10/20 - I went into Carson City and walked around a bit, killing time waiting around for the vet to call me back.. I wasn't expecting to like Carson City, but the downtown area is pretty cute. The vet had called and left a message (that was cut short) and I was hoping I'd hear from her again so I could figure out what I should do about her food. Come to find out you can't get Kidney diet food without a prescription, which is silly. So I found a small bag of senior food that was about 1/2 the protein of what I had been feeding her.
I'm kicking myself for not trying to meet up with Marc and Nena (BioTekkers from way back) while there. I hadn't expected to be in Carson City, so I didn't reach out and then it seemed like such short notice to just touch base and try to drop by. But I wish I had.
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| Views driving south of Carson City |
I struggled to find a place to stay. I checked out a couple of spots from iOverlander and a couple of campgrounds. The campgrounds were closed and I didn't like the previous spots. I drove 2 miles down a washboard road and found someone in the spot I was aiming for. So beautiful! And I was looking on my phone in front of her RV, trying to figure out if there were more spots up ahead, when she came out and asked if she could help... She said she had seen spots ahead, so off I went. I wanted to be sure that I'd be able to turn around as the road was narrow. I found this amazing spot (too many photos) and I should have stayed for days.
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| I like this shot with Big Bertha looking so tiny |
10/21 - I bet it was only about 20 overnight. Chilly and frosty in the morning! Last night was supposed to be the height of a meteor shower, but I couldn't really watch. My dry eyes have been terrible and staring at the night sky is just not an option. Bummer as I really love seeing shooting stars!
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| View from my bedroom window |
Silly as I am, I left this spot and headed towards Yosemite.
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| Parting shot |
Mono Lake was formed over 760,000 years ago as a closed-basin lake when the surrounding basin filled with water from melting glaciers on the Sierra Nevada mountains. As the lake has no outlet, water only leaves through evaporation, which concentrates the salts and minerals over time, making it extremely saline. The unique tufa formations are made of calcium carbonate and are created when calcium-rich freshwater springs meet the lake's carbonate-rich waters, causing the tufa to precipitate and build up around the springs.
I didn't hike here to get close to the formations, but it was still pretty cool.
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| Per Sherry's recommendation, I stopped at "El Mobile", the Mobil station in Lee Vining at the start of Tioga Pass into Yosemite, that has amazing food. I agree!!! And definitely enough for two meals! |
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| This is above the Mobil station, where I could have parked overnight, but I was heading into Yosemite and wasn't likely to drive back out in this direction. |
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| View from spot in photo above. Wouldn't have been a bad place to stay. |
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| Start of the drive on Tioga Pass. So beautiful. |
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| Tioga Lake (I think) |
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| Teneya Lake |
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| Yosemite's history: The hard granite rock was created by magma deep within the earth that slowly crystallized 80-100 million years ago. Rivers and glaciers have exposed and sculpted the rock. Large boulders randomly placed are evidence of the most recent glaciation. The boulders were left behind as the ice melted away. I find geology so interesting! |
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| Prescribed burn going on |
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| View from Tunnel View. A bit smokey. Half dome in the center and the top of El Capitan on the left. |
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| El Capitan on the left. Half dome in the center. |
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| Bridalveil falls. The rainbow could only be seen from the parking lot. I remember being here on my honeymoon back in 1988 and taking photos of the rainbow, but I felt like I was closer to the falls when I captured it, but who knows all these years later! |
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| Lights from climbers on El Capitan. Very cool. I was so busy thinking about where I was going to sleep I didn't even notice this until I was talking with someone and I followed his gaze to this. I think how much work it is to do this. It takes 4-6 days to climb the whole thing. The amount of gear, water, and food they need to bring along is just insane to me, being the basically lazy person that I am. I asked a climber about going to the bathroom and she said that if no one is below her, she'll just pee (not sure that's what most people do), and they use wag bags and have poop tubes for carrying their poo. I just can't imagine it. And sleeping hanging off the side of the mountain... |
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| Hard to see, but those are the lights once it got really dark. |
The campgrounds were full (or fully reserved anyway). With the government shutdown, there was no one manning the booths and I'm sure there were people who didn't show up, but I wasn't interested in waiting it out. I met someone who said he went into the park after the police booted him from where he was parked and he just picked an empty campsite. The people who had reserved it showed up around midnight and he moved to another. I wouldn't want to go through that! I considered parking somewhere else, I had a couple of recommendations, but I decided to go outside the park. I found a pull off right outside the park where there was one other van parked. When I got up in the AM there were 7 more vehicles and someone confirmed that they were kicked out in the night. I'm so glad I didn't go through that. The spot wasn't good for Zoe since it was paved and there was only a very small area where there was grass for her to do her business. She can be pretty particular about where she poops, so that was a no go.
