Travel log of Eli and Anna Bendersky

Yosemite national park is about 1.5 hours driving from Oakhurst (where our motel was). All the surroundings are a dense, lush pine forest, and the air is very clean and full of nice pine smell.

The park itself is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s very large and only a small portion of it is accessible by car. The central location where all tourists arrive is the Yosemite valley, where there’s a visitors’ center, a few campgrounds and “villages” of wooden huts. In summer, people have to order a year in advance to get place in these huts, so most visitors stay a little way out of the park, like we did. Although it’s officially winter now, we tried to order a month in advance and there were no vacancies. However, we’re happy with the location we’ve picked because the motel is very good and it’s close enough to the park. The town we’re in (Oakhurst) also has several large supermarkets, so food is relatively cheap and varied. In Yosemite itself everything is terribly expensive, except the entry, which at $20 per car per week seems cheap enough.

The Yosemite valley is enclosed in a steep granite cliffs which rise up to 1 km above it. In winter and spring there are a lot of waterfalls everywhere, as the mountains are covered with snow.

On Thursday we went to the Upper Yosemite Falls trail, which leads up the cliff above the visitors center. We’ve climbed above the lower part of the falls and reached the upper part, but didn’t continue the last mile or so because most of the rocks were covered with snow and ice and it was becoming too slippery. It was also raining for most of the way, but the rain was weak and we have good rain-gear, so it didn’t impede our hike. The views of the waterfall from up close were definitely worth it.

On Friday we hiked towards Mirror lake in the eastern part of the valley, and then continued above it until we reached a bridge that was closed due to rock-fall on the other side. We even heard the rocks falling from far away on the other side of the river. Rock-falls are a serious issue here and the local park rangers take it very seriously. If some trail is even minimally dangerous because of rocks falling, it is closed. Rock falls can even be major - on the western entrance to the park, the road from Mariposa is closed in one place because a major rock-slide completely covered and ruined a section of it in 2006. These days there’s a detour using two temporary bridges.

The park also has some wildlife in and around it. We’ve seen deer, a coyote, lots of squirrels and a few types of very beautiful birds. Although bear warnings are ubiquitous here, we didn’t meet any, unfortunately. Bears are mostly a nuisance here, however. When they smell food, they don’t let anything stand in their way, not car windows, not tents and not people. So “bear boxes” are everywhere. These are large metal containers where people are obliged to placed their food during their camping in the park. Leaving food in tents is very dangerous, and bears also ruin many cars each year in an attempt to fill their bellies.

We really liked Yosemite. The weather wasn’t the best, but there were also relatively few people. In summer the park must be really beautiful, and all the trails are open, but there are huge crowds here - so it’s really a tradeoff.

After spending 2.5 days in the park, we drove to our next destination - Los Angeles. The drive there took us around 5 hours, which wasn’t too bad.

The first thing we did in LA was to change the car at the airport. The Dodge we had complained about “Oil Change”. The new car we got was a Nissan Altima, which is better. It has more space, is newer, and we like the way it drives better.

In LA we stayed in a small family-run motel in Santa Monica, by the name of “Ocean Park”, which is not recommended. It is significantly worse than the last place we stayed in Yosemite. Its only plus is that it is located in a nice neighborhood close to the ocean.

On the day we arrived, we went around and saw the Santa Monica beach and pier, and several high end shopping centers. Our first impression of LA is that it is somewhat like Tel Aviv, but much larger. Many highways and top end neighborhoods. Another thing we noticed about LA is that there is a large jewish population here. It is not rare to see people wearing black kipas, or finding shops with hebrew names on them.

On our second day here we walked the walk of fame in Hollywood, and visited the Mann’s China theater (the stars with the celebrities names, and the hand/feet marks). The walk of fame was not impressive at all, but the Mann’s China theater was nice. We also drove to the Hollywood sign, and visited Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills is very beautiful. It looks very fancy, which was interesting to watch.

