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Vancouver, BC
Canada
2666 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2010 : 01:17 AM
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Day 11
Monday, April 26
St. George --> Las Vegas
Hike: CB scrambles against the campground rules.
Hotel: MGM
The remainder of the trip doesn't involve as much hiking, but I'll give an overview for the sake of continuity. From St George we drove to Las Vegas, where we tried to get into New York, New York, but they wanted $150 for one night. No way! Then Dorothy had an idea. Chris called his sweetheart back in Vancouver, who booked us into MGM for half the price! Thank you, LJH 
Day 12
Tuesday, April 27
Las Vegas --> Talure
The next morning we packed up and hit the Famous Pancake House for breakfast.
Then the car was sent to a garage for some minor repairs, while we killed time at Borders. There was talk of hitting up Yosemite on the way home, so we spent some time researching accomodation and hikes. Once the car was done, we drove by Red Rocks (no time for exploration) and then put as many miles of road behind us as possible.
Chris and Dorothy ate at a Mexican cafe, but I couldn't due to allergies. I wasn't super hungry though so said I'd get something later. "Later" turned into a more pressing need for food for me and a break for the others, all of which precipitated with some urgency in a town called Tehachapi, but pronounced "Salem's Lot" for fun.
Signs on the highway indicated/we drove by what we all saw as a bustling McDonald's and Subway (both of which we successfully avoided for much of the trip) so we drove a couple miles further into the town. It was eirily quiet. There were some semi-promising looking diners, then we ran out of town. So we turned around but the diners had all closed in the meantime! At this point, the place got a bit surreal. "Don't worry, I'll just grab something at McDonald's, we don't have a lot of time anyways," I said stoically.
Finally Chris admitted defeat, so we headed back towards the highway and the travel stop, which had a gas station, Subway, McDonald's and convenience store. You see places like that all over the US; during my Greyhound tour in 2008 I felt like they were my second home. When we'd driven by, we all thought that the travel stop had quite a bit of traffic. As we drove up, we noticed the detour signs and there was some indication that they were doing road work or re-paving or whatever. It actually took a bit of driving around to figure out how to get in. Finally we got through the maze of bulldozers and poor signage, and from there we still couldn't figure out how to get to the Golden Arches, so Chris just drove through the commercial truck refuelling island.
The pavement had been taken out here too - driving up the lip of the concrete was a little rough. And the gas pumps were covered in plastic wrap. At this point, Chris began to formulate a hypothesis which was supported by an increasing amount of evidence. Circling the building once more confirmed: the travel stop was still being built; none of it had opened yet.
All of this had probably taken seven or eight minutes. We carried on down the road.
At around 9:30 pm, we reached Bakersfield, where we pulled into a parking lot for some reason or other - probably to look at the map. There was a young Maine Coon-type cat in the parking lot which totally hijacked Chris's attention as we slowly rolled forward. "Hey, pussycat!!" The cat watched, carefully blank expression, obviously aware of what was about to follow: crunch. Bumper met concrete, no damage to either. Chris hopped out of the car to meet the cat but it ran away.
It was too late for me to eat but coffee seemed like a good idea. We pulled into the next Starbucks, which looked like it might be closed. I jumped out to investigate. The door was still open, but they were clearly packing up. "Are you closed?" "Yes, sorry." "Oh, do you have any scraps of coffee lying around?" "No, we've shut down the till and dumped out the carraffes." "Oh. Sorry. We have a tired driver." I turned around to leave, but then one of the baristas said, "Hey wait!" She made a cup of coffee from their instant sachets, and said it was on the house. How nice is that?
That cup of coffee bought us about another 40 miles of progress, to Talure where we found a cheap motel for the night.
Day 13
Wednesday, April 28
Talure --> Mariposa (via Yosemite)
Hike: 10 minutes to Bridal Veil Falls
Stayed: Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort
Laundry, photography "Art is being made" in Talure, errands in Fresno.
