After a lazy pack up we hit the road via the local Kmart, so we could get some snow boots. We emerged from there appropriately clad, but also with an inappropriate passenger. Buddy, the two foot Xmas Elf who will stand alongside our Santa collected in England - an expensive way to collect Xmas decorations for sure. For now he's riding shotgun in the front seat.
The drive took us through magnificent mountainous scenery again. Different to the desert and barren flats and mountains of the day before - a little more greenery and gradually becoming forest. We went straight to Bodie, which is a ghost town from the goldrush era. Buildings are from 1868-1872 and are the leftovers from a town of 10,000. A couple of hundred buildings remain. It was photo opportunity city and we killed the batteries in almost all the cameras! An awesome experience, enhanced by the snow drifts we could stomp into with our new boots!
We then retraced a bit to drive through Yosemite - we've been lucky a few times on this trip and this was one of them. Normally you can't drive into Yosemite in winter as the road is closed, but due to low snow of late they opened Tioga Pass 2 days ago. Not only did we get a rare snowy view of Yosemite, it is a great shortcut saving hours of driving. Majestic scenery that puts anything we've ever seen in Oz to shame... and we came across a frozen lake, including skaters, so we spent half an hour wandering across the lake and practicing our sliding skills. Definitely one of my highlights!
After some more driving through the wilderness we hit a major town and crashed for the night. Of note, this is the first place with a full size supermarket we've come across. The range of food is staggering - it would be easy to get fat here! Also - alcohol is Soooooo cheap. Unbelievably so. Not only that, but they have 1 and 1.5 litre bottles of almost everything. We grabbed a 750ml bottle of Baileys with two proper glasses for $16!
Anyway, tomorrow we have only a couple of hours drive till wd hit San Francisco, and we will get back to 'hectic' so we can squeeze everything in . Ciao!