At least we avoided Hastings' Cut-Off!

Monday, July 21, 2008

We left Oakland at 7AM.

Before I recount our day, let me pause for a moment and tell you about route planning. Anyone who asked me 2-3 months before we left on this trip knows that that question sent me into a tizzy followed by a very vague sense of our path. Now that we are on the road, this is still true, minus the flap. We have reserved only two hotels ahead of time, and only one campsite. Most days we just roll into town and get what we can get…our destinations are decided by both of us, and then the course is generally in Neil’s hands.

Today, we are headed for that reserved campsite, and this is partly why we bypassed my Dad’s cousin in Sacramento this morning (Other reasons include poor planning, but while we are on that topic, we’ve also bypassed many suggestions that dear friends have given us, some places that we would love to stop but the kids needed a break, and we’ve bypassed two of my uncles at two of the extremities of the lower 48 (my mother’s brother, Uncle Jon in Florida, and my father’s brother, Uncle Dennis in Washington State)). There are just so many things we would like to do, but we can’t do it all. We have many discussions about what the priorities are…and that changes on an hourly basis some days.

However, Blackie, we at least made the right choice in what we left out today! We avoided Hastings' Cut-Off! Before we left, Blackie Parlin was very clear in the advice, "Avoid Hastings' Cut-Off." This is advice the infamous Donner Party needed in 1846 when they decided to take this new route (named after Hastings). This "short-cut" took them 3 weeks longer than it should have, and when they finally reached the Sierra Nevadas, they were hit with a snowstorm and stuck in a spot which is now known as Donnor's Pass. It's a sad tale complete with cannibalism as a surviving tool. Out of the 87 who set out, 48 survived and 39 died.

But instead, we headed out on 580 South, I think. Once we got out past the highway traffic we headed onto 120, and we saw more fruit trees, cows, tractors, big skies, and Feed and Seed stores. We stopped in Modesto, the town where George Lucas was born, and stocked up on supplies. A well-dressed man just outside the supermarket asked me if I needed yard work done.

We were going to, but decided not to visit Jamestown, where “High Noon” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” were filmed. A good example of choosing our priorities…

Today we listened to a play list my brother Michael made us for this trip, and one of the songs was the Beach Boys singing, “I wanna go home. This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.” Eleni and Alex latched on to that lyric a bit too much (they have since forgotten…. I’ll skip that song next time).

We passed black rocks protruding from the uncleared fields, cattle ranches, a random billboard advertising Bud Light in the middle of a gorgeous valley, barbed wire, a little trailer seemingly deserted due to the amount of junk in the fenced in lawn (with huge satellite dish in the backyard!), a dead raccoon, and three signs following each other, “28 acre ranchette for sale!” then “49 ‘Mother Lode’ acre ranchette!” and then “47 acre ranchette!”

As we neared Yosemite National Park, we stopped at Stanislaus National Forest and read brochures about panning for gold. You can even dredge for gold…and you can even file a claim to a mine! We were all curious and somewhat bewildered about that prospect (especially one 7 year old!).

Just before we entered the park, we watched a woman walk around the Claim Jumpers Outpost in Big Oak Flat with a foot long piece of beef jerky in her mouth. Outside, in the parking lot we sat next to the teenagers who were chased off the property by the owner because they were loitering too close to the ice chest. I don’t blame them being next to the ice chest; it was so hot! Hold on to this thought – it was very hot when we entered the park.

Our campsite was at Crane Flat, which is close to where you enter Yosemite from the western gate. We ate lunch out of our cooler and let the kids run around the Pine trees. I was a bit in slow motion due to a head cold I had acquired, so our plan was not too ambitious.  

Our tent!

We set out for Yosemite Valley and followed the other hundred cars and RVs (Cruise America has quite a stronghold on renting caravans. Alex begged us to go to cruiseamerica.com so we could get one too. Back at the campsite, he and Eleni summoned up the courage to visit our German neighbor’s RV!).

Half Dome in the distance

It would be silly for me to try and capture the beauty of Yosemite in words for you here. Let me instead just say that it was stunning and far more diverse than I ever imagined. 

John Muir said of Yosemite, "It was by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter." 

Eleni fell asleep in the car, and Alex and Neil went wading in the Merced River and found some fool's gold! and on the way home to the tent, we all saw a bear (from our car!).

Back at the campsite, we had dinner out of our cooler, and went to hear Park Ranger Jason talk and rap about bears. Seriously, he had us sing a rap song about bears. Sing along…“I’m not scared of bears, they’re scared of me!”

The CDC monkeys were AWOL! We finally found them hiding under the front seat, and here they are...hanging out at our campsite.

Food Storage Locker at our campsite, but "I'm not afraid of bears!" 

We settled into our tent just as night fell. All was quiet and calm for about ½ an hour and then…

So, remember what I was saying about the heat. “It was so hot!” and all that. Well, there was something we hadn’t really taken into account. Elevation. When you are 5,000 feet above sea level, it’s wise to have more than one sleeping bag and one light blanket for 4 people. Never mind that we had pretty much all of our clothes on, and that you might think body heat goes a long way in a 5X7 foot tent. Had we thought this through, we might not have camped. And, sadly, it changed our plans for staying two days in Yosemite.

Ah well.