The very first thought I had when I woke up this morning was “ugh.” The second thought I had was “Holiday Inn Express Breakfast BABY!!!” That thought fueling me until the actual food could, I jumped in the shower, a rather claustrophobic one at that, and got ready. Toto and I went down and scarffed some of our long lost friends, biscuits and gravy (though I held off on the gravy and stuck with a couple of biscuits and jam with sausage). Then we headed out.
We had stayed in Woodland, just north of Sacramento. As we entered Sacramento, Toto remarked that we were officially in the Sacramento Valley. My next comment was “If this is a valley, where are the mountains that make it one?” Apparently they were there, just out beyond my eyesight in the misty hazy air down here. We drove down to Stockton, and just south of there we got off I-5 and took Highway 120 to Manteca. Toto was supposed to stay on the 120, but ended up veering off or turning off or something off onto Highway 99, heading north. After correcting this little mishap, we ended up back on 120 (also known as E Yosemite Ave) and driving straight through the heart of Manteca. Right after we turned, we saw a few young girls (probably 12ish) waving “Support our Troops” signs. Then we saw another was holding a sign that read “Car Wash”. I guilt tripped Toto into turning in. There was a parking lot filled with Marines. Most of them were in t-shirts and tank tops and shorts, but a couple were in ACU’s. They had a great time washing our car. Three or four of them asked us what the crap on the windows (and the rest of the car really) was. Toto’s answer: “Pitch, don’t worry about it.” They also had a good laugh at all the fir needles built up in all the crevices in Toto’s car. They were pulling handfuls out from under the windshield wipers: which, side note, I broke one of yesterday. And I totally spaced putting that in the blog. Yep, we were filling up in Weed and I thought Toto’s wipers locked upright for windshield washing, and found out with a loud “SNAP!” that they don’t. Note to self, MY car’s wipers lock up, not Toto’s. Anyhow! Then the Marines brought out their best tool yet, a leaf blower! No, they weren’t using it to rid Toto’s car of needles, they were using it to jump start the drying process, before using the towels. Rather ingenious I thought!! Toto said to me after with a tear in her eye, “Everything happens for a reason. I had to take the wrong turn to come back past those guys washing cars.”
We then had about two hours of driving to look forward to. I couldn’t bring myself to continue the audio book from the previous day, so we listened to fun music the whole way. It looked like pretty standard desert for a while. Then the hills started to roll and even though everything was some shade of brown, it was beautiful. We began to notice that there were trees on some of the hills ahead of us and Toto recounted the line line: “They know their line!!” This, you may remember from the Nevada blog entry from the really big trip in June. It has become one of the most often used phrases in the Newberry house. We began to climb a rather steep hill. It was nearly 90 degrees outside and we noticed that there were old Clorox bottles on the side of the road in pull outs that said “H2O for You” on them (incase of an over heated car). It was a nice gesture by some unknown person or company.
We drove a while longer and then we finally made it into Yosemite. We stopped to take pictures by the Welcome sign, and discovered that one of the metal letters on the sign, the E had been lost. To replace it, someone had used duct tape and formed an E. The greatest part was that we didn’t notice it at first.
After getting our maps and all that jazz at the check point, we drove into the park. The first sign we saw was a speed sign stating that the speed was 25 MPH, and a little sign next to that said “Speeding Kills Bears”.
Ok, so that is the big thing about today. Bears. I am not a fan of anything that is big enough to eat me. So, therefore, not a fan of bears. I realize that they are less likely to attack me than say, my own dog, but still. In Yosemite, they have learned how to scavenge for people’s food. So every tent cabin and campsite has a bear proof food storage box. It’s a big metal box that has a really weird handle and you lock it with a padlock. Well, I researched the whole bear thing before we came. On average, bears break into 100 cars a year down here, looking for food. They can smell it, through metal and glass and plastic and everything. The “interesting facts about bears” thing hanging just above my head right now says that their sense of smell is several times better than that of a blood hound. After we took a picture of that sign (the “speeding kill’s bears” sign) we drove on. As we came around a corner, there was one of those electronic flashing signs, but instead of insurance point values flashing on it, it said (in three flashes) “In 2009 27 bears hit by cars.” The next words out of my mouth were “Good, then there will only be 73 cars broken into by them this year.” Bad Sean. I took pictures of course.
