Driving in Clouds

If you're headed from, say, Atlanta or New Orleans towards Washington DC or New York (or vice versa) you can, instead of boring Interstate Highways, drive almost a thousand miles of beautiful and slow mountain roads. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is in the Southern end of the route, the  Shenandoah National Park in the North. They are connected by a scenic mountain route known as the  Blue Ridge Parkway.

When within the clouds, you don't really see the scenery, but it may still be beautiful.

We drove about half of those mountain miles in early June 2017. As you can see from the video above, the weather was not really favorable, except towards the end of the journey. We had also planned a tight-ish schedule. We occasionally headed down from the mountains to the Interstates in the valleys, where it's possible to travel a lot faster. It was also a matter of safety: the winding mountain roads are a little scary if the visibility is poor, especially considering the abundant wildlife. We saw deer, wild turkeys, opossums (we suppose), and one rattlesnake. When darkness falls, it is better to drive on an illuminated highway than in the dark mountain roads - an even better idea is to reach your destination before sunset.

Deer in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

As usual in the USA, things have been made easy for a car tourist. There are vantage points every few miles, and a lot of differnet sights to see, so many that even the most duty-conscious tourist can't possibly visit them all (and some of the sights are, how should I put this, questionable). We recommend Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina, just south of Great Smoky Mountains, and the Mabry Mill, a cute open-air museum in southern Virginia, as well as Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and the author of the Declaration of Independence (I'm planning on writing more about Monticello later). There are hiking trails and other opportunities to experience the Great Outdoors, but we drove past them, because of the schedule and couch potatoness.

Like many Native American peoples, the Cherokee smoked tobacco in this kind of stone pipes, often in their ceremonies.

The Cherokee played a ball game they called the "Little Brother of War" with sticks like this. The exhibition in the Cherokee Museum is quite impressive, including a presentation of the "Trail of Tears" (or, literally, "The Road on which They Wept"), the forced transfer from the traditional Cherokee lands to Oklahoma, where most of the Cherokee still reside.

The green Mabry Mill is fairytale-like, at least in June.

We do not recommend Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at the southern end of the route, not to travelers like us anyway. There are most bizarre Las Vegas-like plastic tourist traps, such as the half-scale half a Titanic, including the Iceberg. Traveling on mountain roads may be slowed down by not only weather but also traffic jams, especially during the holiday season and on weekends. The route is quite popular and tens of millions of people live nearby.

Titanic. Well, half a Titanic. And the Iceberg.

Huge motor homes, towing "rescue boats", are frequently seen on U.S roads. Many are much larger than this one seen at a Blue Ridge Parkway picnic area.

Like most US National Parks, Shenandoah charges an admission fee, but there are no road tolls or charges on the Blue Ridge Parkway and The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is free of charge. Practically, the only way to experience the route is a car (or, of course, a motorcycle or such), your own or rented. At least in the summer season, it is possible to reach some places in the The Great Smoky Mountains National Park by public transport.

We drove on the Blue Mountains from June 4th to 6th 2017.

San Francisco Rails

Cable cars are one of San Francisco's symbols.

The United States are promised land of private cars, and public transport is not always very functional. Some bigger cities, like New York and San Francisco, are an exception to this, with their very good transport systems. The one in and around San Francisco, while functional, is a bit complicated, with several operators and several different rail networks. Thankfully, Clipper card is accepted as payment across network. In addition to modern buses, trams and BART trains, there are early 20th century style transport available.

A cable car arrives at Market Street terminus.

The Cable Cars are probably the most famous way of transport in San Francisco. The car itself is not equipped with an engine at all: the traction is provided by moving steel cables underground, below the track. When leaving a stop, the driver, known as gripman, applies a mechanical switch to grip the cable and get the car moving. When stopping, he releases the grip and applies brakes to stop the car (a more detailed explanation provided by the Cable Car Museum).

