Sunday, April 15, 2007

The Great American West Trip - Day Eight

Woke up slightly later than planned of course, but I think we were on the road headed to Yosemite by 9 AM. Feeling fairly hungry for something other than the doughnuts that the continental breakfast was offering, I went searching around Fresno for a decent breakfast place which killed about another hour. Once my hunger needs were met, we got back on the road to Yosemite for the 80 mile drive to our destination. Thinking we had plenty of time to spare (we figured we would stay in Yosemite till 3pm and then head north) we took the scenic route option which added probably another half an hour to our trip. The scenic route was pretty much useless except for getting us lost and wasting some time, so we decided to stick to the straight path the rest of the way. We were climbing in altitude and it was getting colder outside, but I didn’t think to much of it until I saw a ranger in the middle of the road about thirty miles into our drive. This ranger was straight out of the movies. He was in the middle of the road standing next to his truck with his hand stiffly indicating for us to stop. I thought this was some early morning sobriety test or at best a welcome into the Yosemite National Park, but that would have been to lucky. This ranger came to the window, and promptly asked if the vehicle was four wheel drive, and after explaining that it was, he asked the question that I was afraid to hear.

“Do you have snow chains for your vehicle?” asked the ranger.

Of course I didn’t and I told him so. But I told him that I had called Yosemite the day before and they said that no snow chains were required to enter the valley and that the road was clear from this direction. To this the ranger replied:

“Out here the road conditions can change like that (crisply snapping his fingers to the word that), there could be two feet of snow on the road ten miles from here, you just never know.”

