction) to San Francisco.