Jenni goes Stateside: natural beauty reprised

 

 

 

Like all great works of art, I thought that the naturally beautiful places of America deserved a reprisal; a kindof encore blogpost. After going there, I can definitely understand the namesake of Death valley. It is ridiculously hot! If you've been on holiday to Greece or Tenerife this summer and thought it was unbearably hot then you haven't experienced anything yet! I thought Vegas was hot, and then I got into Death valley. It kept swapping between 118 and 120 degrees and if, like me, you have no idea what Fahrenheit is all about, then just to give you an idea its about 48 degrees celcius! And that's not even the hottest it's been - their hottest summer on record was in 1913 when it got past 60 degrees celcius! Luckily its got 0% humidity and is considered the driest place in the US and one of the driest places in the world, so your hair stays straight and you don't feel too sweaty. I bet you'll never guess where the number 1 driest place in the world is? Antarctica! Because it has no rainfall I guess but I just assumed it would be a desert. Death valley wasn't the prettiest of places that I've been because of the lack of life but it's still pretty impressive; the size of it all. I don't know why they have to put the viewpoints so high up though - that walk was not an easy one! Normally you'd be fine to run up the hill but even taking 2 steps in that heat makes you feel like you need a nap! No wonder so many people die from heat exhaustion every year. For my trip to Death valley, I wore this monochrome playsuit from new look with my black la moda sandals because it's really lightweight and I didn't want anything that would make me hotter (if that's even possible)

 

We went from one extreme to another when we spent the afternoon in mammoth lakes, which in the winter is a ski resort! That was really pretty and really calming - it would be a great place to go for a spa day!

 

 

Then we stayed the night in mammoth lakes in the cutest lodge resort I've ever seen! In winter it would be covered in snow so there were ski lifts and gondolas (the cable car kind and not the boat kind we saw in the Venetian in Vegas). The lodge hotel itself was really cosy and cute with real log fires burning and towels shaped like mammoths left on the beds (I thought it was an elephant until someone pointed out that we were in MAMMOTH lakes). The log fires were not an act of a crazy person either, somehow we'd managed to go from 48 degrees in the morning, to about 20-25 degrees in the afternoon without even crossing a state border! (we crossed from Nevada back into California when we went into death valley). It does kindof make me understand why most US citizens never leave the country though, they have cities and beaches and countryside and ski resorts all at their fingertips.

 

 

 

 

Then after leaving mammoth lakes, we went over to another national park; Yosemite. I first I thought it was pronounced yoze-might like any normal person would, until I was told it was pronounced yo-sem-it-ee. Name confusion aside, it was really amazing. With tall cut-away cliff sides and blue skies and rocky waters and miles and miles of pine trees. It would've made for a great photography project.

 

My dad saw it as an opportunity to take on a photography project of his own though. I don't know what it is about animals but anytime we go out, armed with a camera, we come back and it's filled with photos of animals. Not even interesting animals like bears or tigers (we were told we might see a bear but no such luck), but just animals like squirrels or rabbits. His all-time favourite to photo are meerkats so we no longer allow him to take a camera if we ever go to the zoo; we'd end up having to buy a new memory card. Jokes aside though, the bird photo is pretty good - my old photography teacher would be impressed.

Along with the joke about my dads obsessive photo-taking, we also have a long-running joke in our family about how my mum is the only one who doesn't tan. With her ginger complexion (me, my dad and brother say ginger, she argues strawberry-blonde but the argument has never been settled), even being in the American heat for 3 weeks didn't have that much of an effect. So I couldn't help but laugh when her shoes matched the colour of my legs, and my shoes (almost) matched the colour of hers. You might think she's not that pale, but she'd been using the sunbeds for weeks before we went away aswell.

Yosemite is also home to 3 of the tallest waterfalls in the world - one of them is behind me pretty much directly above my head at the top of the cliff. Interestingly Niagara falls didn't make it into the top 10 but I suppose it's famous for it's country-boarder-crossing and not for its height. Apparently we were lucky that there was any water running down the falls at all seeing as California's in a drought right now. My friend Laura made me laugh when we caught up about my holiday and she asked about the drought; being a geography student she is pretty much the only person I know who would ever ask about it! For my day in Yosemite, I wore this floral new look two-piece which I've featured before (for full details read 'New look haul: florals galore') with these white gladiators from Schuh. I thought the bright florals added a pop of warm colour to my green, blue and grey background.

And that's it with the nature; from this point on it's all about the cities! Next stop, San Francisco - be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!