Roadtrip: From Las Vegas to Yosemite & Lake Tahoe

Day 189 – Sunday 3^rd, October 2010 — Day 191 – Tuesday 5^th, October

A little tired we started the good 500km drive from Las Vegas to the Mammoth Lakes in the vicinity of the Yosemite Park on Sunday evening. The navigation system told us in the meantime “Please follow the road for the next 400 km” and it was clear that it was going to be a long ride. Of course Lorenz was the only driver since I had no driver’s license and Rachel was under 25 and the additional driver insurance would have cost a fortune.

In Beatty, 200km well behind Las Vegas there was an initial shock. Lorenz turned right and did not come to a complete stop at one of the many stop signs in America. A police car parked in the dark and therefore waiting for people like this, followed immediately and Lorenz had to pull over. The cop was tough and decisive, asked us all sorts of questions. Then he said that we had run a stop sign and the cost would be $ 290 …We swallowed and then he said with a deliberately long break in between “. But this time it remains a warning,” Oh God, I was relieved. According to Rachel this was a very friendly Cop …

Then it went on and the tank was getting empty and empty. There had been a gas station in Beatty, but the tank was there, just under half full and thought that would have been OK like that. But no, it turned out to be more exciting. We drove 220km without a single good way to refuel up until Big Pine. We crossed a mountain range of the Rocky’s what really gave us then most of the rest. We made it eventually, Lorenz filled 64 liters in the tank and we drove to Mammoth Lakes, which we reached around 0:30. Since we were now at 2400m altitude, it was bitterly cold and we checked into a Motel 6. Previously, the receptionist warned us yet, that’s all we should take out all food from our car, even toothpaste and instant coffee as this may well be that the bears around are attracted by things like that…

The next morning there was horribly cold and drizzly weather, we went the remaining miles to Yosemite Park full of hope for improvement, then came the big surprise: The 3031m high Tioga Pass was closed due to snow. On Oct 4th! How sweet! But with such weather we could not enjoy much of the park anyway, especially since we also wanted to camp there, what would have been definitely too cold. We had coffee and talked about the further plans as the employee said that the weather would have been fantastic to the day before yesterday, etc. about 20 ° C. That did not help us on and so we decided to continue North to Lake Tahoe to drive and to seek a campground where the weather would allow it. On this side of the Rockies, we saw once again a good example of the different gasoline prices in the U.S. The price here is much more determined by supply and demand and thus may be the Chevron gas station close to the pass cost $ 4.24 for a gallon of gasoline (about 0.85 € / l) to take into consideration as the price is usually at around $ 2 , 80 and was even at $ 2.20 in Tucson.

California had done nothing good for us so far in terms of weather. The trip to Lake Tahoe, despite the lousy weather, was very nice and you got a feel for how beautiful this whole area without the gray weather… The snow-covered mountains around us, let us know that we had caught the wrong time of year…

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After almost 250km, we arrived at Lake Tahoe and the picture was not always better. It was very cold and drizzling. Despite the gray weather, the lake was well worth seeing again and we could only imagine how beautiful would it be either in the winter or summer. We decided on a place and went to the Super 8 Motel. The price differences between season and off season for the ski resort at Lake Tahoe were enormous. While we are at a good 60 $ for the three of us, the price in the winter was at 275 $. So we had almost struck a bargain !

While at the Safeway supermarket, we found also the best example of what’s wrong with America in their diet. We found packaged ham, but  labeled “organic” for the price of $ 8 for 7 slices of ham! This is the price in a large supermarket. If you compare that with the fast food offerings you can get for the same price 15 hamburgers or 35 Chicken McNuggets… Everything  healthy, is being highly marketed in the U.S. as a super extra healthy and gets some hip packaging and an even hipper prices…

Beautiful morning

The next morning, again no improvement in sight. The sky was a single gray color and it all poured out buckets. We decided to leave the goddamn east side of the Rockies and go as far away from them as possible and thus chose to drive to Napa Valley.

Snow covered mountains on the way to Yosemite

Expensive prices! Double compared to Tucson!

Why we didn’t go to Yosemite in the end

Great weather

Coffee place

😦

Rachel & Lorenz

Even more grey clouds

On the way to lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

Extreme risk… mmm yeah….

Lake Tahoe

On the way from Lake Tahoe to Napa

Strange restaurant combination!

Traffic system in Sacramento…