Then we met with Lala, Sasha, Luba, Sylvia and Ian, and had a nice family lunch. After the lunch we went with Sylvia and Ian to the Lakers vs. Grizzlies NBA game. The game was held in the Staples center, which can hold ~19,000 seats for basketball games. It was pretty full that day.

On Monday we visited the Universal Studios amusement park. We came there at 9 AM, just at the opening, so we managed to sneak through to some of the attractions without major queues. All in all, we’re not sure Universal is worth the money they charge for entrance. Perhaps it’s an interesting place to visit with children, but just for adults it isn’t recommended. The highlight was the “Animal stars of the movies” show where they showed various trained animals that take parts in Universal’s movies. Besides dogs and cats, there were birds, a pig, a racoon, monkeys, and even an African fox.

On Tuesday morning we left LA and headed north along California’s coastal highway #1 towards San Francisco and the bay area. The road goes through Malibu and other ocean-side towns and the ocean view is very beautiful. On the way we stopped for some shopping in Oxnard, which is a small town a few 10s of miles northwest of LA. The town looks farming-oriented, and its population is about %75 Mexican. We were amazed to see the price differences between the Wal-mart in this town and the ones we’ve visited in major cities in the SF bay area, Vegas and LA. The store in this remote town was perhaps 25-50% cheaper! If our earlier impression was that everything here is more expensive than home, in this store a lot of the stuff was actually cheaper. It’s curious how large a difference in prices can be across such short distances.

For the night we stayed in a small ocean-front village called Cambria, about 150 miles south of San Francisco. The motel was quite nice, right on the ocean’s beach, although the weather was winterish with very strong winds.

In the morning we continued our journey north along the coast. In many places, the road winds along the cliffs with the ocean roaring below - there are a lot of amazing viewing points along the way.

When we reached Monterey, we visited the Carmel town, and then drove along the 17-mile drive in the hills of the peninsula. This place is famous (and a bit hyped) for its views, which are indeed beautiful, though the ones further south are better.

Afterwards, we walked around the Monterey beach-front streets, and drove to Salinas, where we visited the Steinbeck national center, which is a very nice and well-organized museum dedicated to John Steinbeck, his books and the history of the Salinas valley.

We spent the first three days of our California vacation in San Francisco. San Francisco is built on 47 hills, which means that walking in it is very tiring, as the ascents are quite steep (and we’ve probably climbed a good portion of those hills). It also means that there are beautiful views from every hill. The architecture of the buildings is of European style, but taller, with a unique touch.

On the first day we went to the Alcatraz tour. We got to Alcatraz by ship, and went around the historic jail with headphones, in which we heard stories about Alcatraz by past inmates and guards. No one is known to ever successfully escape Alcatraz, although the island is located very close to the city. Not for lack of trying. The three inmates who got closest to escaping, ran through pipes to the top of the jail. Their fate is unknown, though, as swimming away from the island would result in certain death. The water is very cold, and the waves are high. These inmates were never found. (Prison Break season 1 flashback ).

We had lunch in the Boudin restaurant, famous for its Sour dough (locally baked bread, with dough prepared in a way unique to SF’s air and climate) and clam chowder. Not being sea food fans, we took the bread with other soups instead. It was delicious, but our hala bread is better… We’ve also strolled along the piers, including pier 39 with its charming sea lions which are very fun to watch.

On the next day we went to see the Castro area famous for being the center of the gay-lesbian community. There are a lot of “allow gay marriage” signs everywhere. Gay marriage is legal in 4 states in the US, but surprisingly California, which is known for its diversity and tolerance, is not one of them. Then, we headed for the local park, which is larger than the Central Park of NY and is very beautiful.

We’ve also crossed the golden gate bridge to the other side. There are some very nice views of the city from it. Part of the reason is that unlike other bridges, it does not have high bars, so it is possible to take pictures, and you don’t feel as if you are in a cage. On the other hand, suicide from the bridge is possible. There are several phones on the bridge where people in despair can call for help.

