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Nat with Ma & Pa
This is Natalie with a figure found next to a tree 53 feet around!
Lombard Street
We Don't Know Nuthin'...
Shrine Drive-Thru Tree Howdy everyone! I hope this blog finds you well! We’ve been having quite the action packed trip and it seems to only get better! I believe the last update you found Natalie and me wondering through the great Redwoods of Northern California…the scenery certainly has changed since then.
After camping in the Redwood Forest, we drove through the Avenue of the Giants, which is the famous ‘old’ Hwy 101 where the road winds through the towering trees. As we exited the large tree area, we found a place where you can do the drive-through tree. Although we discovered later that it is actually detrimental for the trees to have the holes cut through them (due to their shallow root system), in our ignorance, it was a lot of fun. It was actually like an amusement park for your car. There was even a log that you could drive onto….weeee!
We continued south on Highway 1 down the coast and watched the sunset over the ocean horizon and the waves crash on the cliffs as we swerved down the curvy road at average 30mph. It took us awhile, but the scenery was worth it. I was feeling a bit
Highway 1
We cut over to Highway 1 from Willits that runs along the coast of California...and I mean, along the coast. It careens right along the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. green at the end of that Highway due to the constant up and down, left and right, but I got over it. 😊 Finally, at about 10pm after a FULL day of driving we stopped just outside of San Francisco and slept at a motel with the intention of driving in the next day and getting a dose of the Rice-a-Roni treat. We made reservations for the following night inside the city of San Francisco at a place we found on the internet called the Taylor Hotel…pretty safe one would think being $114 a night (the cheapest we could find) , but oh, we were in for a surprise…more to come.
We got a pretty restful sleep and were up the next morning all excited for the temporary city life. The day was clear and the city was shining. We paid a freakin five dollar toll to get across the Golden Gate Bridge and when we got to the other side we hadn’t gotten enough of the bridge experience, so we pulled over grabbed the bikes off the roof and rode across the bridge and back. It was fun, we got some great shots and saw some sea lions
Golden Gate Bridge
This is before going across to the other side. To the right, out of the picture, is Alcatraz. swimming below.
After that we decided to head into the city and check into our hotel. OH MY GOSH. Apparently we were a bit mislead by the ads of the Taylor Hotel. Lets just say the “hotel” was run by Abib Shabib and his ENTIRE family, all the walls were painted the color of curry (mostly to cover up all the maintenance needing to be done on the falling apart building….Gigantic cracks in the wall? OH, just paint it, that’ll do.) Our room was the size of a hole in the wall with a tapestry hanging over the window, paper pillow cases, and to top it off a crooked wrinkled up poster of a palm tree on a tropical beach above the bed. Oh brother. It was a place to lay our heads though right? So we couldn’t complain, well, actually we really couldn’t because to cancel the reservation there was a $100 fee on top of the hotel charge… now we see why! In the morning we were looking forward to our complimentary continental breakfast which turned out being a box in the lobby filled with those Honeybuns packaged in plastic baggies you can buy out of the
Biking the Bridge
We saw some Tomcats flying over the Bridge as we were crossing. vending machine. OOOO, yum. It was a crack up!
The rest of our time in San Francisco we spent exploring the different districts, fighting traffic and crazy California drivers, cruising down Lombard Street (the most crooked street in the world), and checking out the Fisherman’s Wharf. One really cool part about the Fisherman’s Wharf was the sea lion haul out on the docks. There must have been at least 150 sea lions hanging out on the old docks just barking, snorting, farting, fighting and causing a ruckus. It was cool to see that many in one location, especially in the middle of urban San Francisco.
