48stateroadtrip.com

Figured I should play self-locomotion-unable tourist for a day. No hiking, no rafting, no biking, no swimming, just riding the shuttle bus around the valley and taking the most typical photos I could find. For a day. For one very hot, very crowded day (it was basically like being in Mexico City, but with waterfalls).

Here ‘goes.

The blurry bear-on-road photo: check!

Long-distance shot of Upper Yosemite Falls: check!

Photo of bus-riding tourist in front of Yosemite Falls: check! (Check out the long hair — lousy hippie!)

Photo of other tourist(s) taking photos of Yosemite Falls: check!

Shot of the river, because there’s a river there: check!

Photo of El Capitan taken from the cleverly named “Valley View” turn-out: check!

Photo of tourist taken from the tunnel viewpoint: check! (Oh, sorry, “vista point”.)

Typical shot of Bridal Veil Falls, with oddly cropped co-tourists: check!

Photo that tries to capture everything in Yosemite Valley all at once, as taken from Glacier Point: check!

Photo of Half Dome by itself, as if to accentuate its perceived profundity: check!

105 degrees, wall-to-wall people. Yosemite is fantastically beautiful, no doubt, and the valley presents it all on a very large scale. But man, the crowds…! Vince and Tammy recommended the Hetch Hetchy area, Sri talked about Tuolumne Meadows — I’m guessing I’d head there instead of the valley if I’m ever in the area again.

bkd

When I got to Shalini and Raj’s loft in San Francisco, it turned out they and some of their SF friends were planning on rafting in Yosemite at the same time I was planning on being there. Then they invited me on their rafting trip with them. This is the story of that trip.

Actually, more just another blog post with photos, not so much a story. Trying to find the meet-up place for where the trip was supposed to begin *might* be a story, and props to Shalini for keeping the faith that I would make it on time (or close enough), a faith based on the fact that she and Duncan and I had found each other in the middle Cologne with, well, no fall-back options or connectivity possibilities. And it was well-placed faith. But probably still not much of a story.

Anyway, Chander-Bhan and their gang apparently try to one-up themselves with the next-harder rafting trip every year. This is the third year they’ve done it, so the river was selected because it was Class V. I think the Buller River in New Zealand might have been Class V — the level of death-likelihood seemed similar.

There is no plot line to this post and no amount of random fact-regurgitation on my part is going to change that. May as well get on with photos. Please note that the photos are not of the good parts of the trip. During the good parts, you’re usually paddling, holding on, and getting a face full of water, any of which preclude good photography.

One of these kids is not like the others. Actually two aren’t. But on the plus side, I now know how to say “you have a head wound” in Punjabi, Gujarati, and Tamil.

Sri, Dennis, me — 60% of our rafting crew. I’m guessing Shaan’s swimming somewhere and our guide is smoking a joint in an air pocket under the raft. Image is slanty in order to imply something’s happening — like in a Bourne movie.

The wet lens probably conveys something accurately.

Lunch break. This happened just right after the wildest part of the river — which would’ve been a better photo, if only I wasn’t paddling, holding on, and getting a face full of water.

The bad part is that this isn’t Sri — my photo of him didn’t take until he splashed (apologies!). Cool shadow, though, IIDSSM.

Other random facts that don’t make this post a story:

• The run starts below the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and is only made possible by whoever it is releasing water out of the reservoir.
• The scariest part of the trip was the bus ride down the steep, one-lane dirt road to the put-in point.
• Despite being Class V, it didn’t seem all that daunting to me. OTOH, I suppose anything that you survive readily enough without cracking your head on anything seems un-daunting in retrospect.
• Still, rafting down the Skagit is going to be like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland by comparison. Or maybe the Tuolumne was Jungle Cruise and Skagit will be It’s a Small World.
• Ours was the only boat without any accidental swimmers.
• But we did seem to get stuck on rocks a lot.
• I still wonder whether the accidental swimmers don’t get more out of the experience.
• I got a pretty good sunburn on my legs — next time, wear pants!

Fine with me.

bkd

It turned out that my campsite was pretty close to Fresno Dome, which, turns out, isn’t a sports/concert venue in the Central Valley, but, rather, is this:

Like I said, Fresno Dome, which is impressive especially to those unfamiliar with granite domes.

Turns out you can hike to it and the trailhead was only three miles up the road from my campsite (3 miles on that road = 20 minutes driving time, unless you were that guy in the white Excursion who started fishtailing trying to slow down enough to get into his own lane and not hit me on his way down, in which case I’m guessing 15 minutes). People at the trailhead said it was only a half-mile to the top. They were off by a half-mile, but still: short hike. Thus:

The trail heading up to the dome.

The view from the top of the dome — which, unfortunately, does not include me for all visitors.

And I didn’t hike it at night. It was in the evening (note the shadows to self-verify).

Only three days behind on posting now!

bkd

PS, I stayed the night before and the morning of Day 7 in Stockton and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how cool it was (aside from being 126 degrees in the shade). Friendliest Dennys wait staff I’ve ever encountered. Plus, when I went to Target, I got apologized to twice for minor, unavoidable personal space violations. Twice! It was like not even being in California.

Check out the in-campground wildlife!

Good (we’re talking about the campground here):

• Only nine campsites.
• Pretty Good Privacy (although, honestly, encryption was lacking)
• A lot of shade and trees.
• Near at least one fun, short hike.

