february 19, 2007

And we're off. To get to the highway we pretty much had to take the route I go to work every day. Unfortunately as it was a holiday weekend the 710 was jammed, so we took the 405 south to the 605 north to the 5 then the 2 then the 210 east. Put it this way - after 35 minutes in the car we were approximately one mile north of our apartment.

The road is pretty twisty. Our original plan was for me to drive the Mini but then I wouldn't have been able to take photos while we were moving, so Ev gallantly volunteered to drive her Corolla so I could snap pics through the windscreen. Unfortunately we stopped at the ghetto petrol station in Long Beach and Ev didn't want to hang around long enough for me to clean the windscreen properly.

The first turnout we stopped at gave us a stunning view over the valley all the way to downtown LA.

As the highway's so winding it attracts a lot of motorcyclists.

A view from another turnout across to the road we'd just driven down.

I think we're at about 3,500 feet up now. Thanks to the mild winter and the wind the ever-present smog was dispersed giving great views.

More of the road.

This is Newcombe's Ranch restaurant and bar where we stopped for lunch. I can highly recommend the New York pastrami sandwich, and the coffee's great. Shame about the bloody lens flare.

This photo gives a good idea of how winding the highway is.

Speaks for itself, really.

Yes, that is snow. And there's more to come. The temperature had dropped from 89 degrees when we were on the 5 to about 55 at this point.

The flat brown stuff in the back is the desert. That's one thing I'll give California - you can from the ocean to the mountains to the desert in one day. Shame you have to take the bloody freeway system to do it.

I think this is the highest I've ever been, apart from flying to the UK and a couple of Saturday nights in Merthyr.

Told you there was more snow. Thanks to the summer temperatures in Long Beach I was just wearing a T-shirt so I was freezing my tits off at this point.

I think I've put more snow pics on this site in the last couple of weeks than I have in the last 30 months.

The ski lift. By this point the temperature was down to 42 degrees (or Nipple Factor 10 on my own personal scale) and I wanted to get back in the warm car. I must be getting acclimatised - 42 degrees in Wales is sunbathing weather.

We're heading back down now as we didn't really want to do the drive downhill in the dark.

We're back at ground level now and about to execute a sharp right turn as Ev just realised she's in the wrong lane for Long Beach.