Three interesting things happened on my drive to Yosemite:
- I traveled through Angels Camp. This little town is the source and setting of Mark Twain’s breakthrough story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Appropriately, cartoonish depictions of frogs are everywhere. The Angels Hotel no longer stands, but there’s a little plaque honoring the location.
- As I was about to exit civilization for a couple days, I stopped for breakfast at Mandy’s Cafe in Sonora. Five stars. A chorizo biscuit with chipotle gravy? Scrumptious.
- No trip to northeastern California would be complete without a secession sighting. I saw my first banner demanding the creation of Jefferson, adding a 51st state to the union. This hypothetical state would pull counties from California and Oregon.
My first stop in Yosemite was the remote region of Hetch Hetchy. This valley was carved by the Tuolumne River, which was dammed in 1913 despite furious protests by John Muir and other conservationists. The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir now provides water to San Francisco, two hundred miles away. Muir considered the valley to be superior to Yosemite Valley; the ride in is beautiful, but with the dam in place, there’s not much to look at.
Next up was the main attraction. Yosemite Valley is where many of the park’s huge granite formations reside. I had thought that temperatures and crowds would have dropped in midweek October; this was not the case. My thermometer read 86 degrees as I spent half an hour finding a parking space near the visitor center. Everything was slammed: the kiosks, the general store, the exhibits. I couldn’t even get into the Ansel Adams gallery. It was too late and too hot to start a hike. I decided to eat instead. I grabbed a picnic table in the shadow of El Capitan, laid out dinner, and read a few chapters.
My campsite tonight is farther from the valley than I’d like, and driving there nudged me over ten thousand miles on the trip. I’m hoping to get an early start to the day tomorrow, so I’m turning in early. To all, a good night.
Jake — Are you turning into “The Monster That ATE the Forest”?
I suppose one of the great temptations of doing the exploring that you’re doing is to spend so much time “seeing the sites” that you neglect to “meet the locals” and explore their lives and viewpoints. You can’t really “discover America” until you do that. Just reading guidebooks or placards isn’t going to do that. You have to “connect” with people you wouldn’t ordinarily “connect” with and with whom you have very little in common.
That’s a real challenge.
Unfortunately, I’ve never been great at starting conversations. When I have a chance, I take it. And when I’m in town, I try to listen as much as I can.
Beautiful picture of El Capitan! Yosemite is my favorite park of all the national parks I have been to. Marc and Chrissy took me there in October, early 1990’s. Perfect weather. No crowds. We drove over the park on the Tioga Road,to the eastern side of the mountains. We traveled up to Mono Lake, featured on the album cover of Pink Floyd Wish You were here. At that time the lake level was low and the hoodoos were in all their glory. Next time I went to that lake the water level was up because the lake was now being used as a reservoir. Hoodoos were barely visible. There’s a ghost town (a true abandoned old time town) over there on the eastern called Bodie, as I remember. I’m pretty sure the Tioga Road and Mono Lake and Bodie would not be crowded right now. The only thing to watch out for is pretty soon, if not already, it will be snowing on the Tioga Rd. It is not maintained when it snows, no plowing. So if it snows you could get stuck on the eastern side of the mountain. When I took that drive with Marc and Chrissy, it was clear but by mid-October it had snowed and was closed down for the season. Maybe Yosemite is so crowded right now because this is Columbus Day weekend coming up. Monday is a minor (?) holiday. Love, Grandma