Bad (also the campground):

• No dog fights (I should probably do a write-up on my Big Sur campground…).
• No cops coming after drunks from Fontana.
• So much shade that my solar hot water heater had no chance.
• NOT VERY CLOSE TO YOSEMITE!!! — problematic in that I chose the site due to its (apparent) proximity to the park. Bad call. Hour and forty-five to the valley, including a half-hour drive to get to the campsite from Hwy. 49, a four-wheeled slog that I’ll be having nightmares about for weeks.

I probably won’t have nightmares about the drive. But it was a pain, especially when the sun was setting and therefore in your eyes. And the campground is way too far away from Yosemite to use it as a homebase for a park visit. It’d be a good place to stay if you’re from the Bay Area or something and just want an overnighter in a woodsy place near an easy hike, though. Which doesn’t describe my use of it: ah well.

bkd

Surprisingly hot, surprisingly long. On the other hand, during the six-hour trek up and down the green, green hills of Point Reyes — none of which offered views of anything other than green, green hills — Vince and I managed to solve a lot of the world’s problems, including:

• Improving the national transportation infrastructure.
• Political power-seeking.
• The publishing industry.
• IT-Business Unit relations.
• Everything that’s wrong with the Lord of the Rings movies.

Given another hour, we would’ve cured cancer, too. Or else died of over-exertion. We’ll never know. A couple photos just because that seems to be what I do with these posts.

In retrospect, I probably should’ve thought more about the location of the sun prior to handing the guy my camera. Oh well: Vince, me.

This was the best view of the whole 11-mile hike. Unfortunately, this was not a shady location, so we didn’t stick around long.

And with that, I’m only one full four-day location behind…

bkd

I’m three four days in arrears, but feel I’m coping well personally (although I’ve been told that these entries aren’t mean enough — I’ll work on it). Anyway, just a few more photos in case you can’t get enough SF photos.

Some bridge, fogged in.

View of Alcatraz from (near) the top of Presidio Hill. I’m not sure how to make this caption snarkier. Suggestions?

You know, one of the reasons why these posts may lack any “edge” is that I’m usually posting in a race against time, trying to finish before my laptop battery or wireless batter run out. (This is a flower.)

Fort Mason, the Port of Embarkation for US Army troops heading to the Pacific during World War II. SF really ought to get that Liberty Ship parked here instead of down the way. And they should probably put a little more signage up around here instead of leaving that up to the various acting troupes that apparently inhabit it now.

In South Lake Tahoe now. Maybe I’ll catch up while I’m here.

bkd

Note: This was started while eating in Carl’s Jr. in Oakhurst, Calif., 15 miles (= 35 min.) from my campsite, but not completed at that time due to my wireless running out of battery.

Just keepin’ it real:

1. The #11 Hamburger in All of Creation being “sold out” before I got there and now I’ll probably never get around to going back (to Napa).
2. The Ewoldsen Trail being closed at Big Sur due to “fires”.
3. Tours to Alcatraz being sold out through Tuesday.
4. The Pt. Reyes Lighthouse being too fog-enshrouded to see.
5. No campground neighbors getting arrested.

bkd

Knocked off another of The Great Burgers of the World yesterday, the “Hamburger and Fries” from “The Burger Joint” in SF, at the corner of “Haight” and “Pierce”. (Would’ve put SF in quotes, but it seemed too obvious.)

Here’s what it looked like part-way through:

The now-traditional bad cell phone hamburger photo.

You can check out other blog entries (of mine) regarding GQ Top 20 hamburgers on my other blog here, if you’re so inclined (and who wouldn’t be?). Plus you can encounter my raving narcisissm more clearly on display.

As for this burger — I don’t know any more whether any burger deserves to be in the Top 20 of anything. That said, it was a really good burger. Very straight-up, nothing fancy about it: burger, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle. Was fried-to-order, medium-rare (and a little on the rare side at that!). Cost like $11, which would be steep if it weren’t in “San Francisco”. Fries were big, but average. Only issue with the burger was a little bit of disintegrating bun syndrome, though not as bad as some I’ve had and probably hard to avoid given how much blood was still seeping out of the patty.

And I tried to get the #11 burger for dinner tonight in Napa, but was told that they “sold out of hamburgers at lunch”. I think that disqualifies that one from the list.

Having now showered for three nights in a row (!) and therefore going soft,

bkd

(Side note: very, very good-looking cashier — sorry, no photo. If it’d been LA, I’d have assumed she was an “actress”; not sure what the SF equivalent is.)

I never know what to do here, a fact exacerbated by Alcatraz tickets being sold out until next Tuesday. If only my lack of planning would have constituted an emergency on someone else’s part. Ah, well. I’ll always have this photo by which to remember not going to Alcatraz.

SF also has a lot of military history in it. The town seems like they want to do everything they can to preserve this, without actually telling anyone about it. We all got our reasons, I guess, but it would’ve been cool if there’d been some sort of museum or plaque tour around Fort Mason (the place where troops boarded ships heading to the Pacific theater of war in WWII). Went and saw an Liberty Ship-as-museum they had floating not too far away, though, which was an interesting historical artifact in itself.

Also, a big thanks out to Vince and Tammy for letting me stay at their place last night and to Shalini and Raj for tonight.

bkd