Great American Road Trip Days 1-5: Fresno - All packed and ready to shop

After leaving San Francisco on Tuesday, we have spent the last several days in Fresno visiting family and making sure we have all the essentials for our long-distance trek. We packed very well, but there are always things that get missed, or that you don't have time to buy before you leave. Everything from new hiking shoes to water containers to jumper cables and more.

In-between trips to sprawling mega-stores, we had a moment to visit the Tower District of Fresno, which was apparently recommended to Katy by my first cousin (once removed) as the "cool part of Fresno". I mainly remembered it for the classic old theater and its tower that unmistakably identify the area.

We found a rather nice little tea shop and had some enormous iced teas while we relaxed and did some people-watching. One or two other little gems presented themselves...

 

But my favorite was the pie shop.

We unfortunately didn't have time to sample, but I'm curious for next time.

Tomorrow we leave for Yosemite which is the real start of our trip, though we'll be in a cabin so the first test of the tent will have to wait for Benton Hot Springs on Monday. From there we drive straight across Nevada to Zion National Park, the first major destination that neither Katy nor I have seen before. I expect to put up the first pictures from the trip on my photoblog as soon as we get Internet access again after Yosemite.

It's been great to see everyone down here, lots of relatives we don't get to spend much time with, and some of whom were in from out of town as well. There's no hospitality like that of close family and we're fortunate to have this be our first stop. It's a nice way to ease into the coming weeks of travel. Soon enough we'll be on our own, fending for ourselves with nothing but our new (and largely untested) camping equipment to rely on!

Next check-in will probably be from Benton or beyond...