We just got back from our road trip and it was fantastic. We have done so much over the last 4 days!

It was my first time driving an automatic car (it was a Ford Focus) and my first time driving in a foreign country so it was a really new experience for me. I had to learn quickly since the car hire place was in central San Francisco, so within 1 minute I was driving down very busy city centre streets. After about half an hour we were across the Bay Bridge and onto the freeway. It's good that in America undertaking is legal, so I could quite happily sit in the middle lane weighing up options as cars sped by on both sides. We headed south east to a small town called Merced stopping at Stockton along the way for a drink and driver change over. We found a motel pretty quickly. It reminded me a bit of one of those that you see in horror films with the creepy motel manager fulfilling his role perfectly. We did a quick check for blood stains, axes etc. and settled in. To be fair the room was clean enough, we just panicked slightly when we couldn't lock the door at first. We had a wander around town to look for food. After passing up "The Branding Iron" and other ominous looking establishments we settled on a small Chinese restaurant. The food was fine. We got back to our room quickly, bolted the door and stayed in the rest of the evening. We will never return to Merced.

The next day we drove up to Yosemite National Park. We passed through some beautiful areas with lots of fields and farm houses. The drive up to and inside the park was quite bendy and steep in places. We were very suprised to see there was still lots of snow and ice around at the top. The park itself is really beautiful with huge trees, mountains and waterfalls. The views from high up were amazing. We had lunch and a bit of a wander around and then left to go to a town called Visalia. Visalia was a much nicer town. Again, we found a motel very quickly (thank goodness because thick fog descended.)

On Saturday we left early and we drove to the Sequoia National Park. We passed through more beautiful scenery, mainly fruit orchards growing oranges and lemons. Again the park was high in the mountains (about 6000 feet) with even bendier roads than the previous day. It was fantastic to see some of the largest trees in the world up there. We spent quite a bit of time around the world's largest tree, the General Sherman. It was very very very very big. After spending a bit of time around the villages we drove down the mountain and across state to spend the evening in a seaside town called Monterey. I'd never heard of the town before, but it seemed really popular with American tourists. The town had a really nice feel to it and was full of nice restaurants, cafes and bars (even an English themed pub.) The motel was probably the nicest one on the roadtrip.

Today (the last day of the trip) we spent a while looking around Monterey. We spent lots of time on the pier at the shops and looking out to sea. The weather was beautiful - I couldn't believe that I was wearing a t-shirt and sun glasses in January! From there we headed up the coast on Route 1 and stopped at one of the many beaches. We strolled along the sand and watched the huge waves crashing in. After having lunch we headed back up the coastal road taking in some beautiful views and arrived back at San Francisco for our last evening in the USA.

Tomorrow we'll be spending around San Francisco until the evening when we fly out to El Salvador, then onto Lima, and then onto Buenos Aires, our next destination. It's going to be a long day!

D