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Published: August 3rd 2005
Yogi and Boo Boo's big adventure......
Jen and I got ourselves ready for our trip to Yosemite national park on Monday the 18th July, both pretty nervous and not sure what to expect, we knew it would be a whole bunch of people sharing one bus for 4 days without showers but we didn't know how many or how it would all work out at all. We prepared ourselves by buying a couple of bottles of wine and some small bottles of whiskey and brandy, so at least we'd get through thte first night if nothing else! We filled ourselves up on the free food at the hostel again - really tasty and so much of it, I can't praise this hostel enough. So we ate up and then a few people gathered in the foyer and started introducing themselves as fellow Yosemite trippers and so we bundled ourselves off in a few cabs down to the bus terminal to find out what awaited us.......
It was basically a reclaimed Greyhound bus but the inside was completely re-done with loads of seating that all turns into room for sleeping at night, everyone seemed pretty friendly on arrivial and we
were all very pleased to hear there were only going to be 21 of us, in the past they had been know to fit up to 35 people on one bus, which for a trip involving lots of walking in the hot sun with very limited shower use doesn't sound very appealing. We met our driver - Tom, a great bloke whom me and jen instantly got on with, and our cook - Adam. We then set off for a stop at a giant supermarket for snacks and booze whilst Adam stocked upon all of our food for the next 3 days. We tried to get some sleep during the night but with a chorus of snoring and the strange feeling of lying down on a moving bus with a whole bunch of strangers it was pretty difficult and then just as I was slipping away into a little snooze we pulled up at 6.30am and had to get up and start making breakfast.......brilliant.........
All the food we had was great, everyone just pitches in with chopping or preparing and then if you didn't have anything to do in the preparation you help with washing up and packing away.
There was loads of fresh fruit for breakfast and loads of stuff to make up for sandwiches for the day and in the evenings Adam cooked up some great stews or soup or pasta, there was always far too much and I always ate far too much of course......, but I felt justified most of time because we did a lot of walking, well, quite a lot.
On the first day we parked up at Yosemite Valley and then we could just go off and do our own thing, there were loads of different walks, some harder or long than others, but with the baking heat me and jen thought it best to go for the 3-4 hour 'strenuous' walk up Vernal Falls (rather than most of the other listed walks which had words such as 'very' or extremely' prefixing them). Quite a lot of us opted for this walk , we all set off at a similar pace but soon split off into smaller groups, mostly determined by how long you wanted to stop and gape at the amazing scenery all around you. Me and Jen walked with Jack, we'd been chatting with him on the bus quite
a lot already, he was just at the end of his gap year and goign home ready to start Uni atthe end of the week. The walk took us about 3 hours with lots of stops, it wasn't too hard going but as it got hotter it was harder and harder going up hill. It was stunning all the way, looking all around at the vast mountainous rocks and the trees in the distance sitting on the rock faces and up close with the gushing streams and the waterfall creating rainbows and spraying you with water, soaking you through. I was wary at first of the water, and headed pretty quickly over the bridges. There had been heavy snowfall in the winter and so the rivers and waterfalls were particulary abundant, bUt the continual noise of the rushing water soon stopped seeming quite as threatening, I guess new memories take over from past associations, although I was always aware of feeling slightly nervous.
We also went to to the base of Yosemite falls to dip our feet in the water, although this area was very busy with tourists and so we didn't stop long - especially as we had
dicovered a public swimming pool with showers, stopping off for a quick game of poo sticks along the way of course. It was so nice to get in the swimming pool after walking in the heat and getting completely covered in dust. Si and Seb and Jack were typical blokes as soon as they got in the pool and had to start up some sort of sporting activity, unable to just float around and chill and so me and Jen joined in a game of catch with a grotty tennis ball in the middle of Yosemite valley, surrounded by magnificient views of mountains - not somewhere you can ever picture yourself being when you think about it!
teddy bears picnic
That night after dinner we headed off to park up for the night, we stopped off by the road side on the way to see the sun setting over the Half Dome and El Capitan and the almost full moon rising from behind the mountains, it was breathtaking. we carried on driving but then came to an area where a few cars had stopped and people were stood by the road side, we got out to see what
the fuss was about and there was a bear!! It was in the field and just snuffling around in the long grass, eating up his dinner, you couldn't really get an idea of how big he was beacuse he was pretty far away, but you could clearly see him - he looked so cute! I tried to get a couple of shots with my camera but the grass obscures most of him, but we were so chuffed and just griinning from ear to ear as ew set off again.
