Sweet
southern smell of summer in Savannah, tailgate drop Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that’s
my hometown. Yeah that’s my hometown. New York City, subway on the run, San
Diego surfers, soaking in the sun. That’s my hometown – America’s my hometown.
- Uncle Kracker
How do you beat an amazing day in San
Francisco that’s capped off by a great sunset ride across Golden Gate Bridge?
Easy, you drive out to the Sierra Nevada Mountains to one of America’s greatest
natural treasures: Yosemite National
Park.
Before we left the City by the Bay, we
drove over to Lombard Street, colloquially known as the most crooked street in
America. It’s a steep drive down a series of sharp switchbacks with great views
over the city, towards Bay Bridge. The old joke goes that it’s actually the
second-most crooked street in America behind Wall Street. It’s a popular spot,
even at nine o’clock in the morning.
After battling through traffic in the heart
of downtown and onto the Bay Bridge to Oakland, we got out of the traffic and
had a pretty smooth run to Merced, California, where we finally got to eat the
famous Californian hamburgers, In-n-Out. En route to lunch, we stopped at
Target and I was finally able to grab two albums I’ve been waiting on for a
while: Jake Owen’s Days of Gold and the deluxe version of the epic Florida
Georgia Line album.
We arrived in Yosemite in the early
afternoon, travelling along the Merced River for the last half hour, with the
old, somewhat eroded stagecoach road off to our left. It’s hard to imagine how
rough the road must have been for so many visitors to this park before there
were motor vehicles. Those stagecoaches, with no suspension, travelling slowly
in from Mariposa would have taken hours. I guess getting to the park and seeing
the sights here would’ve made it worthwhile.
Driving in here and getting your first
glimpse – or first in a while – of Yosemite is amazing. I’d forgotten just how
big the granite walls are here. Compared to them, Kosciuszko and the other
Australian mountains are the equivalent of molehills. It’s quite incredible to
look up hundreds of feet above, and watch the waterfalls tumbling from such
height, dropping effortlessly down into the valley. Yosemite is definitely in
my shortlist of favourite places in the world.
There’s snow on the ground and high in the
peaks thanks to the storm that blew through here earlier in the week, and there’s
more forecast for tomorrow. In fact, it was snowing when we left dinner. We could
get up to 14” tomorrow, and they are forecasting something similar on the other
end of the Sierra’s at Lake Tahoe, where we’ll be on Monday. It’s going to be
pretty cold, too. The high is a degree over freezing, and the low tonight is -3
Fahrenheit. The entire west coast has
been battered by snow pretty much ever since we arrived here.
Cold or not, it’s going to be a great day
tomorrow – it always is here. We’ll get to all the good spots around Yosemite
Valley, including Tunnel View and the famous Ahwahnee Hotel. In the snow, it
should be even better than usual. They call winter Yosemite’s ‘hidden’ season
because most people steer clear, but there’s plenty to explore.
Thankfully, the bears will be in
hibernation, though we’ve been warned to leave nothing in our cars that
indicates a human presence, or the bears will actually break into the car to
try and find it. Hopefully we’ll get a good look at some of the waterfalls and
maybe a glimpse of some other, non-threatening wildlife. On the way in, we saw
a deer scamper up the hill.
WiFi connectivity isn’t great here – Lauryn
is having all sorts of issues on Skype. So blogging is going to be difficult.
At least, a blog with any photos because they’ll take ages to upload – but I’ll
write on our daily adventures nonetheless. We’re leaving here on Sunday night,
and will be staying overnight in Stockton, California before going to lake
Tahoe on Monday morning so I’ll post a selection there.
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