10/22 - Today is supposed to be a rainy day, so I decided to head into Mariposa and spend the day there. The morning was nice, but it ended up raining quite a bit. I spent much of the day in the van working on the blog.
This cemetery was across the street from where we were hanging out, so I ended up walking Zoe up there. It was pretty cool with old and new graves. Of course the old ones are the interesting ones. When people talk about life expectancy back 100 - 200 years ago, they say it was short, but I believe that's only because so many young people died from now preventable/treatable diseases/illnesses. If you average it out, it's true, but many people lived into their late 70s, 80s, and even 90s.
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| This gravestone from the 1800s says "Native of Georgia, VT". What are the odds? |
Dinner at the 1850 Restaurant and Brewery.
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| At first the bartender didn't seem super friendly, but then he warmed up and gave me even more samples than I requested. |
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| Salmon Cake appetizer for dinner. Sooo good! |
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| Skies finally cleared. I don't mind a rainy day here and there. |
I hadn't really thought about where I was going to stay, but Peter, who I met when eating at the bar, told me I could park in several places. He worked in the justice dept and so I figured he was a good source of info in this small town. I checked out some of the options and ended up back at the park and ride lot I had spent the day in. Not very glamorous, but it worked!
10/23 - Back in Yosemite
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| This reads: On this site, President Theodore Roosevelt sat beside a campfire with John Muir on May 17, 1903 and talked forest good (?). Muir urged the President to work for preservation of the priceless remnants of America's wilderness. At this spot one of our country's foremost conservationists received great inspriation |
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| This was so special. If you look above the trees, you can see particles reflecting the sun. It looks to me like a long exposure of the night stars. |
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| Upper Yosemite Falls |
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| Ahwahneechee people regularly burned the Valley's forests and Meadows to keep them open for gathering and hunting. Ground fires in the oak woodlands helped acorns sprout and made collecting easier. Acorn meal was the staple of the Miwok diet. Before eating, acorn meat must be dried, cleaned, pounded, sifted, rinsed, and cooked. Sounds like a lot of work! |
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For thousands of years, Indians adapted to climate changes, fires, and droughts in the Sierra. They also survived conflicts with other local Indian settlements. But in the mid 1800s, the California Gold Rush drastically changed their way of life forever, and vast numbers of their population were wiped out.
In 1851, soldiers from Mariposa were the first non-Indians to enter Yosemite Valley. They burned the Village and forced resistant Ahwahneechee people from Yosemite Valley. Later they were permitted to return. Those survivors rebuilt Koomine and adjusted to the new Euro-American presence here. Grrrr! |
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| Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls |
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| Massive boulders below the falls. Long before recorded history, these rocks fell as a result of weathering and erosion. For eons, this ongoing natural process has worked up Valley walls. When water in cracks repeatedly freezes and thaws, rocks break free. Rockfalls can happen anytime! I did find it very disconcerting when driving past areas where there were rock slide warnings and finding rocks in the road. Sometimes you can see large rocks that were pushed off the road. What if one came down on the van or in front of the van?! Yikes! |
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| Ants (climbers) on El Capitan |
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| You might be able to see a few climbers in this photo. |
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| I went back to Tunnel View and it was more clear today |
I did two hikes from the same point. I could have done a loop, but instead I did the two separate hikes so that I could come back and check on Zoe in between.
I decided to do Taft Point trail first
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| It was very intimidating looking down from this high up |
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| I was there! |
Sentinel Dome Hike
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| Sentinel Dome from the trail on the way up |
After the hikes, I drove to Glacier Point for the sunset. I rarely do this because then I have to drive in the dark to find somewhere to sleep and I don't like driving these winding and hilly roads at night, not trying to park at night. The backup camera works great during the day, but at night I can't really see anything. I need to add another light for that!
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| Half Dome |
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| On the drive out, I caught this moon sliver setting in the sunset colors. It was so gorgeous!!! |
I had picked a potential spot from iOverlander to park for the night, but Google Maps sent me to the wrong place again. I really cannot trust Google maps, especially when using coordinates. I'm learning to use both Apple and Google maps at the same time and that seems to work better, but I have to review them first. I ended up finding a decent pull off, but it was fairly noisy. I think growing up on Villard Ave has helped me to be able to sleep with road noise. I remember Jeff saying "How can you sleep with all that noise" when we visited Hastings, but I never even noticed it!
