M - When I die please don't name a freeway after me!

Well it's been a busy two weeks since I was last at a computer. From San Fran we went almost all the way to Yosemite. We didn't quite make it though, so spent the first night in a campground near Buck Meadows on the 120. In the morning we were woken by the sound of a woodpecker, crazy little thing smacking his head into the tree again and again!

Yosemite was as amazing as you would expect - but what a zoo. Busy with cars and people and tour buses everywhere. We were very lucky to get into Camp 4 which is where all the climbers base themselves. Heading off for a walk, we wandered through the meadow all flooded with spring snow melt - and we saw a bear! He was pretty brown for a Black Bear and was as shocked to see us as we were to see him. The rules are that you stand together to look bigger, and throw sticks and make lots of noise, which I did while Josh just stood there... anyhow he loped off to the side and we could continue our walk. I understand you don't respond to a Grizzly bear that way, but I'm still hoping not to meet any of those.

We met some great people in camp 4, in particular our neighbour from Aus, and a fellow Bivouac employee from Hamilton, and his climbing buddy. All of these guys lent us climbing gear and Josh and I were able to do a bit of climbing while we were in tha valley. We also walked up to a few of the waterfalls which tumble in from up high. There were lots of squirrels running around, we saw a cayote, and a racoon tried to steal our dinner. In total we spent four nights in the Yosemite Valley.

The road through Yosemite towards Nevada is still closed in with snow, so we had to leave out the way we came, very nervous as we were really short of petrol. It was snowing in Camp 4 that morning, and we thought it would be a good idea to get moving if the weather was turning bad, we were keen to get back on the bikes. Stupidly however we then decided to cross the Sierra Nevadas on HW4 over Ebetts Pass. We got rain, then sleet, then snow! Uggh it was freezing, and we had to go slowly because the snow kept freezing over our visors, and they were misting up from our breath really badly, so yuo had to ride with it open, only that was even colder!

Saviour! Just when you need one the most - there's a hot pools! yay! We stumbed over and then into Glover Hot Springs State Park. Ahhhh...

Since then we have ridden up the side of lake Tahoe, crossed briefly into Nevada where we nearly got lost and seperated taking the wrong highway in Reno, visited Lassen Volcanic National Park, most of which is closed due to 30 feet of snow, and been to Lake Shasta. At lake Shasta we saw a Turkey vulture (which Josh nearly ran over), more squirrels, a chipmunk (which I nearly ran over), ospeys, two bald eagles, and the second largest dam in the USA (which we had to walk over since it's closed to vehicles post 9/11).

And right now I am writing this in southern Oregan. This morning we woke up in California, right in the middle of the coastal redwoods. Aparently the coastal drive up here is really beatiful, but it was covered in a thick sea fog so I'm really not sure!

So all in all about 1500 miles so far. I promise I will try to add posts a bit more often!