SoCal

It seems consecutive daily posts didn't happen after all. Oh well...

Wednesday we were still trying to recover from that 20-mile hike in Yosemite. In the meantime, we wanted to go up to Sequoia and Kings Canyon NP's to see the giant forests. We made it up the mile-high hill into the Giant Forest of Sequoia before the Jimmy had had enough and just spazzed out. It was hissing and gurgling and spewing antifreeze everywhere (broken record, I know). This time it kinda freaked us out pretty bad so we gave it a while to chill and ate lunch under an "averaged-sized" giant sequoia. The Sentinel, as it is called, is actually incredibly huge, but not nearly as large as some of the other sequoias in the park. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any of these since we headed straight back to town, but it was cool to see the few giants that we did.

Eventually we figured out that the Jimmy didn't leak unless the engine got up to a certain temperature. We were able to keep it pretty cool the way back (all downhill) and kept the leaking to a minimum. The next morning we took it over to a repair shop near our hotel. $500 for a new water pump (what was leaking), hoses, and belt. I opted out of the hoses and belt and got the cost down to about $300. We hate to put that much money into a car we'll use 2 more days for the next year, but we didn't exactly want to put Steph's brothers in any worse of a situation than we have to (they are driving it back to Georgia for us). After all, there are plenty of bald tires and squeaky suspensions for them to worry about.

With the Jimmy fixed and ready to roll, it was on to Los Angeles for our last 2 nights in the country at my cousin Betsy's house. We were greeted upon arrival with incessant barking from her dog Christmas. The past day we've been working on arranging the car, packing our stuff, and seeing the obligatory tourist spots in LA. We've seen the Hollywood stars, Grauman's Chinese theatre, Kodak theatre, Hollywood sign - the whole nine yards. Despite our best efforts, though, we have yet to spot a celebrity. Still time though...

Tomorrow we conclude our 27-day journey across the US, and we're actually pretty exhausted. If only we could have a week or so vacation... oh right, we're going to Fiji for 9 nights. I suppose that will do. Final road trip post and special edition countrywide rankings to follow before we leave...