High route to Yosemite. Couldn't get to first campground - snow, hail. Give up on camping.
Stuck in a snowstorm - Park Ranger: "It's a Suburu, they'll be ok."
Once we could go fwd, treated to fantastic views. Photographers in the car demand to stop!
 
 
Short hike to Bridal Veil Falls.
Stay at Yosemite Bug - awesome place.
Day 14
Thursday, April 29
Yosemite
Hike: 10 minutes to admire El Capitane
Hike: Vernal Falls/Emerald Pool/Nevada Falls
"Quick Dorothy! Throw something at cjb so he thinks his cat is waking him up!" "How about my mouth guard?" Waking up at Yosemite Bug was awesome. Beautiful light spilling through the maple trees, song birds, the whole works, and the food was really good at the "cafeteria" - I saw pork tenderloin with blackberry reduction on the dinner menu, for example.
 
We headed back to Yosemite for a one day recon mission for future trips. Note here: Moby makes great music for driving into Yosemite. The original intention was to go hiking, but between stopping at opportune moments for photography, to admire El Capitane and the Merced River, and trying to navigate the village on foot, we didn't end up hitting the trail till 2:30 pm (!)
   
Quite a few of the high-elevation trails were still closed due to snow, including Half Dome which was on the menu at one point. On the advice of one of the rangers at the visitor's centre, we hiked to Vernal Fall, Emerald Pool and Nevada Fall. This is the same trailhead for Half Dome and all sorts of interesting places, and it is a pretty area in its own right. My only complaint was that the first couple of miles were paved which just felt wrong in the woods.
The pavement switchbacks eventually gave way to gravel switchbacks though, and we encountered some well-packed snow patches. Then I forgot my hiking poles at one of our stops. I ran back to get them, and when I caught up with cjb again we was happily chatting with a father and son who'd had some sort of unexpected bag night adventure when they got caught out in worse weather than they were prepared for. As we pulled away I muttered to cjb, "You know, if you want some conversation other than 'bra-talk and constant abuse' you could hike with them for a while." "No thanks! It's been so constant that I've developed Stockholm syndrome. I'm starting to identify with my captors."
As we progressed up the trail, the air got cooler and more BC-like. There were heavy clouds but no rain, which made for interesting effects as the views opened up.
We stopped to admire Liberty Cap and between melting snow and the previous day's storm, the falls were in great form.
 
We couldn't realistically get anywhere else without risking running out of daylight, so we turned around and got back to the road just in time to catch the free shuttle back the car.
Day 15
Friday, April 30
Mariposa --> San Francisco
The trip was more or less over now, all that remained was to make a stop in San Francisco where we'd be saying goodbye to Dorothy, who was staying for another week. After checking in to our hostel, we admired the room and went through our well-established routine of figuring out who would sleep where.
[http://vimeo.com/11942417]
Then we wandered around for a few hours. I'd never been to San Francisco before, the others had. They took me to City Lights bookstore, where I bought a book.
Day 16
Saturday, May 1
San Francisco --> Yreka
We went for another walk around San Francisco, had breakfast, went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, then packed up and said our goodbye's to Dorothy. Vacation time was well and truly over, but wow, did we ever manage to pack in a lot! Thanks for a great and memorable trip guys.
Day 17
Sunday, May 2
Yreka --> home
The last day was one long drive from Northern California, to Vancouver. Not much happened, the weather was fine until about Seattle, when dark clouds began to form on the horizon. We joked about the ominous portent. By the time we went through the Aldergrove crossing, it was totally monsooning! Chris dropped me off at my apartment around 11:00 pm, then it was back at work the next morning.
