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So, catch-up time. I’m now back in Abbotsford, British Columbia with regular internet access again,l so I’ll be able to get everything up. I’d forgotten that I hadn’t made another update from Colorado as promised, so I’m sorry for having been incommunicado for so long.

I’ll start where I left off, leaving Alameda. First I went down to the post office, planning on sending some bottles of wine I'd picked up to various people as a thank-you gift for their hospitality. It was then that I discovered that you can't legally mail liquor anywhere in the U.S., nor Fed-Ex or UPS it. So regrettably I've since had to drink the wine myself.

My next stop was Saul's in Berkeley. As some of you might have guessed by now, I don't deal with failure all that well. At any rate, I'd since rested from my long drive from Vancouver and had a chance to look at a map properly, and the traffic seemed better-behaved. I picked a more direct route than Google Maps chose, and found the cafe. Not without a bit of difficulty, though - it was definately a blink-and-you-miss-it place. Plus as a lifelong suburbanite I resent having to pay to park my car .

Top cut straight to the point, I do take back what I said about Berkeley not being any nicer than Detroit. It seemed nice enough with a proper look. I even got to see the (in)famous Cafe Gratitude, although I didn't have time to order anything either there or at Saul's, to my dissapointment. I wasn't inclined to fall in love with Berkeley after my experience on Saturday, and I have to admit that it didn't strike me as being that remarkable. It is an outlier by American standards - an American town posing as a European one - but a great many cities have a little corner where people in berets sit at street cafes and read the Socialist Worker. But I would have liked to have walked around for a little bit, though.

But it was now midday and I needed to get to Yosemite. I drove off, cutting from freeway to freeway for a couple of hours, and managing not to get lost. The countryside became barren and rolling, with yellow hills capped with wind turbines. It became a bit greener further inland, though, with more vineyards as well as fruit and olive groves.

I stopped at a little supermarket for some supplies. I do like small-town America, regardless of how bitterly they all cling to their bibles and guns. In particular, I was happy to encounter the smiling shop assistant in a tie and apron who addresses customers as 'sir' and 'ma'am' - in my lifetime he seems to have become superceded in most other places by a surly teenager in a polo shirt.

I gave up on Google Map's directions after they trend to send me up a road that was closed, and simply followed the signs. I passed elevation signs - 1,000ft, 2,000ft, 3,000ft. The road became shaded by big pines again - driving into the mountains was like driving back north.

I had my doubts about how much I'd like Yosemite based on the barren foothills of the Sierra Nevada, but the forested slopes of the mountains themselves were very nice. I stopped once at a cafe for a rather watery iced mocha, and was through the park gates and at my campsite at Hodgdon Meadows before five. It was pleasantly cool in the evenings up there, and I liked it. I settled in for my three-night stay.

There isn’t too much to say about Yosemite, even though I really enjoyed my time there. On my first full day, I went on the hike up to Half-Dome, the 8,000-foot-odd rock feature towards the head of the Yosemite Valley. I was lucky enough to have lugged 50 pounds up to 10,000 feet on Rainier a couple of weeks ago, plus the Hodgdon Meadows campsite is at about 5,000 feet, so I was in pretty good shape and well-acclimatised to the altitude. The top of the Dome still felt like sea level to me, and I was the fastest hiker on the track above 7,000 feet. So I was still feeling pretty good and was able to really enjoy the views and talking to the other hikers.

And there were plenty of them - it's a very popular hike. It can be a bit of a downer going on a long hike by yourself, but I've found Americans so far to be friendly and outgoing, and I had a chance to talk to a lot of people from around the country. Particularly on the final stretch, where the track runs between steel cables on the rock face. There was a massive traffic jam there. Going down it was fun to say "you're going well, guys, only about a mile to go!" to people who were fifty feet from the top.

Driving back to my campsite I was caught in peak-hour traffic. Two weeks ago I would have found the idea of heavy traffic in a national park three hours out from the nearest big city kind of odd - now I'm used to it. Indeed, from someone used to sparsely-populated Australia and Canada the U.S. seems very full of people and cars. I imagine that the only really remote country in America these days is in Alaska.