We didn't get parked up until quite late but we built a campfire and some of us stayed up having a few drinks around the fire, one woman, Amanda had a guitar with her and the driver Tom had a whole bag of precussion instruments which we all had a go at trying to make them sound something like music, Amanda graciously tried to play whatever songs were thrown at her, but you could really tell the difference in nationalities here. Amanda was American as was Tom and a few others and their musical references were quite different those of us from Britiain, and then you had a couple of
french and Swedish and Dutch , etc... so it was hard to find ones we all knew but there's always a few classics that everyone knows of course, so we had a few rousing renditions of 'Brown Eyed Girl', 'Hotel Claifornia', 'Redemption Song' and rather strangley 'What's Going On' by the Four Non-Blondes........
Most folk decided to sleep on the bus for comfort and to avoid the mosquitos but there were two couples who went off with their own tents and stuff to sleep out and then a little group of us who pulled out our mattresses and sleeping bags by the side of the bus, Jen and I rearranged Si and Jacks mattresses once they were outside to make sure we were right in the middle of them and Seb and Tom and informed them that they would be protecting us from bears and any other monsters of the night.......I wasn't totally convinced about the idea of sleeping outside at first, what with the being scared of the dark and being in the middle of nowhere with various animals all around and connections with sleeping out on Boxing Day night, but I am so glad we did, we
ended up sleeping out both nights, and it was fantastic to fall asleep in the open with your last view before you close your eyes being the sky up above with the moon and the stars sparkling through the trees.
getting into hot water.........
On the Wednesday we drove to Mono Lake just outisde the park, it was yet another stunning place and we went for a float in the salt water, just lazing on your back looking all around at the beautiful scenery and trying to avoid getting salt water in your eyes whilst you're stupidly wearing contact lenses - not a nice feeling I warn you now. We rinsed off with an ingenious make shift shower, pouring buckets of water down the side of the bus onto an open window so it sprays out and this way we managed to get most of the salt off. Then it was on to the hot springs which were lovely and relaxing although a little smelly what with the sulphur and
sometimes you got caught by a stream of really
really hot water passing through, everyones faces started to turn very pink and Tom regaled us with the tale
of a man who had been relaxing and then his dog had run off into the 'danger' area, not far from where we were, and the man had chased him and basically boiled alive.......at the same time as we were being told this the heavens opened and heavy rain poured down on us and some distant thunder started to rumble, not long after that Jen and I, unsuprisingly, decided to get out.
she bangs the drum
We had another night around the campfire, although when we were preparing dinner there were some almighty storms in the distance, bolts of lightning and rumbling thunder non stop for a while. We had to stand around the stove to stop it from getting blown out whilst Tom playe the drums and we all did a stupid little dance to try and ward off the rain - it worked!! The sun shone and a rainbow came out for us, the storms subsided so we managed to stick it out and had another great night chatting and singing around the fire and I discovered something of a talent for the bongo drum - or so I was told, I had to promise Tom
I would buy one of my very own, so be warned!
the slippery slope...
