There was a waffle maker at breakfast, a little waffle iron and a jug of batter.
I drove South along the lake and then up and over the mountains. There is an amazing bit of road at the bottom of the lake where the road goes very high dropping off to the lake on the left and down into a valley on the right, just the road without any barriers, stomach turning.
On route 89 now, up and down through windy, woody roads then down into wet valleys, then up again over huge, dry scrubby hillsides, through craggy rock canyons (that look like a Red Indian should start shooting at you) and down into flat, green pastures with cows grazing. I felt like I’d been through Scotland, Albania, the Alps, in four hours. The roads are very high here, regularly at 7,000ft. I rather underestimated the distances on the map and the going is sometimes pretty slow, mostly due to the nature of the roads rather than traffic.
I made it to Mono Lake by Lee Vining which is where Route 120 turns left into Yosemite. The lake lies in a huge barren basin before the slopes of the park. I picked up some supplies for a picnic lunch.
Entrance to the park costs $20 and as it is a summer Saturday there are quite a few people about but not too many to spoil the awesomeness of the landscape. The road initially goes through shady pine forest, running along the river. At each available stopping place there is at least one car and people swimming in the river. It looks incredibly appealing. Then the landscape widens out and the big, rocky faces come into view. The land drops away on the left and the pine trees stick out like hard bristles on a brush. I stopped at Lake Tenaya which is loomed over by a huge, flat, rockface and has a sandy beach populated with Europeans. I walked to the far side and had my lunch sitting on an old log over looking the lake. I had to spread the Philadelphia and cut the tomato with my driving license. But it was delicious and I finally got my sandwich with a normal number of fillings.
It was quite windy and therefore deceptively cool but the sun was very hot. I went for a swim in the lake which was divine. One thing about being on a road trip is that it makes me always anxious to reach the next destination, I haven’t felt that I have much time to stop anywhere. Partly that is because I don’t have much time and the distances to go are long but also there is that feeling that I should be travelling rather then stopping.
The famous peaks and moonscapes of Yosemite came next and then back into woody shade with the occasional, magical clearing in the woods. It does make me realise how beautiful the Wood in Kent is, and private too.
I stopped at Wolf Creek camp site for a coffee and read my book, another one this time by A B Guthrie Jnr, a modern (70s) Western crime thriller. Gripping. I saw a park ranger on a horse and the campsite is full of signs about bears and how to avoid being eaten. Camping is not my thing anyway but camping when you might get munched by a bear is definitely not for me.
I left the park driving along the river which also had lots of people swimming in it, it was now 5pm and the car’s thermometer read 105F at one point. Having the windows open just meant very hot being blown in my face so I had to put the AC on. But I did find a religious radio station to listen to; they were discussing why America is not mentioned in the Bible. The man who has written about this was saying that he believes it isn’t mentioned in scripture because something bad is going to happen and America’s status as a ‘super power’ is not going to last. One of the four awful things that could happen was oil being cut off, apparently the USA uses 25% of the world’s oil and is at the whim of supplier nations, especially terrorist rich regions such as the Middle East and Africa. ‘But what should people do if they are worried about this?’ the host asked. ‘Well, if you believe in God then you know that he has an almighty plan for us and he will keep us safe. If you don’t then you should be scared.’ Great advice, don’t worry about it, God has got it sorted.
I had to stop before I would have like because I was over heating and was bored of driving. I stopped at Mariposa, a town just out of the hills. It was SO hot, like being in a oven. Thankfully the motel had a pool so I cooled off in there but the room was like a sauna with no through breeze at all and an AC system that sounded like the Titanic’s engine room. Even at 8.30pm it was oppressively hot, I am just not used to the heat after SF, I had to sleep spread eagle without a single bit of flesh on flesh. It eventually cooled down by about midnight.
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