California on the Road, August 2008

We arrived in Los Angeles from New York on a United Airlines flight of about 5 hours, perfect. At Los Angeles airport we picked up the car booked from Italy, a gigantic Cadillac SUV with automatic transmission. Rental from Alamo; they wanted to rip us off about 700$ more, and after some arguing with the delivery clerk, we managed to keep the price paid from Italy, after showing him the flight ticket under the agreement. They try it on... After the ritual drives around Beverly Hills and Hollywood we set off towards Solvang (a really pretty town) on the coast. We then crossed Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, and admired splendid beaches. A shame about the chilly weather and the grey days.

Setting off from Solvang we then passed through Santa Maria, the whole Big Sur coast (which we did not see: we found incredible fog, it was like driving blind, at 2 miles an hour on very narrow bends going uphill. A shame because Big Sur is a wonder!! The next night in Pacific Grove (Monterey), beautiful!! Setting off again, passing through Santa Maria, Santa Cruz and finally arriving in San Francisco, where we found truly cold and windy evenings! A very pretty city with its characteristic steep streets and the majestic Golden Gate emerging from the mist.

Take the ferry to Alcatraz island, it is worth it! Setting off from San Francisco towards the splendid Yosemite park, where we photographed and filmed a small bear and hundreds of deer! Very handy for a worry-free trip was the sat-nav, which abandoned us at a really difficult moment: the car out of diesel in the middle of Yosemite park in the total darkness of night and with the risk of being attacked by bears.. what a panic.. we still do not know how, but without a map we managed to reach a service station inside the park and we could breathe again. B&B in Coulterville, a very hot little village of 30 souls.. then crossing Tioga Pass towards Lone Pine, the last cowboy town before entering Nevada.