Thursday we said goodbye to everyone, Hannah and dibs to fly back to England for Emily's birthday, Jon and Gina to San Fransisco, Emma and Bimal to LA and then the San Fran where we'll meet them for Emma's birthday. Justin left on Wednesday. On one hand it's always good to say goodbye to someone who gives you a wet, freezing cold swimming pool hug when you've been sunbathing for ages, on the other hand he made a very good witness and when there's no Cornish pasties about he makes an excellent holiday companion.
So we packed the car and set off for a 350 mile drive to Mono Lake. Bar some slighy dodgy satnav reading and looping around Vegas' highways until we realised that the little arrows in the top right hand corner indicated which lane we should be in the drive was very smooth and easy. Most of the way there was on one road, with stunning scenery. There were some bits through the desert where we didn't see another car for nearly an hour which was amazing and a little weird. Particular highlights of the drive were the warning signs for cows on the road which had been shot at, ditto for the welcome to California sign and, before we entered California and were still in the desert the car being hit by actual, genuine tumbleweed!
After all that giddy excitement it took about 6 and a half to 7 hours to reach the motel in Lee Vining, by Mono Lake. The motel was exactly how you'd imagine it to look, two stories with an open walkway along the front to reach your front door. Inside our room was a good size and clean, donkey seemed at home here although perhaps a little sad to have left the splender of our suite in the Bellagio.* So after unpacking a bit and having a shower we went out for dinner.
Lee Vining, although beautiful is not a large town and there were two options for tea, one had the only vegy option as a burger and we'd had Burger King for lunch so we thought to try the other one. Which had great sounding vegy meals but was, of course, closed already, it being 8:30pm. Back to Bodie Mike's BBQ place where, on being asked what vegy food she reccomended the waitress offered chicken or fish and chips. I know some countries aren't great for us awkward types, but I'd expected America to be better. Clearly I was wrong.. Having said that George enjoyed his fish sandwich and we shared a (not very healthy) delicious trio of sides. For dinner I had chips, battered jalepeno slices and beer battered zuccini (courgette) rings. They were very, very tasty and very fresh and, being green helped towards my five a day.
Stuffed full and knackered after all thr excitement of the past few days we staggered back to the motel and bed. Ready for Yosemite the following day.
*For those who don't know we were given a donkey bank of dollars as a wedding/Christmas present from Milly and we felt that he would be lonely to be left by himself in London so he's come with us for adventures. We'll have photos of him at some of our outings.
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