More America Day 5

Monday 18th
Time to leave and head on, undertaking a massive 14hour journey according to Google maps. We had an end point of

Stratosphere in Las Vegas, a room we grabbed through lastminute.com for $33! normally the run to LV is 8 and half hours,

but we wanted to try and see Yosemite and Death Valley, and had a good route all planned out, cutting across Yosemite,

then down into Death Valley taking in the view and Dante's Peak of the highest and lowest points you can see in one place

in all of mainland america, Badwater at -278ft, and Mount something or other at 14,400+ft. So we knew it would be a

mission. It was, it was a totally draining day we covered over 800 miles on roads that varied from interstate to windy

mountain passes, we spent most of our time at about 4000ft abot sea level, dropping down to 2000 and up to 6000+

typically, the pass across Yosemite was closed halfway along and there was no other detour than going back 137 miles and

going all the way around the top. Screw that mess, we ended up going down through the park instead, seeing some great

sites still and making many photo stops, then down to Fresno, where we took the 99 to Delano, and then across some more

winding forest/range roads to Lake Isabella, which was gorgeous, we took this route in the hope we'd get to a point we

chose as our descision point at a time to make it worth going to Death Valley and Dante's Peak before sunset, the point

was about 120miles from the peak, we got there at 6, wich sunset being at 8, and all the roads being so winding we knew

we'd only average 30 maybe 40 mph, so, defeated, we headed south and joined up the main route to I-15 and Vegas. We

Finally checked in at 23:20, having left San Francisco at about 8:00/8:30, shattered. Sleep was much needed and

gratefully recieved.