California: on the road

Yes, here we are at last! If you're regularly following this blog, be warned: there will be quite a few articles about California in the coming weeks! In case you are not following this blog or may have missed the last episodes, here's a bit of context.

A few days after spending Christmas with my family in France, I went back to my favourite place in the outskirts of Paris: Charles de Gaulle airport. Twelve hours later, I landed in Los Angeles. First time ever in California, approximately 20ºC more than in Paris, so I'll let you imagine both my emotion and excitement, that even the jet lag didn't manage to kill. OK, I may have almost fallen asleep over my plate at dinner on the first night but all in all, I managed to go through the first day with no major disturbance and, I am proud to say, despite the first Californian wine tasting that I was warmly welcomed with.

After a couple of days mostly spent to rest, do a bit of sightseeing in the town we were staying in and the surroundings thanks to our diligent guide and host, rediscover the Pacific Ocean that I had only seen in Peru and do some more wine tasting, we started the week with some serious business, namely: hitting the road. First planned stop: Death Valley.

Obviously, the greatest thing about a road trip is that you can also make a lot of unplanned stops along the way. Which is exactly what we did on this first day, starting with a hungry visit to a diner with typical and delicious American... err, breakfasts? I want to say "lunches" or maybe "brunches" but I'm almost sure I'm making some sort of cultural distortion of reality (and what "regular" proportions actually mean in the US). Anyway. We were hungry so the label had absolutely no importance. With renewed energy, we headed for our next unplanned stop: Calico Ghost Town. Considering that we were both expecting to see a real ghost town, the discovery of what looked more like a Disneyland ghost town could only be a shock. Nevertheless, it was still fun and the landscapes were quite beautiful.

Then on the road again, with (almost) no stops until we finally reached Death Valley at night. And even though it was so dark that we saw very little of the landscape, at this point, it's going to be really hard for me to transcribe into words the feeling of being surrounded by absolute, complete silence, and getting lost in the contemplation of the Milky Way...

Penny's Diner

Calico Ghost Town

"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear"

The endless road