Sunday 16 March 2014

TRAVEL: USA PART 5 - YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK AND MONTEREY






14/03/04: Despite leaving Vesuvio at a relatively early hour, we spent some time socialising with the traveller types back at the Green Tortoise, and it left us feeling a little bit dazed and confused. In the morning, C and I took refuge in the common room – with coffee, Gatorade and crisps – while M and N went to pick up the car. It was a Sunday and N and I would be returning on the following Friday via an as yet undetermined means of transportation. For M and C there would be no coming back. Los Angeles would be their next destination, before they crossed from west to east for a final fling in New York City.

M and N pull up outside of the Green Tortoise in a silver Chrysler Sebring convertible. What sorcery is this? The car that we were supposed to be hiring hadn’t really done it for N and M, but they were resigned to it anyway. M then observed the Chrysler moping about in the corner and asked how much extra it would cost to charter this formidable beast. $100, apparently, which must be some sort of mistake – or a deal done on the side perhaps? Who cares, we’ve got just the thing in which to drive to Las Vegas.
Our Chrysler Sebring – here on in referred to as ‘The Beast’ – has an external ambient temperature gauge, and it tells us it’s touching 30°C outside. Not that we notice: we’ve got the roof down, and the backdraft is keeping us cool. Within less than a mile of crossing the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, we’ve taken a wrong turn into Oakland. The surrounding buildings are low-rise in aspect, which suggests we might be in some kind of down-town situation; the sound of gospel music emanating from various churches gives the same impression. To the less religiously inclined denizens of Oakland, I fear we might look out of place – white skinned, driving a silver convertible with the sounds of the sixties blaring out. We think we know in which general direction we need to be travelling, but we’re not presently driving in it. To rectify this we elect to take a U-turn in the nearest parking lot – the one occupied by a division of Afro-American youths in typical ‘street’ attire. Traffic lights then dictate we pause at its exit. One of these youths saunters over. Is he armed? What’s his gun of choice: a revolver, a shotgun, or something semi-automatic? I don’t mean to stereotype but my teenage years spent listening exclusively to hip hop have primed me for this. Sensing that we might be lost, the gentleman asks us if we need guidance. We tell him that we want to get back on Highway 580 and he duly obliges with directions. His council is both accurate and  courteous, and the occupants of the shiny Sebring feel a mixture of relief and guilt; relief that we haven’t been mugged – or worse – and guilt for ever thinking that it should have been the case.
Oakland comfortably behind us and the topography starts to level out (around Tracy, possibly). To ensure an early start we skipped breakfast and are now in need of sustenance. We pull into a roadside Kentucky Fried Chicken and reaffirm with its employees that we’re heading in the right direction – the direction of Yosemite National Park. We are, and any residual uncertainty is obliterated by the military-like precision the proprietor of Kentucky brings to bear in sketching out the best route on our roadmap of California.
Contrary to global opinion, Americans are not as overbearingly arrogant as we sometimes perceive them to be. They are a friendly people who like nothing more than to engage with those who have made the effort to come and wonder at their fair and pleasant land, are proud of their country and appreciate its natural charm. When an American says to you that Yosemite National Park is one of the most beautiful places on earth, it’s not out of hubris, it’s because they genuinely believe this to be the case (even if they have never set a foot outside their own country).
When lunch is finished we visit the garage next door and stock up on beer. This turns out to be a bizarre experience. The petrol station is run by a family who emigrated here from the UK. That in itself is not overly surprising (although, given the remoteness of our location, it is slightly). What really strikes us as weird is the fact that they’re from Hounslow. N hails from Feltham, just down the road, and he, M and I have all spent varying amounts of time renting accommodation in Hounslow itself. N and I currently live in Isleworth, in fact, not 15 minutes’ walk from Hounslow Town Centre.
You’d have thought somebody had died. On being told of our residential circumstance, these economic migrants, who moved here for the sake of their children, so they tell us, are plunged into a well of wistful nostalgia for the old country. They want to know everything current that’s going on in Hounslow and would probably be very willing to take us in for the night to hear all about it. They make us promise to stop by on our return from Yosemite, and we don’t have the heart to tell them that we don’t yet know whether or not we’ll be coming back this way, and that the chances are we won’t. It’s scene of almost hysterical bathos.




