Still 100+ degrees

I thought when I left Palm Springs and the desert that I'd be leaving the hundred degree plus temperatures behind. I thought wrong. About 300 miles later, as I pulled into Visalia, a small city around thirty miles west of Sequoia National Park, it was still 102.

I have a bit more time as this ancient computer (Pentium 2 and I think they got the dot matrix printer from an archaeological site) can only be rented from my hotel in full hour blocks. So here's a brief recap...

First night in San Diego... I only got three hours of sleep before my flight out since I had a lot to do before I left and I did almost all of it the night before. Yeah procrastination! So when I arrived in San Diego, I was tired. After hanging out at Pizza Port (mmm... beer), I found the hotel and decided to sleep a couple of hours. I failed "how to set an alarm clock properly". Eight hours later I finally stirred. It was well after midnight. So much for going out. I found a little Irish Pub a couple blocks from the hotel, had a couple drinks, and called it a night.

Day 2 - Beer for breakfast! Okay, not quite... I had an early lunch at Shakespeare Pub, the place I'd planned to spend a couple hours at the night before. It's a great English pub that had been highly recommended to me. It's British right down to the wait staff with their English accents. Then it was off to the aquarium. The San Diego aquarium isn't bad, but the last aquarium I'd visited was the Shedd in Chicago, which may be the best in the world. So compared to that, San Diego is much smaller and considerably less impressive.

Then it was over to Alesmith brewery for their Barrel Aged Old Numbskull release party. It was the first one in two years. There was great beer to be had on tap and of course the barrel aged bottles. I wish I could have bought an extra to take home, but given my travel plans, I figured it would end up stuck in a really hot car and ruined. So I drank the big bottle the following night in Palm Springs. That was certainly no chore. The revelers at Alesmith were fun, friendly people, so it was a good time. I left with loads of brewery recommendations for my trip, a promise to e-mail the first self-proclaimed "beer slut" I've had the pleasure of meeting, and a bar recommendation and better directions to Palm Springs from Greg Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing Company. Thanks for the recommendation, Greg. The Yard House was great. 150 beers on tap... wow.

Day 3 - I headed for the north west entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. The temperature was in the triple digits, as it had been since I rolled into Palm Springs about 9pm the night before. The first mile hike I took in the park was incredibly draining for such a short hike. Luckily a storm to the south dropped the temperature below 90. Much better! There are Joshua Trees everywhere on the northern side of the park. Looking across vast areas of open terrain that transitions into the mountains, there are thousands of them and they're the only tree growing in many parts of the valley. It's a harsh, but beautiful landscape. Later a hike up Ryan Mountain was tough and tiring, but well worth it for the great views at the top. As darkness fell, I drove out the southern park entrance and tracked down the aforementioned Yard House for dinner and brews.

Odd business in Yucca Valley - "Dig Your Own Cactus - 59 cents!"

Day 4 - I dragged my tired ass out of the hotel in Palm Springs in time for lunch, then drove a few hundred miles. Driving up from the valley north of LA was pretty cool. I'd never seen a sign on the highway before that says "Radiator Water - 1 mile". Sure enough there was a small parking area with a water tank and a couple cars sitting there with their hoods up. It was a long climb at 106 degrees this afternoon, so the older cars weren't doing so well.

hmm... I don't know if I'm going to type up these recaps for the whole trip. It takes awhile and probably gets dull, kind of like showing everyone your vacation slides.