After Death Valley, we were hoping for a slightly more enjoyable road trip and we certainly got it. Travelling to the coast near Morro Bay, we made our way up the Californian coast to Santa Cruz and then up to San Francisco.

On the way we were pleasantly surprised to find a beach full of elephant seals! Strike yet another animal on the list of things to see.

Elephant seals on the beach

The coastal road

Arf arf!

Leaving Vegas on the Saturday, we were making our way to Bakersfield near LA for our Saturday night stopover. I decided that it would be fun to see Death Valley on the way, as it was only a few hours out of our way.

Mistake.

We were surprised to find that Death Valley is a popular tourist destination and is a National park, with many walking trails and lodgings available. You are recommended to visit in winter, but we thought we were tough enough to get through it even if our car doesn't have air conditioning. The Valley itself was well worth the visit, however the temperature was in the high forties and the steering wheel became painful to touch.

Leaving Death Valley was a major problem. You climb from -200 feet to 5000 feet and our car struggled to cope in the extreme heat. We finally made it but foudn that we decended again to 2000 and had to climb to 4000 feet again! In the end we were driving for a mile, then letting the car rest for 10 minutes at a time, leaving took a long (unpleasant) time.

The taxing journey means that our car is now leaking coolant and oil, it also overheats just climbing normal hills. Death Valley, never again!

Near the base of the Valley

Harsh conditions

Waiting for the car to cool down again.

We spent a week in Vegas. Beers were drunk, songs were song, Elvises were watched.

We left the best for last, Zion national park had been described as the most picturesque area and it didn't disappoint. The park itself is quite small so you have to park your car and get on the shuttle buses that tour the area. The whole system works quite well and I certainly couldn't imagine the carnage of having a lot of cars in such a small area.

The park reminds me of "The Lost World", beautiful scenary and landscapes that don't seem quite real.

After our visit, we made our way to Vegas through the desert on what was one of the most uncomfortable road trips so far. We have no air conditioning in the car and the temperature was around 40 degrees. This turned our four hour trip into a six hour trip with multiple stops to stock up on ice creams and cold drinks!

The Court of the Patriarchs

Hanging Gardens

Where are the dinosaurs?

Unfortunately I was called upon to do a lot of work for my office in the UK whilst we were in Cedar City, so we had to delay our trips until the weekend. On the saturday we popped down to the Grand Canyon for a look around, we headed to the North Rim of the canyon which is apparently the less visited side as Vegas is nearer the South Rim and that is where most tourists visit from.

There were still plenty of tourists around but we had a bit of a laugh looking around, the Canyon itself was far larger than I expected.

The Canyon

The Angel Arch, note the people on the top of it!

Southern Utah is famous for it's fabulous canyons and rock formations, with Bryce and Zion being the most famous and accessible from Cedar City. With the temperatures in the upper twenties we decided to drive to Bryce via Red Rock canyon for a good look around.

Red Rock certainly lived up to its name; Bryce meanwhile was the bigger park and was a nice place to explore. We smiled to ourselves at the other tourists excitedly taking photos of white tail deer in the parks, I think Yellowstone has spoiled us somewhat.

Red Rock Canyon

Road to Red Rock

Bryce

We left Billings in high spirits, we planned to spend a day in Yellowstone Park on the way to Jackson, Wyoming, our accomodation for Saturday night. The following day, we would make our way down to Cedar City, in southern Utah.

This was our last chance to see a moose, so with little expectation we headed down from the North Entrance of Yellowstone, through to the newly opened South Entrance where we had heard that some Moose might be. On the way we passed the usual bison, elk and deer and noticed that not only were there less animals near the road, but that the park was starting to fill up with tourists. We had certainly been there at the best time for spotting animals and avoiding the crowds! Apparently the bison, elk and predators move near the roads during the winter as these areas are clearer of snow.

Our hearts sank as we neared the South Entrance and it became clear that most of the area was still under several feet of snow, our chance of spotting moose seemed very remote. However, we did stop at some hot springs and took in some more sights that had now opened after snow clearing operations.

After Yellowstone, we moved into Teton National Park which seemed completely devoid of any animal life. But, as we entered the final area of Teton, we spotted a few people with cameras on top of a bridge so we pulled over for a look. Unbelievably, there was a baby moose in the bushes below! Very excited, we stayed around for another 20-30 minutes hoping that the baby would move to allow us a better view of him but no luck. In the end I moved down from the bridge and across for a better view, only to realise that the mother moose was just a few feet away from the bridge, but hidden by a bush! So Two Moose!

We eventually left after taking a few hundred photos and made our way to Jackson past herds of Elk in the Elk refuge. On arrival we decided to go out and get some nice food (McDonalds in the end) for a bit of celebration. As we made our way through the town, I stopped at a stop sign and checked both ways; with a double take I realised that there was a moose walking down one of the streets! We quickly drove down and, yes, it was a moose walking through the middle of town!

When we made it back to our hotel, we asked the front desk and it was apparently "not unusual" to see moose in Jackson! After 6 months of looking, we should have just gone straight to Jackson it appears!

Buffalo around a "hot" stream

Yellowstone

Yellowstone lake with a hot spring in front of it

"Mummy" moose

Teton National Park

the Jackson moose!

Kim's birthday, and we figured we'd head back to Yellowstone again. This time the weather was a little bit worse, but we took the advise of a ranger and headed towards the North-East entrance where we were likely to see some wildlife.

We saw more Bufflo, buffalo, buffalo and two black bears. A great drive, Yellowstone is just amazing.

We may have to come back next weekend

Baby black bear on the side of the road

Buffalo appreciating the weather

Reindeer/Caribou

Praerie dog

Wow, just wow. Yellowstone park is simply one of the most amazing places I have ever been to. We had an aborted attempt to get to Yellowstone the weekend previously, but our car broke down and the one mechanic nearby turned out to be blind and was unable to fix our car. This weekend, however, we got up early and made it with no issues and it turned out to be well worth it. The first day we saw more animals than we'd seen in our trip so far, buffalo are everywhere and Elk appear at dusk to fill up the gaps left by the Buffalo. Within thirty minutes we saw our first bear, a Grizzly, by a river near the road.

Old Faithful was, well, faithful and a good watch. The geysers and hot springs a good break from animal watching, this park is simply full of things to see and admire.

We'll be back!

Grizzly! (and our first bear)

Our first wolf (looked like a coyote, but much bigger)

Grizzly sharpening his claws

Old Faithful

Kim in front of a geyser

Buffalo!

Hot springs, the colours are caused by microorganisms.

Buffalo scaring the hell out of me. One of the bulls was staring at me and they're 1 ton killing machines that can run at 30mph. A bit unnerving!

It turns out that Billings is just an hour from the site of Custer's last stand, so we popped down for a look around. The battlefield is amazingly well done, there's a stone marker at every point where a US Cavalryman was found, as well as a museum, multiple site markers and a few walks.

The sense of history is prevalent throughout the site, we really enjoyed going and want to go again.

The man himself. Well, his body is in Arlington cemetary but this is where he died.

The last stand is at the marker in the top right of the photo, each white marker is where a Cavalryman fell in battle.

A rare Indian casualty marker

The site of the main Indian attackers on the last stand.