After a long flight from Auckland to San Francisco via Los Angeles we were met by Sharon at the airport and we drove in to town to drop off Sam at his lodgings. Sam is visiting SF for two weeks to secure a position at a local IT company called quid.com. And then it was off to Santa Rosa, 60 miles north of SF in the Sonoma Valley where Sharon and David and their daughter Nicole live, though Nicole is moving over to Baltimore to continue her medical studies.
We stayed 5 days with Sharon and David and went on a number of great walks including visiting Muir Woods famous for its giant redwood trees.
On Easter Sunday we drove in to San Francisco to meet Sam and had brunch at Prospectsf. Extremely delicious Dungeness Crab Cakes were enjoyed by us.
But alas all too soon it was time to say goodbye and in our rental Toyota Camry set forth on our epic drive across America. We drove East towards the Sierra Nevada Mountains and started climbing. We hit the snow at 4500 ft. and crawled up to the summit of Donner Pass at 7300 ft. before descending into the high desert of Nevada and stopped the night at the gambling town of Winnemucca in the middle of nowhere. It was bitterly cold and in the wind felt like –3C.
By the way a map of our route can be seen at our blog site at
the bottom ( http://fabuleux08.blogspot.com )
Then it was on through another 500 miles of the high desert and very cold weather and snow flurries and mountain passes to the town of Arco in Idaho. On the way we passed the Craters of the Moon National Park, which is recent lava rocks and craters.
Arco is a small town is at the foot of the Rockies (though they are known locally as something else). It has one claim to fame as the first town in the world to have electricity from a nuclear power station because of the Nuclear testing facility
nearby.
Today we have arrived in Missoula, Montana navigating more snowy mountain passes up to 9000 ft. in some absolutely magnificent scenery.
Following the Salmon River through gorges, crossing several mountain ranges to emerge in a bowl in the mountains where Missoula is situated. The snow has only just left for the winter and Spring is hardly here with no leaves on the trees at all. It scarcely climbs above 10C and falls well below freezing at night.
We were in Missoula to pick up our Chevrolet Silverado. It is a magnificent beast. Very big, very high and very grunty. The tray comes up to Wendy’s neck!
So now we have a vehicle. Next we need a fifth wheel. To get this we have to drive 1600 miles further (after having driven 1100 miles already to Missoula) to Elkhart, Indiana. That is the equivalent of Cape Reinga to Bluff and back.
