So, great Reader, there’s be a hiatus. It’s not that I haven’t had time, though
that’s part of it (the card game last night interfered with writing &
Monday was a late night), but the bigger problem is WiFi/cell service!
We spent the last two nights at a cabin “in” Yosemite
National Park. “In” because technically
the park border is like a quarter mile away.
But it’s a “cabin,” in the middle of mostly nowhere and there’s no real
wifi in the cabin and no cell service – the front desk warned you might pick up
a call on Verizon, but it would drop, mostly likely. Think “can you hear me now.” And the place with the strongest wifi, the
rec center, last night had so many people on it that the young woman next to me
last night and I were competing to see who lost the white screen first. We both lost. :)
So, a quick (my companions laugh out loud at my definition
of the term) recap of the last three days.
Monday we visited Berkeley.
We started with brunch, at a place near campus called the Elmwood
Café. We all had the waffle with
blueberries, lemon curd, and maple syrup.
The picture seems to have disappeared.
Then to campus, which isn’t as impressive as Stanford (we
all agreed). Passhe schools have a way
to go, but it’s very tight in the city, with a view at times of the bay, but
jumbled, tight, and not as pretty in architecture or space as the rich private
school to the south.
Then to Napa. We
started at Gloria Ferrer, “famed” for their Spanish style sparkling wine. Michael had the mixed tasting – their
Chardonnay and Pinot with two sparklings.
There’s a pic.
Then to Domaine Carneros, whose Brut Rose we had at Waterbar
on Friday. We added a cheese and
charcuterie plate.
Michael and Barb were pretty tapped by now. Michael kept telling people he was “three
sheets in the wind.”
After the third place, where he told the server he was done,
then tasted both Karen’s red flight and Barb’s wine flight, he told the guy
“Now I’m six sheets in the wind.”
The third place was Pine Ridge. They had a Chenin blanc that both women liked
and bought. It was that wine that took
us there our first time and it was good on return.
Then a fourth place, Raymond’s. Turns out no one was really up to tasting,
and, by the time Karen was ready, the tasting room was closed!
We had early dinner reservations in Yountville (in the Napa
Valley), at a place we ate two years ago.
It was another excellent meal – food porn on the link, with Barb and
Karen having the house specialty short rib, Michael a steak, and Karen opened
the bottle of Merlot (not fucking Merlot!) from Raymonds. Dessert was raspberry sorbet and I had dark
chocolate gelato == because I thought I’d had enough ice cream the last couple
of days.
Then the three hour and twenty minute drive into the
mountains and the cabin.
How rustic is it? Well, it has running water and
electricity. No air conditioning, and
it’s been in the mid 80s. But it’s a dry
heat. Right? :)
Then yesterday we got around and headed off to the horse
stable. Due to the fact I couldn’t make
weight restriction (they made me keep on my shoes), we couldn’t go. Adjustment to schedule.
Yosemite is approx 1,200 sq miles. There is no real road from north to
south. State road 120 runs through the
center east to west, through the mountains.
All the roads are windy, at most 35 mph, and two lane. So, you don’t move quickly.
Our first goal was the largest falls in North America,
Yosemite Falls. It took us about an
hour, with scenic stops, to get there from the stable. Here’s my best picture of both the upper and
lower falls. It falls like 5,600
feet. !!! You’ll see a pic of Karen and I (see the
bear) at the base of the lower falls. Yes,
you get damp standing there.
Then we drove more than halfway, Michael did all the driving
(more on that later?), across 120, and those pics are of the mountains, the
tallest seems to be Mt Hoffman at over 10.000 feet. There was much snow on the ground. We ended at Tenaya Lake, where “my guide”
shows off “our” rainbow trout, fresh caught. :). Then back to the cabin. Michael and I went in the pool (okay he went
into the hot tub, which was NOT a time machine – except for his joints) &
then we had the poolside BBQ for dinner – spare ribs, salmon, andouille sausage
and two kinds of salad. The pool is
right next to our cabin.
Then back to the cabin (no TV, no internet, remember) and
the Slavins learned to play euchre. They
caught on quickly. Michael and Karen won
in the third game, 10-8. Karen showed
them some of her family’s slight of hand at cards…just sayin’, how did she keep
turning up a jack??!?!?
Then today. First,
both couples had to find enough cell service – Michael ended up on the land
line – so we could change where we stayed tonight. From Ridgway (near the desert) to Fresno, a
two plus hour ride from Yosemite.
Then to Hetchy Hetch reservoir, which was “2 miles” from the
cabin. Two turned into more like ten,
none of it fast. The pictures from there
are captioned.
This reservoir is the water source for San Francisco. The sign there tells you that it feeds
into SF, 165 miles away, all without
pumps – it’s all done by gravity. It
seems amazing. There were also two
waterfalls.
Then off to the Yosemite Lodge, where we had a quick lunch,
then got on a bus to Glacier Point.
Glacier Point is the spot of some iconic photos – google them – one of
the more famous has Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir standing on the rock there,
overlooking the massive rocks you’ll see in my pictures.
It was a four-hour tour.
Michael kept singing the Gilligan Song (“three hour tour…three hour
tour”). The guide’s name was Bill and
he talked incessantly (if informationally) the WHOLE way. We learned about the trees, the history of
the park (it’s the oldest in the park system, in some ways) and more about Bill
than I needed.
MY highlight – there’s a pick in this link – was a
bear!!! It was not far from the first
campground we paid, not ten minutes into the trip! He’s not a huge black bear (if you don’t
know, they don’t have to be black), but he wasn’t more than 50 feet from the bus! Rah rah.
Look at the LINK – the pictures are amazing.
Here’s one of the falls across the valley.
We were done at 5:30…and then rolled toward Fresno.
Dinner was at a Mediterranean restaurant. See the pictures.
In jokes:
One funny was our pulling into Gloria Ferrer’s and Michael
asked “am I parking?” I said “do you think they have drive through
tastings?” He thought it was both funny
and a clever idea.
Barb started us Sunday with a rude joke – the punch line is
I’m remembering Mabel – and I responded with a bro-law Butch classic that ends
with “the dog didn’t want to go either.”
Somehow the dog has become a yak (there was this place in Berkeley…) and
There have been thousands of jokes, mostly by me, playing
off Michael’s advanced age (he’s 2 years older than I am) AND his memory
loss. I don’t remember why. He is very happy about this…and has gotten to
the point of snorting at either suggestion (you know, for instance, he gets the
senior passport discount in national parks? :))
And, back to the bear tee shirt as part of the meme, it has
long been suggested that Michael was our bear fodder here. Though I’ve seen a yellow-bellied marmot
(yes, that’s what they are called) and a fox (I have no picture of marmot, a
black picture in the night of the fox).
So, there’ve been many suggestions about seeing bears, running from
bears, and the signs have been ubiquitous “speeding kills bears” (Barb read
aloud that cars killed 15 bears in the park last year!). That speeding might
kill deer, people, etc…no signs. But
speeding kills bears. Remember.
At the ranger station into Hetchy Hetch, he handed me a
plastic parking pass and put it in the front windshield and said “it has to be
back by 9 tonight.” I said “we have to
come back here?” “Fella,” he says (yes, “fella”)
there’s only one way in.”
When I came back, I said to the ranger (not the same one), I
couldn’t find another way out. He said, “You’d
need a hot air balloon…got one in the back?”
Barb rolls down her window and quips “no balloon, but he’s got plenty of
hot air.” So funny.
To finish the day, Michael ran over the curb in the parking
garage at the hotel, with a full-fledge “ka-thump”! I pointed out he did it, but there was no
coffee to be spilt! Ha ha.