After our less than 24 hour stay in the city (we were itchin to get back to the National Parks and have our space back) we were on our way to Yosemite. Yosemite is the most popular National Park in the USA (4 million visitors a year) due to its location, its amazing rock features and the fact it was one of the original National Parks. We didn’t think about making campsite reservations so the first night we got stuck outside the park at a KOA park full of partiers and families blasting
Sea Lions
These sea lions beach themselves down at Fisherman's Wharf. There are so many of them, that sometimes as they move around and jump onto the floating docks, the docks look as if they might sink. They're noisy & stinky, too. music and yelling all night…it was grrreat. We considered it a lesson learned and got on www.recreation.gov to make our reservations at the upcoming parks we want to visit. WE TOTALLY LUCKED OUT and got the LAST campsite in Yosemite for the next two nights. Fewf. Driving into the park the next day we were just in awe of the sights and how much the granite walls took over the landscape. We were constantly stopping on the side of the road snapping shots of the famous El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and Bridalveil Falls. We moved into our campsite that afternoon completely unaware of the evil squirrel that lived among us. We would just be minding our own business and he would be there, staring, waiting for any molecule of food to drop. He was fat too, and we considered it a favor to him to be clean with our cooking so he could diet a little. He was a bold little booger though. At one point he practically sat on my lap while I was eating an apple. There were big metal containers to store food in away from bears but my hunch is they were more for
Peace Out
I really wanted to go to Haight & Ashbury to see where the hippie movement really took off. So LeAnne was snapping a photo of me at the corner when a bum walked up to her & said we should go to to the opposite corner where there was a clock with a permanent 4:20 on it...Ahhh, hippies... the evil fat squirrels.
Anyway, enough about the squirrels, back to the park. We were totally pumped to see so much granite all over. Our climbing gear has been burning a hole in the back seat just waiting to be used and we were eager to do some climbing. Unfortunately, to our disappointment there was no sport climbing available for us to do! (bolted routes for safety) Talking to the rangers we found out the only climbing at Yosemite is big wall climbing…requiring highly advanced skills past both Natalie and my experience and climbing gear neither of us had, BUMMER! The only climbing we were able to do at the park was bouldering (climbing/scrambling around low on the rocks to practice strength and moves). We were content with that and had a good time, and technically we can still claim that we rock climbed at Yosemite. We were so inspired to be in the presence of the rock walls that world records were set on and world class climbers like Beth Rodden climb on for fun. Someday….we’re putting our order in.
We had a great time at Yosemite, soaking up the views and relaxing. I was surprised
Highway 140 Rockslide
You can see the huge rockslide that took out a portion of highway 140 going into Yosemite last year. This completely wiped out all travel options from this entrance to the park, which was a major thoroghfare. The road that they were using now evidently had to be built just to go around. at how commercialized nature can become. I came to see Yosemite as kind of a Disneyland for nature. With the swarms of people everywhere, the hiking trails being paved, shops and opportunities to spend money around every corner; it kind of separated me from having any real connection to the place. The fact that the deer, squirrels and the bears (we saw one off the trail) were so desensitized to humans being everywhere in their environment to the point of not even acting in their normal behaviors was a little depressing to me. I have to look on the bright side though, people need to see nature in order to appreciate it. That appreciation leads to them caring about it and caring for nature means they’ll see a need to preserve/conserve it. If 4 million people want to visit Yosemite National Park a year, good! I have to give the park credit for their strategy of dealing with the immense crowds. Since most visitors are day-trippers, the crowds are lead to the Yosemite Valley (the place to view all the walls and waterfalls) on a one-way road past the main attractions where they can stop and take pictures, buy what
El Capitan and Half Dome
Here's a view of two of Yosemite's most famous rock formations: El Capitan on the left, and Half Dome on the right. they want at the shops, go on a “hike” (usually one mile paved paths to a waterfall overlook or something like that) and lead em out of the park satisfied with smiles on their faces. Everyone benefits from this setup. The people came to see what they wanted to see to fulfill their Yosemite nature experience, and the park is conserved because the impact is all concentrated in one place. Plus, there are only a few camp grounds in the whole park on a reservation basis, again minimizing the amount of people staying overnight at the park at one time.
It is a really amazing place and I certainly recommend you visit it at some point if you haven’t already. On the last evening we were there, Natalie and I went on a run through the valley. I found myself in a really peaceful place watching the light of the sunset beam off of the big face of Half Dome and the surrounding cliffs. I really enjoyed my time there. BUT, we must move on people. The road is calling us and our next stop was calling our name for quite the opposite appeal… that’s right baby, VEGAS!!
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Andi
non-member comment
Hey you adventurous women you! LeAnne - I should have hooked you up with James Choe in San Fran. He is a 2 year SF alum and lives for showing out of towners the sites, plus you could have saved the $115 hotel bill. However, you two obviously needed that experience to reinforce your appreciation for all the ammenities a tent can give. Travel safe...and remember what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!