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I left Yosemite to drive up and over the Tioga Pass, where the highway is almost at ten thousand feet. The Tuolumne Meadows were extremely pretty, and there was still some snow on the slopes of the high Sierras. Scenery-wise I prefer Rainier or Lake Louise to Yosemite (I think that I just have a thing for snow-capped mountains) but I did get some breathtaking views while I was here.

The bad news is that I began to have trouble shifting gears, and it got worse as I went on. Finally, as I went through the park gate at the pass, my gear lever stuck and I stalled. I managed to get going again and get into fourth gear, but I was flying towards the Mojave Desert apparently without a clutch. The eastern slopes of the Sierras are far steeper than the western (the mountains are caused by the eastern plate going under the western one, pushing it up like one book resting on another), and are very barren.

In no time at all I was at the junction with Highway 395, and luckily there was no traffic so I could merge straight on without slowing. I considered stopping at various garages, but I decided that, given I was pretty close to Lone Pine already, that it would be best just to push on.

I got to my Motel in Lone Pine about midday. Even though we were still at 4,000 feet it was now a hundred degrees - a sign of things to come. Mt. Whitney, the higest peak of the lower 48 states, frowned over us from the west. We were now in the desert - the upper slopes of the Sierras had pine forests, but around us there was only sagebrush and little stunted bushes.

I took my car to the local mechanic. Turned out that my only problem was that the floor mat was stuck under the clutch. How embarassing. I paid the Hispanic kid who served me some money for his efforts, which made him very friendly and well-wishing.

Still, feeling like a moron aside, it was a huge relief. I went for a walk around the town. Somewhere in the past day I'd crossed an invisible line into Southern California - the buildings were abode, many signs were in Spanish, and a good number of the people were Hispanic. Oddly enough, though, the lady in the grocery store was from Yorkshire.

I liked the town, which seemed like a charming little oasis in the desert now that I had a chance to view it free from the stress of worrying about my car. Still, it was a bit warm for walking around so I went back to my air-conditioned motel room to watch TV. My first experience of southern Californian TV.

I managed to catch the weather. It wasn't great news - a hot front was moving in from the east, and would probably be passing right over Death Valley when I was there. My car has no air conditioning, so I resolved to leave early that morning and do the crossing as quickly as I could.

I then channel-surfed for a bit. Eventually I hit on the evangelical channel - I'd been dying to see a televangelist ever since I entered the U.S. There was some guy whose name escapes me wrapping up his show. He was encouraging his viewers to dial 1-800-RAPTURE and send him money so he could keep warning everyone about how the Muslims were taking over.

Then it was if I had been raptured myself. There was Joel Osteen in his electric-blue suit, hair done up to here, flashing a million-dollar smile at his massive audience in his Texas Megachurch. After everyone held up their bibles and repeated his mantra, he began his sermon. The subject was a verse from Luke on how God shows his favour through signs.

"After my father was called to the Lord", he said in his heavy southern accent, still showing each and every one of his perfect teeth at the end of every word, "I had doubts about whether I would be able to manage the church myself. I prayed to God: 'show me a sign of your favour'!"

And he did. Osteen says he woke up one night spontaneously singing verses of praise to the Lord, which he took as a sign that everything would be OK. That was one of the signs - if it happens to you, it means that, in Osteen's terms, God has your back. At least one woman in the audience was in tears by this stage. And for your general reference, other signs include rainbows and the bible flipping open to relevant verses by itself.

I flicked on through. Hannity was on Fox, showing footage of Mexican drug dealers with AK-47s crossing the border with impunity and thundering at the Obama Administration for not stopping it. I watched a bit of Dr. Phil, and saw some LA news and programs in Spanish. And there were the usual sitcoms - even if you've never seen it before you know the characters by heart down to the wisecracking 11-year-old kid.

The aggressive advertising by pesonal injury lawyers was new to me, though. I saw a lot of ads along the lines of "quick, there's a report saying that this drug will give you headaches! Have you taken it and gotten a headache? Call us and we'll get you a million dollars in compensation!"

One interesting thing was the dichotomy between the dozens of cop shows on one hand and the anti-government themed advertising on the other. There were all-night marathons of Jail documentaries, and ads were lawyers bluntly promised to help people get out of getting tickets or paying taxes. It was very interesting.

I thought about going out to check out the nightlife in Lone Pine, but it was still pretty warm, so I ended up having an early night. I left for Vegas via Death Valley at about six the next morning.