Seeing that he was very adamant about this, I just wanted to know what my options were. To which he explained that there was a store around the bend that sold snow chains for people just like me. Surprisingly, as we climbed the hill and rounded the bend, it became obvious that we did indeed need snow chains. As far as we could see was snow, on the roads, the trees, the lakes, everything; it was as if we had stepped into a winter wonderland. It did not take long after entering this store to see that this place had the monopoly on snow chains in the area. They fronted as a convenient store, but were really just people who made their living by jacking up the prices on unsuspecting Yosemite visitors who did not have snow chains. About thirty minutes later and sixty dollars lighter, we had managed to buy the cheapest snow chains they had to offer, and were now tasked with figuring out how the damned things worked. Luckily, some local guy with dogs in the back of his Subaru came up and asked us if we needed help. Since it took us five minutes to figure out how to open the box, we quickly took him up on his offer. He seemed a little quirky, but by golly, I did not want to try and figure out how these chains worked all by myself. He told us to follow him around the corner to the closed post office and he would work on them there. Seeing that I was pretty suspicious of a country white man leading a black guy and an asian girl off into the woods, he explained that cars without chains frequently slid into cars parked in the lot that we were parked in. So we moved, and the guy did an absolutely amazing job of teaching us how to put on snow chains. He gave pointers that proved to be extremely useful and finished the job in about one tenth the time that it would have taken me. Seeing that this was his way of getting buy, I slipped him a few bucks and kept on trucking.
Snow chains give you great traction in the snow, but they really do suck at allowing you to drive faster than 30 miles an hour, so that was the pace we took for the next fifty or so miles. I wish we could have taken them off, but it was very evident that we needed them, because it was snowing hard, and we were constantly witnessing cars that had hesitated putting them on struggling to do so in the worsening conditions. Without verbally acknowledging the fact, both Tiffany and I realized that our entire timetable for the day was no longer applicable. By the time we got to Yosemite Valley, the snow had stopped and it was around 1:30 PM. We hit the visitor information center first to find out what there was to do in Yosemite valley, and headed off to the first thing they had recommended doing. You must understand that it was cold outside (hence the snow) so we had to bundle up, but tiffany did not have any gloves. Trying to be courteous and innovative, I offered her one of my gloves and we would hold hands with our ungloved hands. This worked for about half an hour until I lost the only glove I was responsible for. Pressing on, we went to the first sight, which was the famous Yosemite waterfall. Many pictures later, we were moving on down the hiking path, when we saw a family of deer walking slowly through the woods. Having never seen deer like that so close, Tiffany and I chased after them until they crossed the river and left us behind. Back to the path we went back to the bus stop that we had been dropped off on. Yosemite has a bus route that takes its guests to all the stops and hiking trails that would be of interest to its guests. So we decided to do one more big hike before heading out, and the bus driver recommended a hike to another of the waterfalls that would take about an hour and a half to complete.
That hike was the highlight of Yosemite, not because of some beautiful view of the waterfall, but because we were literally walking through the winter landscapes that you only see on the nature channel. Even the pictures that I took failed to do any justice to what we were actually experiencing. When you looked up, you saw the faces of mountains climbing in both directions shrouded in veils of snow clouds. All around us the scene was in black and white. The snow covered the grey rocks and the green trees to the point that only white snow and dark shadows and crevices were visible. The only thing that distracted from the beauty of the scene was the arduous nature of the hike itself. It was cold out there, but by the end of that hike, we were stripping our coats and eating ice. We climbed uphill for about thirty or forty minutes but were stopped from going any further by warnings of falling rocks ahead. The yellow caution sign depicting a rock falling on the stick man’s head was menacing enough that neither of us wanted to chance it, so we enjoyed the view from where we were. Speaking of signs, throughout this entire park were signs like “Beware of bears, proceed at your own risk,” and “Every year, Yosemite visitors meet there deaths by coming to clothes to the rivers and rock faces, be careful,” so this place did nothing to instill a sense of safety into its visitors. By the time we made it back down the path, it was getting dark and it was time for us to get going again. We did a last minute search for my glove and then continued on the more important search of finding our car. When an entire park is covered with snow, every building looks the same and every car has the same color paint. So we walked around for a little while just guessing and checking where we could possibly have been parked.
Leaving the park was an adventure in itself. We had to reinstall the snow chains (I had taken the off when we got to the park) and this time with no help but my pitiful memory. Eventually the job got done, and we were on our way, slowly but surely. The trip back was slightly different than the way there, because we were taking a new road, it was snowing much harder, it was dark, and there were no signs of other vehicles. Actually, I take that back, we passed two vehicles and a cop car. The cop was attending to two cars that had slid off the road because they did not put on their snow chains. After THOSE cars it was pretty dark for awhile. It was so dark that we got out of the car, turned off the car, and truly experienced darkness. Picture no streetlights, no stars because of the snow, no sounds, and being outdoors. That experiment was as memorable as it was scary. I only needed a few seconds of total isolation before I had our high beams back on and we were moving again. By the time we made it to a safe section of road, it was about 7PM and there was no way we were going to make it into Oregon.
Did I mention that both of us are cheap, well neither of us wanted to shell out for another hotel room, so I made one of those solid favors that only true friends can help you out with. I called my friend Rohith at Stanford, who was in the middle of Law School finals, and asked if I could crash at his place for the night. Of course he agreed, so we plotted the roughly 200 mile course to Palo Alto (near San Fran) and got on our way. We were on flat ground by now, so we were moving at respectable speed. We planned to reach Stanford at around nine or ten that night, but when your map reader is talking on the phone and trying to give directions at the same time, things get a little messed up. After driving on the highway for about twenty minutes, it occurred to me that we were heading south, the exact opposite of the way we were supposed to be going. After much confessing of how stupid we both were, we turned back around and paid more attention to where we were going. Feeling the hunger bug, I actually made a mental wish to find an Outback Steakhouse wherever we stopped, and sure enough, when we pulled over to the gas station, it was right next door. I took it as a sign that we had to eat there, so we took yet another detour and enjoyed some of the best burgers a restaurant can offer. Back on the road, we made quick work of the route to Palo Alto, and were cruising into town at around 11:30. My friend Rohith, despite being at Stanford for six months, had no idea how to get to Stanford besides telling me that you can get there from Highway 101. Making a few intuitive guesses (University Drive always leads to a University right???) we arrived at my friends place successfully. We were exhausted from the days activities, and he was exhausted from thirteen hours of non-stop studying, but we decided to go out for a beer anyways.
Exactly one beer later, we were all knocked out, and went back home for some immediate sleep. Making a makeshift bed out of sofa cushions and pillows, I had some of the most pleasant sleep of the entire trip.

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