Left San Fransisco today and drove to South Lake Tahoe. When we arrived we looked over Emerald Bay and then did a short hike to Cascade Falls, which are waterfalls that flow into Cascade Lake. We then went to Meeks bay and sat on the sunshine on the beach, it was like being on a tropical island but at a lake - very strange - canadian geese were also swimming around. On the way to the hotel we stopped off at the Tallac historical site which is a preserved 1920's holiday village - very wierd.. 9th June - Today we went to Bodie Ghost town which was brilliant. It was a gold mining town that was deserted in the 40's. When people left, they just left their houses as they were, so inside are all of the original fixtures and fittings, paintings, chairs, food cans etc. You can only look through the windows - and its really interesting. Apparantly it had 65 saloons at one point. We spent hours looking around. In the afternoon we went to Mono Lake which is a massive bright blue lake with strange calcium pillars popping up out of it and the surrounding landscape. They were formed from natural springs under the lake - fed from the surrounding mountains by underwater rivers. Jim took a hike up the Panum crater which was formed from a volcanic eruption. He had uninterupted views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. On the way to the hotel we drove the June Lake Loop around some of the ski resorts in the area. Finally ended up at our hotel in Mammoth Lakes. We were supposed to be going to Yosemite National Park today as well, but unfortunately the road we wanted to take was closed and there was no other way in. We were really disappointed - but it means that we will have to come back and do it at some point in the future. 10th June - Today we were heading to Beatty in Nevada via Death Valley National Park - which we were told is very very hot. We stopped at Lone Pines on the way and went for a drive in the Alabama Hills - which is apparantly were they have filmed loads of westerns and Tremors. We also got a good view of Mount Whitney which is the highest point in California. We drove through Death Valley and stopped off at Stovepipe Wells for lunch on the way to Beatty. The park was amazing, almost nothing in terms of plants and animals, but the rocks were made of loads of different layers and were loads of different colours from gold to purple and green. Stovepipe Wells has got to be the hottest place on the planet, even the wind was too hot, it was like putting your head in the oven (not that we would know what that is like - but you know what we mean).