On the other side of the bridge there’s just a tiny visitor center with restrooms and a few posters, but nothing else. Not even a bus station, so we had to cross the bridge on foot the other way as well. In general, the public transport in SF isn’t bad, with a subway, tramways and several types of buses covering most of the city. But in this case (the bridge…) the transportation isn’t friendly for tourists walking on foot to the other side. In total, it was a very productive day - we walked for about 7 hours and visited most of the notable places around SF.

We spent the evening with the Milshteins, which was very family-ish and nice. On Sunday we took a train to Palo Alto and spent half a day in Stanford University with Betty and Moran. Stanford is very impressive. With the same amount of students as the Technion ~12,000 it has much more space and facilities. It is no wonder, as the tutition fee is $40,000 per year (as usual, you get what you pay for). Moran says that studying in Stanford is much more difficult than studying in the Technion. Unlike the Technion, where in most courses it is possible to learn from the lectures only, without really opening a book, in Stanford you should read the material before the lecture, and the lecture is only complementary. It’s probably a better way to study, as it forces the students to read books and learn themselves. In our fast changing world, learning alone from books is a very important ability to have.

When we got back to SF from Stanford, we walked through the Chinatown of SF, which is very nice. The smells and sounds there reminded us of Hong Kong.

Early next morning we had a flight to Las Vegas. In the airport we learned an important lesson about the US - never buy any food marked large or huge. We bought a large chocolate milkshake - it was delicious, but it took us both about 2 hours to finally finish.

The flight went, we landed in Vegas and took a shuttle to our hotel, which is Sahara, located at the northern end of “the Las Vegas strip”. Sahara is an old hotel (from the 1950s), and has seen many of Vegas’ glory days (including hosting a Beatles show). But lots of time has passed since then, and now the hotel justifies the low price it charges for rooms. It’s not too bad, although next time we’ll go somewhere else.

Except the room rates (which are dirt-cheap on weekdays), Vegas is terribly expensive. Everything in the tourist-area costs a lot - food, transportation, shows, even batteries. So gambling is not the only thing they make money off, although they are certainly trying. Gaming machines are everywhere here, not only stacked in 100-long rows in the hotels’ casinos, but also on the street, in fast food restaurants and even right at the departure (and arrival) gates of the airport. Prostitution is legal in Nevada and seems like another major business here, as it’s being advertised very actively and explicitly everywhere you look.

Vegas is definitely glamorous. We went around the strip a few times and saw the major hotels, which are amazing works of architecture and even art. We also saw a very beautiful show at the Wynn hotel called “Le Rêve” - which involved acrobatics, dance and music all set in a specially designed water stage.

On Tuesday, after an artery-clogging breakfast at McDonalds, we rented a car and drove to the Hoover Dam - which is only an hour away. On the way we stacked ourselves with food at the local Wal-mart. Things are much cheaper once you get away a few miles from the strip. The Hoover Dam is very impressive - we strolled on top of it and took the guided tour in the power plant.

In the evening we decided to give gambling a try at the Mirage hotel/casino. After losing a few dollars at the Blackjack machine (it was rigged, we swear!), we tried a couple of the less intelligent games - the ones where you put money in, pull a lever and hope for the best - and… WON!!! Yes, we won $25, which after subtracting our losses totals to an income of $13.31 from Las Vegas.

At this point, to stay in the green, we decided to leave the Casino and go party with our huge wins. Alas, it was barely enough for a pair of yogurts

The next morning we returned the car and flew back to San Francisco. There, we rented another car (for the rest of our trip) - a big Dodge Avenger (which is considered a Midsize car here, go figure) and drove to San Jose to visit the Technology museum. It wasn’t very impressive (Haifa’s Technoda/Mada-tek is better).

Then we drove to our stop for tonight, a motel in Oakhurst - which is a small town just next to the Yosemite national park. We’ll spend the next two days here.

Happy Passover!