After having epic days in Nevada, we entered California one last time again. We had a lot on our agenda for our last few weeks in the USA and California. Visiting 3 to 4 national parks, do some preventive maintenance on Chaapaar and catching us with a long list of family and friends who are living in different parts of California.
The first on the list was the Redwoods National Park! Since we’ve seen the first photos of these giants, we knew that we wanted to see them up close many years ago. We were both excited and planned for as many routes as possible to both drive and walk in between them.
We’ve spent 3 days doing different tracks and loved them all.
Despite having our best times exploring Redwoods National Park and Redwoods National Forest, we had real problem finding wild camp spots on the west coast of California. It was the first time we faced this issue in the states. It was also October and it was starting to rain specially at nights in Northern California, so we stayed in hotels for almost all the time that we were in the Redwood area.
After Redwoods, it was time to spend a day or two in a workshop and prepare the car for our next chapter. We knew that access to spare parts will be more challenging as soon as we leave the USA so we did some preventive maintenance and stock up on some spare parts.
By then we realized that we planned for so much for our last days in the states and California and tried to do less and be more relaxed before the border crossing. We could stay longer in the states, but it could affect our timing season wise along the way, so we decided to stick to our original plan.
The next stop on the way was Sequoia National Park!! It was time to see the other Giants of the California.
Honestly, we cannot pick which ones we loved the most! Walking between these giants especially early in the morning, when the first rays of sunshine find its way through them was mesmerising and out of this world. This national park is not as close as the coast as the Redwoods and also not as accessible as Redwoods, so it had a wilder vibe to it. The other great point was the camping. We managed to find an amazing spot just on the edge of the national park, which made it easy for us to explore the trails early in the morning before anyone else get to the park. So finding carpark for each rail was easy too.
After soaking in all this beauty and enjoying our last days in the forests, it was time to head south to our last National park on our list, The Joshua Tree National Park. We’ve seen so many Joshua trees in our first leg of our trip in southern California and western Nevada in the spring, but we still wanted to see the higher concentration of these beauties in the National Park.
The park was beautiful and obviously there were many Joshua trees there but the most stunning part of the park for us was the rock formations and the way they were all piled up together. Even though it was hot, and we didn’t spend much time in the park, we were happy to visit it.
We’ve spent our last two days wild camping in the USA in the epic spots just on the outskirt of the National Park before heading to Los Angeles to meet my uncle and his family and spend some quality time with them.
We had great few days with our family, enjoyed good drinks and cooking together and visit some of the LA.
And before we know it, our time in the USA was over. It was late October and it was time for us to leave the USA and head toward Mexico. We were both nervous and exited at the same time.
USA was awesome. We were so happy to start this journey in the USA. It’s a heaven for overlanding. We could easily spend another year exploring the country and not cover all we still wanted to see. It means that we need to be back to explore it more.
But it is now time to leave our comfort zone and head toward the unknown. Mexico is calling us and we are so exited to head to that direction.
In the next post, we cross the border to a different world. Till then take care and don’t forget to enjoy life.
