Sacramento to Yosemite, and trying to get in american pubs ID-less, aged only 36

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So we stopped off at Sacramento, state capital but didnt see The Gubernator on his way into the Capitol. It has this old bit where the gunslinging atmosphere is still preserved.





We called into the tourist information, and when one of the two assistents finally turned around, he said "no, no hostels here" and suggested the Holiday Inn. Sitting on the step outside, admiring an old wagon and horses, this old local chap came over and within seconds was asking us whether we had already got a room at "the best hostel in north america"

The YHA at Sacramento is amazing. Like Calistoga´s Inn, it is straight out of a Mark Twain yarn and full of charm, set back as it is from a busy main road. The downstairs parlour - no other word for it - even had an old Joanna, that I pranged away at a few times. No hostel indeed! Oh how we laughed......






Call the President!






So the next day, we head up to famous Lake Tahoe, and notice a severe temperature drop - is that SNOW?! Tahoe is gorgeous, and when you make the first turn from high up in the mountains after passing all those immense pines, the view of the lake is a stunner. A huge shimmering thing is it......and to think there are also a dozen ski resorts here too. California has it all one begins to think.






So we have 3 nights at this place, though we wanted much longer and started to get pìssed off at the timescales - we had this damn fligth to costa rica in less than a month and wanted to do so much in the States already!






oh, why did we have a flight to CR when our idea had been to wind up in San Diego and simply walk across to Mexico and then work down through central america that way? Well, because they dont let you in the US without either a tourist visa or an onward flight almost out of the fookin hemisphere that´s why, if you dont have a return ticket. We realised this a few days before leavig denmark, and so I urged us to get a ticket to costa rica then work up through central america to mexico instead........why didnt we just buy a ticket out of the North Atlantic region the US immigration specify that we could cancel? God knows.

so there you go, tahoe very cool and we did things like hiking around part of it, and fighting with yetis. (A group of them run a bar on the north side, but I didnt go for their taste in music much. Huge damn feet too.)

And then horror struck - my toiletries bag, full of all kinds of stuff i don´t wish to publish, and indeed the most ideal toiletries bag ever designed was still in bloody sacramento! We called them at the hostel and they confirmed it. So, given that we were now directly above Yosemite park and we wanted also to enter that from the west side and emerge on the east to head down to Death Valley, oh and we wanted to take in some of Gold Country too, we headed back for my Ideal Toiletries Bag to Sacramento!

In Sac we got another room at the Mark Twain YHA and given it was a saturday night, sought out the bars and restaurants that we knew the kids must be at. Found a fantastically busy little joint called Tapas the World which was a conglomeration of rooms and outdoor seating areas serving what you would expect for a so-named eaterie. After that we headed out to drink.

But then what happened was most entertaining. We saw these people stepping out of this tiny little purple van with disco rope lights around the exit. "Go in go in, it´s brilliant!" So we did, and inside was a guy with various instrumetns and levers attached to different areas of his person, sitting behind a semi-circular counter around which about 7 of us crammed. I cant for the life of me remember the song I suggested he do, but he had been well pleased with my choice and gave a fair rendition. The surface of the counter was a mirror and you could see what his feet and other things were doing. He was simultanously singing, playing keyboard, drums, and i think violin. Other apparatus allowed various other noises to add to his wall of sound. We stayed for a few songs and a chat before heading to the pub.






Or so we thought. Here is one of my issues with being an Adult in America. I had forgotton to take my passport out with me to prove I am of an age responsible enough to consume alchohol. Not having had to prove my age since about 1975 I tend to forget such documents on nights out here. Upon attempting entry into The British Pub no less, the doorman (whose nuts had barely dropped) insists on seeing my ID. "I dont have it, are you saying I am 20?" Right behind me, this boy is waved past me on producing his driving licence. "You´re letting him in, he must be 10 years younger than me. What´s your criteria? I´m almost 37, when can I get in without ID? How do you decide who gets to have fun with beer, and who doesn´t?" His reposte: "when you have grey hair". I attempted to show him my pretty abundant white hairs, but I guess the bright lights thwarted me.

anyway, he was having none of it. I explained my predicament to a taxi driver, who only complemented me on looking so young. Someone had suggested we try this pool place, saying they were a bit less stringent there. After some queue time, where i´d been observing the heavies scrutinising young hipsters´s IDs under torch-light, it was our turn. Immediately I showed an old student ID I happened to find buried in my wallet, which had my date of birth on it, and sofie had her driving licence which is incomprehensible being in Danish. The guy was of good humour though and quickly asked us to give our dates of birth, but sofie panicked and nearly bottled it! "I couldnt say it when he asked! Too much pressure! " But he let us in, and we befriended a bunch of students and then beat them at pool. They were amazed by our american travel plans, adding that even they´d never been to Yosemite.






So near Yosemite you have these big trees right, called Giant Sequoia Redwoods, check it out







And then there was this especially peculiar tree-group that looked just like a punk-haired man with a backpack. Freaky.






And you have majestic views of things like the half dome






But the view of the route out east, the Tioga pass is amazing. The tiny line is the road

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