The end. |
Edited by - mad owl woman on 05/23/2010 01:28 AM
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
2666 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2010 : 01:29 AM
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Appendix:
Our route can be viewed by pasting this very long URL into your browser:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=vancouver+bc&daddr=Mountain+Home,+Elmore,+Idaho+to:Elko,+NV,+United+States+to:Great+Basin+Blvd+to:39.164141,-112.983398+to:Fruita,+UT,+United+States+to:St.+George,+UT,+United+States+to:Las+Vegas,+NV,+United+States+to:9039+Village+Dr,+Yosemite+Natl+Pk,+CA+95389+(Yosemite+National+Park)+to:San+Francisco,+CA,+United+States+to:Seattle,+WA,+United+States+to:Vancouver,+British+Columbia,+Canada&hl=en&geocode=FQt57wIdQIKp-CkllQ21IO6FVDEciNbXbMfgpg%3BFRYokgIdQrEa-Sk7bF0UyCipVDG8Ooq0XAgJ1w%3BFaUNbwIdTZgZ-SkNjwwZtQSmgDGJ9gXE6bFV2A%3BFfTaVgIdkDYn-Q%3B%3BFeAwSAIdDIJe-SlFyoNerhlKhzFpflfqYEnzaw%3BFW4HNgIduO86-SnlOUmY0ETKgDEeHKH48gcXUw%3BFdYQJwIdMJoi-SnRffWkgre-gDGjebPV5tXMOg%3BFVP7PwIdAkzf-CH-A4DtLJwkLQ%3BFVJmQAIdKAe0-CkhAGkAbZqFgDH_rXbwZxNQSg%3BFcJp1gIdWVy1-ClVM-iTLBCQVDGa1URpRmUlEA%3BFQt57wIdQIKp-CkllQ21IO6FVDEciNbXbMfgpg&mra=dme&mrcr=2&mrsp=4&sz=7&via=3,4&sll=41.037931,-114.411621&sspn=5.866369,9.876709&ie=UTF8&ll=41.037931,-115.894775&spn=2.933419,4.938354&z=8
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Trail running, bike hucking, fast packing, beer drinking collector of pine cones on a day pass
AKA
Dances with Trees
Forest Gnome Cabin
Canada
13090 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2010 : 07:38 AM
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Stockholm Syndrome,lol |
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463 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2010 : 12:49 PM
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Hey it was great being able to listen to the road trip music while reading this!
And whatever did become of the cardboard, anyway? |
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Utah's canyon trekking,deck chair packing desert explorer who dreams of visiting Canada someday
3988 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2010 : 3:59 PM
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Always wanted to go to Yosemite. Been there as a little kid. I don't remember it.
The land that inspired Ansel Adams and John Muir. What a great ending to a nice road trip.
Glad you all stopped by.
What? San Fran and no Giardelli chocolates???? D'oh!! |
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 challenge seeker, bagless sleeper, bare bones, trail trooper
Abbotsford, BC
Canada
1957 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2010 : 07:30 AM
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What a memorable trip and I enjoyed your report so much I went back to it three times! Thanks for sharing the adventure of your group and how wonderful to enjoy the charms of RM's company complete with relationship advice and all! Have to agree with him, San Fran needs to be experienced with Ghirardelli.  |
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Abbotsford, BC
Canada
725 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2010 : 8:03 PM
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| You sure covered a lot of ground in 17 days ... interesting read and pictures, thanks for sharing. |
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bandana wearin', pole huckin', view lovin', dog herdin', 4x4 navigatin', lake huntin', butt-slidin' bridge crosser, who enjoys postholing with an overnighter pack
Surrey, BC
Canada
4663 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2010 : 8:31 PM
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| AWESOME Road trip!!!!!! |
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272 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2010 : 09:38 AM
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Love your narrative !
Half dome as well as some other hikes in yosemite are on my list still too. e-mail me if you want go down there sometime. |
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Popkum, BC
Canada
5902 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2010 : 09:46 AM
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You have excellent recall MOW. Did you take notes on your journey or is everything by memory? It reads like a great adventure.
Happy trails,
Lynn |
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Utah Road Trip! Part 3 - to Yosemite and home