On the last day we drove to the Tuolumne Meadows and everyone set off to climb up Lembert Dome. We were very high up to start with in this part of the park and so the climbing was a bit tougher, you could really feel the lack of oxgen and I wasn't sure I'd make it to the top even though it was only a 1 hour climb or so. But we all made it and the views were absolutley spectacular in every direction, you could have been on top of the world, thousands of pine trees covering the ground, white capped mountains in the distance, rolling hills. But it all went a bit wobbly when it came to coming down. Rather than go back the same way some of us decided to go down the quicker, more direct route, but this basically takes you down the rock face rather than through the forest, and it got steeper and slippier as we went, but you new you couldn't walk back up easily so you had to keep going down. It was OK most of
the way although I wasn't entirely happy, but then everyone started to get a bit more nervous and were struggling and I really started to feel uncomfortable. I am not brilliant with heights, but I think it was more the sense of feeling unsafe and the feeling that we could go tumbling down and get seriously hurt or get stuck and have to stay there, I've never really had that before Christmas but now I am very aware of it. I wanted to cry or be sick or stop dead but I had to carry on which was hard because as I was shaking I felt that I'd lost control of my limbs, but I kept on and Jen was right by me and all the other girls were fantastic and helping as much as possible whilst also struggling to get down themselves and with a bit of slipping and sliding we managed to get down to the road - it felt very good to be on the flat again! I was quite suprised by how I reacted to it, but I think there will be times like that, especially on this trip but I think each time it will
get easier and better (although it has made me think twice about whether bungee jumping is really the sport for me in New Zealand....... !) we drove on again and went to see the ancient giant sequoias, very big trees basically, very cool.
For our last night we headed to a small town and went to the Iron Door Saloon, the oldest drinking establishment in California, the bus wasn't heading off to San Fransisco until 1am so we all headed off for a few drinks and there was talk of Karaoke, which most of us swore we wouldn't be doing........... After about 20 minutes everyone let there hair down and we were drinking, dancing and singing the night away, one bloke who had been pretty quiet most of the time turned out to be some bearded, hippy version of Freddie Mercury singing all the Tom Jones classics, Si gave us some quality Jon Bon Jovi tunes, Jack and I did a Doors duet for Jen, Amanda had everyone dancing with some 80's cheese and everyone was up at one time or another singing away to some of the classics. We had a great night and some of us carried
on drinking up the last of the beers as we drove off on our way back to San Fransisco, but even the last few of us gave up in the early hours and I settled down to get some sleep, but yet again as I was just slipping off we pulled up in San Fran at about 5.50am and had to get up, pack up and get off the bus. We got droppd off at the hostel and had to wait until about 2pm for our rooms......thankfully they did let us use the showers, my first proper shower since Monday - I could have stayed in it all day, it was fantastic!
Go Giants Go!
There was just a few of us from the trip staying at the hostel so we just played some pool and killed time until our rooms were free and spent most of Friday catching up on sleep. Jen and I hadn't really made much use of the ballroom at the hostel in our first week, but now we
knew a few people we felt much more comfortable down there and we had a great, cheap Saturday night drinking wine, playing pool and chatting
with various people. On the Sunday Si, Piers, jen and I headed out to a baseball game - a truly American pastime! It was the San Fransisco Giants v the Florida Marlins, we had hot dogs and ice creams and cheered with the best of them - I even got myself a Giants t-shirt and am now a dedicated fan, even though we lost 4 - 1........ But we were pretty dissapointed with the chanting, it pretty much came down to one half-hearted rendition of 'Go Giants Go' with a bit of hand clapping, maybe they save the real passion for basketball??? So basically a pretty relaxing weekend after an exhausting week of walking, climbing, eating and not much sleeping. But it was all worth it, Yosemite was absolutley fantastic, a stunning place and the Green Tortoise trip was the perfect way for us to see it, you still felt that you were roughing it a bit but you got taken to all the intersting places, which we might have found difficult if we'd had tried to do it on our own and we also got to meet a really nice group of people.
I realise I have written
an awful lot here, so if you just glanced through all you really need to know is that Yosemite is an amazing place and we had an unbeliveable trip! You should be pleased to hear though that I thought I'd give you a break before I write about our road trip down highway 1 to Santa Barbara and the last few days in San Fran.........
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anonymous
non-member comment
i am very jealous very jealous indeed Anna - it looks and reads that you are having an awesome time. Wicked.