Shortly thereafter we came around a bend that yielded all of Yosemite Valley to you. We could see all the way to Half Dome. It was impressive, though maybe not as much as Toto had chalked it up to be. After hearing for 23 years about how majestic this place was, it was a little less impressive than I expected, but it was still very beautiful.
We got down to Curry Village about 3:30pm. We checked in and discovered that you can not park by your tent cabin. There is a HUGE parking lot for all the campers to park in and then you have to lug all your junk to your cabin, which locks with a padlock as well, and the keys don’t have holes to attach them to key-rings. You just have to keep them in your pockets and hope not to lose them. It took us like eight trips back and forth to get everything to the cabin. AND THEN we had to organize the bear proof locker.
By the time we were done, it was almost five, so we headed over to the bar. Yes, there is a bar. In fact, there is a whole little village, with three or four places to eat, a lodge with electrical outlets (the tent cabins don’t have any of those) and internet access (which I will get to) and a bunch of other stuff. It is a great place to people watch. We scored a table on the main deck and had a few drinks (I had three whiskey sours and Toto had a couple of Blue Moon Hefs) and some chow (nachos, garlic fries and a cheeseburger). Then we made some friends. The deck was pretty crowded, and we were only two people at what was easily a 6 person table. There was a man and his wife who needed a table, and they inquired as to whether the extra space at our table was taken. Since it wasn’t, they joined us and we had a nice little conversation. They were from Boston. They flew out because they were kidless for a few weeks and were leaving tomorrow: heading out to San Francisco to see some friends before flying home on Wednesday. Right as we were getting ready to clear our dishes and go find the internet (so I could do my homework) their friend came over. We chatted with her for a few minutes, gave her the link to this blog, and went on our merry way. Her name is BeeBee (like the gun, and I probably totally butchered it just now). She is from Texas, and ended up on a four day backpacking trip with Ann and her husband (our Bostonian friends).
After supper we went to the lodge to get online, as we had little or no cell signal to allow for the use of our WiFi card. The internet in the lodge was great…for 10 minutes. Then it kicked me off. Right in the middle of the homework I was trying to finish (that was due at 9am Monday morning). I sat and tried to get on for the next two hours, while writing and thinking and doing the homework without being able to get on to the online portal for the class. Eventually though I got so fed up with it (after learning that several people were having the same issue I was) that I went to the front desk and told them there was an issue. The sweet little gal there informed me that there is a cap on the network so that only a certain number of people can be online at a time. I had suspected something like this earlier, about having only enough bandwidth for so many people, but I told her I was trying to get my homework done and had been trying to get online for two hours and it was due tomorrow, and well after seeing how flustered I was, she told me she would reset it so I could get online. It worked. I got my homework all posted up online for my teacher to grade, and right in the nick of time too: a few minutes later it was 10pm and the lodge was closing for the night.
Toto and I came back to our little cabin and got ready for bed. The way these things work is there is a bed (or two in our case) and you have to make it. There are blankets and sheets in the cabin, but you got to put it all together however you like it. I was wigging out about the bears, and I ripped the wool blanket back to reveal an older mattress that the cover had torn on. I mock yelped and said to Toto, “BEAR CLAW MARKS!” this filled her with mirth so we recreated the scene for your viewing pleasure!
I am carrying my mace (which is bear spray strength) everywhere with me here. No chance a bear is going to eat me. Although there really is little of that. The gal at the registration desk told us that there haven’t been any reported injuries in a while, unless you count the guy who was BBQing. What happened was said guy was making steak for dinner. He turned his back for a second, turned back and a bear had taken the steak off the grill. What did the man do? He tried to take the steak out of the bear’s claws. What did the bear do? He slapped the guy.
On that note, I bid you goodnight. Toto is asleep next to me, and it is nearly midnight. I don’t presume to think I will sleep much tonight on this wonderful bed (and by wonderful I mean really hard and uncomfortable), nor will I sleep late as I am in a partially canvas building, the partially being the roof where the light comes in at dawn.
Playlist
Miranda Lambert
Jo Dee Messina
Lifehouse
License Plates Seen
Washington
Oregon
Maine
Ohio
Nevada
Texas
Colorado
Illinois
Connecticut
Oklahoma
New Mexico
New Jersey
Florida
Arkansas
South Carolina
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