... welcome to the Hotel California ... what a lovely place ... welcome to the Hotel California ... what a nice surprise ... - these lines from the famous Eagle song certainly hold true when it comes to California. It has been a most lovely and beautiful place that would surprise us at almost every turn. However, when it comes to its hotels, well, they are dirty roadside motels that come with a nasty surprise - overstretched prices. Think 80 USD and up for cheap dirtholes or 35 USD and up for dorm beds in run-down hostels in Los Angeles.
Before we arrived for our four-day stay we had luckily arranged for AirBnB and a rental car. Since there wasn't much of a difference in price between a Toyota Yaris and a Mustang Convertible we, ehm well... See, I love cars, hadn't driven one in months, and the prospect of cruising curvy coastal cliff roads won me over.
Our first two days were dedicated to Los Angeles. With amazing sunny weather in early April we checked out the usual suspects Santa Monica, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Venice Beach but also some unusual ones like Inglewood, Watts, Las Lomas, There are some cool things going on in LA like watching future skate legends stomp grabs in Venice's skate bowls, munching juicy dry-aged beefburgers that have your taste buds tingling or catching the sunset in Crestwood Hills rather than Hollywood Hills because all of those Hollywood kitsch places are just overrun by tourists and a waste of time.
With a sports car at our disposal we decided to get away from the big city and its traffic jams and drive north along the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway. It is a spectacular road with steep cliffs, sunbathing elephant seals, and twisted oak trees. Unfortunately, we had to discover that most of the road is blocked due to landslides and it might take more than a year to restore this dramatic road. So we changed plans and turned back in order to get to Fresno and explore the Rockies from there. After a long drive late into the night we ended up in the countryside of central California and being just too tired to drive any further we pulled into a dirt road and slept in the car.
Waking up we were surprised to see were we had ended up. We had entered an orange plantation with endless rows of orange trees in full blossom. Stepping out of the car was like stepping into a bottle of shampoo. The sweet flowery scent of orange blossoms penetrated just everything and it was just surreal to walk on the fallen leaves that made the trees and the ground look like snow. In the darkness we had not realised that we had entered an orange plantation but trespassing is a serious offence in the States, so we quickly sped off towards the mountains and King's Canyon National Park. The road wound its way higher and higher and eventually patches of snow turned up that became ever more dense until we found ourselves in some massive snowfall. 90% of the roads in the National Park were closed including the connection road to Sequoia NP and we had to turn back and take another trip chasing down back country roads until we reached Sequoia NP. Snow had turned to heavy cold rain and although this meant fewer tourists it would have been nicer to walk through the giant Sequoia forest with sunshine. We still walked around and also had a look at General Sherman, the tree which is claimed to be the largest living thing on this planet.
Fed up with the rain, the cold and a gloomy weather forecast the desert became an obvious choice. Driving carefully over snowy mountain passes the beautiful forest scenery changed into barren plains and soon even the cacti became sparse. Approaching Grand canyon we passed empty ghost towns and deep desert gorges. This diversity of landscapes really impressed us and is what makes California a more than worthwhile place to visit. We will certainly come back one day though with more time and more money to spend.
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