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So, this morning we drove south from Lyons to Denver Airport for our flight to San Francisco. When we dropped off the car, we'd clocked 2832 miles in 3 weeks! That's an average of just under 135 miles per day! It didn't feel that far - unlike Australia - because there were more things to do in between destinations and the scenery (for the most part) was very diverse. I guess, as with many other things in life, it's not just about the end destination but how you get there that counts. Rather ironically, we did a loop of the Southwest - from Denver to Denver - without even seeing Denver! The most interesting places along the way were not the big cities or massive parks, but the smaller towns and sights which were sometimes off the beaten track and sometimes unexpected.
We've hired another car for the California leg of the trip. We plan to do some more National Parks. Luckily, I booked tickets with Southwest Airlines which means that we could bring 2 bags each as they allow 2 free pieces of luggage! So we bundled up our tent, air mattress, sleeping bags and pillows into some heavy-duty laundry bags and away we went westwards!
As a sign of things to come in California - there was a crazy guy from Ohio on the seat next to me who had some odd ideas and also got progressively louder as he got more and more drunk. I don't know why, but he kept asking Wendy to get him drinks from the air hostess and, unbelievably, she got up and did it - twice! It was amusing to watch!
Once we'd arrived in San Fran, one of the guys at the rental company took pity on us hauling all our luggage and upgraded us to a better model - for free! Just as well, coz I don't think we would have been able to fit everything in to the economy 2-door model we'd booked!
Getting out of San Francisco took us ages as we were driving in rush hour traffic and people just wanted to get home. Californians seem to be quite aggressive drivers - tailgating, turning without indicating and speeding in general. I saw ALOT of roadside wreckage and parts of cars strewn along the barriers. Luckily, they have a carshare lane for cars with 2 or more people in them so that speeded things up for us a bit more, but it's a loooooong distance to drive after a flight. As soon as we got onto Highway 1 and I saw the sea, I started to relax a little.
We stopped to get something to eat in the little town of Carmel. I'd heard that it's a quaint little Hacienda-style place, but hadn't quite expected it to be quite as elite as it is. Took us ages to even find a supermarket (well, it was a 'delicatessen') - only posh restaurants and boutique stores. Everything looked expensive - not a pricetag in sight!
By the time we got to the Pfeiffer State Park, I'd had to drive on the dark, winding coastal road for quite a while. It was so spooky driving through the redwood forest to our campsite and settin up our tent using the car headlights as a torch!
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