Compared to more modern trams and trains, riding the Cable Car is, unsurprisingly, uncomfortable and bumpy. Its is also quite expensive, since the cars, being one of San Francisco's symbols, are very popular among tourists. That said, they are well worth experiencing, if only to observe the gripman's actions. I recommend riding a Cable Car to the Cable Car Museum. It is in a working Cable Car power station, and one can observe the cable-operating equipment at work (see video below),

There are, of course, old Cable Cars in the Cable Car Museum.

The tram line F is a regular San Francisco tram line, with frequent schedules, but it is operated exclusively by vintage equipment, more than 50 years old trams. Most cars are painted in vintage liveries from different cities across the United States, and even Mexico City and Milan. I noticed that one detail was omitted from the cars painted in the colors of Birmingham, Alabama: the markings that separated the compartments for "white" and "colored" people.

Despite their age, the F-line cars are equally comfortable - if not more - as the modern ones. There is no extra cost for riding the vintage trams on the F-line, any regular tickets valid on San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MUNI) buses, trains and trams are good.

This PCC car used on the F-line is painted in a livery used in Los Angeles.

We rode the San Francisco rails in June 2015.

The Ocean Road

Soon after we left Paso Robles we caught the first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.

It is possible to drive from Paso Robles to San Francisco quickly on a boring highway or slowly on a scenic road by the Pacific Ocean. It was an easy choice for us. First we crossed some hills - where we come from they would be called mountains - to reach California State Route 1, which runs along the coast. The Ocean was quite a sight to see, when it finally become visible behind the hilltops. We had seen it already at the start of our trip in San Francisco, but it felt that only now we really saw it for the first time.

They say that across the Ocean, there's a place called Japan. I am not sure if I believe that. I think there is only the Edge of the World, and the waters of the Ocean are forever flowing over it into the abyss.

Of course, we had to stop at the beach as soon as possible to dip our toes in the Pacific. As we had spent most of the preceding two weeks on deserts, it felt almost cold. The weather was windy and the temperature "only" a bit over 20 grades Celsius (about 70 Fahrenheit).

Relaxed Elephant Seals in San Simeon.

They say that everything is bigger in America. The seals certainly are. On a beach near the small town of San Simeon we saw Elephant Seals. A grown-up male can weigh over 2000 kg (almost 4500 pounds). The South American subspecies is even bigger. The Elephant Seals can dive in depth of over 2 km (about 1,25 miles), but the ones we saw at the beach were just relaxing, sometimes throwing sand on themselves.

The landscape was dramatic and spectacular. The vegetation was surprisingly "Nordic" with a lot of coniferous trees: we were approximately on the same latitude as Northern Africa. The most impressive vantage points were very crowded, as were Big Sur's many (expensive!) restaurants - and this was a Tuesday in June, before the American Summer holiday season had really taken off.

One of the many vantage points...

...and another.

Many guidebooks advice to drive the State Route 1 from north to south rather than south to north, because it apparently is difficult and dangerous to turn left and almost all vantage points are on the west (i.e. sea) side of the road. I found this a bit alarmist: we drove from south to north and I never felt there was any problem. However, the road is at times winding, there may be a lot of traffic and it's mostly a two-lane road, unlike most U.S. highways.Obviously it's best to drive carefully, as always, but I really did not find Route 1 particularly difficult or intimidating. One should allow a lot of time for driving and numerous stops for admiring the spectacular views.

If the plan is to drive all the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles or vice versa, we would definitely recommend an overnight stop: actually,  two overnight stops might not be a bad idea. We only drove some 300 km (about 185 miles) from Paso Robles to Santa Cruz, and we missed a number of recommended sights, like the town of Monterey and apparently beautiful 17 mile drive.

In Santa Cruz I went to an amusement park - this was a first time, I think, in ten years or so. Beach Boardwalk was founded already 1907, and the atmosphere is like from before the Second World War. I was lucky to be there on a Tuesday for "retro prices", all the rides were only $1. The payment was by a pre-paid card, and without giving the matter much thought, I put 5 dollars on it. Only after that I realized that there was only one ride I was interested in, a roller coaster known as Giant Dipper from 1924. Well, I had no complaints riding it five times.

Giant Dipper is constructed of wood.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

We drove the Pacific Coast road on June 23rd 2015.