Two in one

Nov.25

For the last couple of weeks we have traversed many climatic zones - from coastlines, old-growth ancient forests to uninhabited valleys and deserts. This is the largest tree in the world (by volume):
That's Anastasia in the tree there... After exploring King's Canyon and Sequoia parks, we headed down south... Just as we were leaving the mountains, we met Shel, who invited us to stay at his campground for the night, just outside of Three Rivers. Once in our conversation we mentioned that we were looking for a job to continue our journey, next thing we know - we've been offered one to take care of the flower garden that he built a couple of years ago and was slowly planning to add some perrenial flowers to its numerous terraces. We stayed for two days, working during the day and enjoying the company of our host in the evenings.
Afterwards, in our loose plans, was to head towards canyons of southern Utah that our good friends from Ontario have visited in autumn and were amazed by the beautiful shapes and textures. We chose to go there through Death Valley. We have never been to the desert so we were quite exited for our further route.
Catching a ride during Thanksgiving weekend in the Mojave desert is not the easiest thing. So we were stuck there for two days camping amongst dried out prickly bushes and blowing sand. We had to experience the desert somehow we thought, so that was our chance!
As we were leaving the desert, we found out that it is freezing cold in the canyons already -12C and snowing! Alright then, we are going south to Mexico. Decision is made and it feels good!

Dec 2

It's our third day in Mexico, we have covered about 30 km on foot and we are 1000 km south from Tijuana - in Santa Rosalia, on the east coast of Baja California.
People here are friendly and helpful, but our lack of Spanish is frustrating. Yesterday we got a ride from a guy who owns a metal recycling yard, and he offerd us an empty industrial office building to camp in for a day of two. We took him up on his offer and are now enjoying a warm sunny day without heavy bags on our shoulders.