San Francisco – West Coast – Grand Canyon – Road Trip USA part 1

Hi photographers and road trip lovers,

This is part 1 of my road trip in the USA in 2011. Starting from San Francisco, driving along the West Coast in California, and heading Grand Canyon in Arizona.
I couldn’t spend that much time in San Francisco unfortunately, but it was still nice to have a glimpse of the city in one day, joining my sister and friends.
An early short walk on San Francisco docks with a view on Alcatraz jail, a seafood sandwich for breakfast that was pretty awesome.
You can’t miss the impressive Golden Gate Bridge, linking San Francisco Peninsula and Marin County. It has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Driving on it was a very unique moment… (not that unique as we had to drive back on it later :) ).

A quick tour at the Muir Woods National Monument to enjoy a stroll in the redwood forest. The large trees in Muir Woods are the coastal redwoods, the tallest of all living things, and some scattered Douglas firs. The tallest coastal redwood at Muir Woods is about 258 feet (80 meters), the average age of those trees is between 600 to 800 years, with the oldest being at least 1200 years old (they can live up to 2200 years!).

Sunset on the Pacific Ocean, and we head home a bit later. The morning after, we left San Francisco to drive along the California West Coast.
We have a bunch of kilometers to do, before to reach Grand Canyon in Arizona. Few stops to enjoy the view on the ocean, seeing impressive waves, few surfers, but also some wildlife like sea otters, pelicans, but also whales!

It took us quite some time to reach the Grand Canyon area, but at least, we did some kilometers on the famous route 66!
We arrived in the late afternoon at Grand Canyon, and the view is astonishing, the sunset providing nice warm colors to the rocks and cliffs.
We went to get some rest before to come back the day after to enjoy a little hike in the canyon.

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,000 feet or 1,800 meters), an impressive beauty of the USA.
For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves.

We were lucky to be able to start the hike early, as there was large groups of people coming few minutes after us. I can say that they were quite noisy!
We drove along the Grand Canyon to end up enjoying later, the sunset over Horseshoe Bend and get some sleep in the city of Page.
But that will be part of part 2!

I hope that you enjoyed the photos, and will be motivated to also do a road trip in the USA, maybe from San Francisco, along the West Coast, to Grand Canyon too!

Cheers!

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