As is the way with such things, when we finally start gaining some altitude the temperature begins to fall, so much so that we’re inclined to pull over to the side of the road and put the roof up on our air-conditioned beast. Meanwhile, N has asked us to keep an eye on the petrol gauge. We’ve been warned that refuelling facilities in Yosemite are scarce, and the journey is taking longer than we'd anticipated. A sign is passed that states ominously ‘Last Chance for Gas’, but peering over at the gauge it looks like we’ve still got half a tank of petrol left. We can also sense that dusk is imminent and would like to reach our destination before nightfall.
But N is concerned and wonders why none of us are similarly anxious. It finally dawns on him that M, C and I have erroneously been taking our fuel readings from the temperature gauge. We don’t quite run out of gas but it is dark when we arrive, and we’re lucky to find accommodation too. We will all have to share a room, and within that room will have to share double beds. There is a bus that makes the short journey to Yosemite Lodge – the only facility currently open where we can settle down for a meal. It’s like a Wetherspoon pub on a Tuesday afternoon, but with a wider demographic. There’s no time to make a night of it and we’d rather be outside anyhow. We decide to walk back to Curry Village, where our lodgings are, to take in the serene delight of unadulterated night sky.
 Depending on who you ask, bears are either not a threat at all or are very much a present danger and should be guarded against at all times. Such conflicting advice makes for just the right level of trepidation when walking back through Yosemite at 11:00 at night. We pause for a while in the woods to gain a fuller appreciation of our physical isolation. When we’ve had enough of that, C and N prepare for bed, while M and I decide to drink a beer out on our veranda and wonder at a silence only occasionally disrupted by a distant, thunder-like sound. We ponder this mysterious sonance for a while and theorise that it can only be the reverberations of huge slabs of winter ice crashing down scree ridden slopes. It is spring and the snow is melting.




15/03/04: I have slept well and maybe even made inroads into the sleep deficit that has been building up over the past week. If it wasn’t for N I might have gotten well on top of it. He’s been very active this morning, doing nothing much in particular, exiting then entering the room again and fiddling with the curtains in a concerted effort to get us all out of bed. Resistance is futile, so I commandeer the shower before the thought occurs to either M or C.
            I can see the thinking behind N’s provocation. It was dark when we arrived, but now the sun is out and who knows what awaits us. Moreover, we're all pretty hungry. Breakfast will be the ‘Three Brothers’ baguette, which is the culinary highlight of my trip thus far. We all indulge but each employ subtle variations on the theme, such is the nature of the Three Brothers experience. The numerical value of this delight refers to the three meats involved: ham, salami and pepperoni. You can then choose your style of bread, the salad contents, the sort of cheese you’d like, and your condiments. This, coupled with a cup of coffee, is the perfect way to start a day playing in the great outdoors.
We estimate that we have about three hours to spare to survey our environment. It has been decided that our next destination shall be Monterey, a distance of over 250 miles and something like 5 hours away. In terms of getting closer to Las Vegas this journey will not make massive inroads. However, it should make for a more pleasant driving experience, taking us through Big Sur and along the Pacific coast thereafter, before we are then required to head inland in the direction of Vegas itself.
It’s the perfect time of year to visit Yosemite. Our difficulty in procuring lodgings the previous night had nothing to do with an influx of visitors: there simply weren’t the rooms ready and waiting. Fresh snow lies piled up against the side of the roads, proof that Curry Village is still in the process of preparing itself for the influx of tourists that are sure to descend before the month’s out. We are freed from the commercial permutations that would ordinarily tarnish this most tranquil of settings and only occasionally pass visitors on our hike through the valley. It would be nice to stay another night. In hindsight, we should have left San Francisco a day earlier – maybe even two. As it stands, we need to have the car back in Vegas for Wednesday, and it is now Monday. There is little margin for spontaneity.
Before we leave there is the small matter of ‘gas’ to deal with. It can be procured locally but is slightly frowned upon: it is meant for the vehicles that tend to the upkeep of the area. We are made very aware of this by the local garage attendant who goes on to explain that the price of petrol is significantly higher than it would ordinarily be – hence the warning signs on the drive in – to deter people from buying it here. But we’re on holiday and couldn’t really care less about this extra expense. We’re just relieved we can buy enough fuel to get us on our way, and compared to the cost of petrol back in our own country this elevated tariff still seems rather reasonable, as demonstrated by the manner in which M deals out the dollar bills. (We’re only permitted enough petrol to get us on the road and as far as the next gas station, where we will stop and fill our tank to its brim.)
So we’re on the road again. It is a long drive through pleasant countryside, pretty uneventful save for an innocent encounter with a policeman curious to know what we’re doing pulled over by the roadside about two hours south-west of Yosemite. In fact, we’ve stopped for a cigarette break and to reorganise the contents of our boot, which is mostly filled with crates of beer and things. It’s hard to tell if he minds, or whether our English accents nullify any latent suspicion, but he takes us at our word and is quickly on his way.
It’s an epic journey along Highway 140 and we pass through a number of faceless towns – Merced, Los Banos – stopping just the once to purchase victuals to tide us over. It is dark when we finally run into Monterey. After stopping off at roadside diner, we find a motel and then walk down to the quayside in search of somewhere to drink. There doesn’t seem to be much going on. The only bar displaying even a modicum of life is some English themed ‘pub’ down on the quay, which actually turns out to be quite animated. Copies of the satirical publication The Onion are pasted to the walls of the toilet, there is a wide selection of beers, and the locals are very communicative. We end up in conversation with a US Marine who thinks that, 'Tony Blair’s got balls, man!' Despite his misplaced admiration for our then Prime Minister, this military man is polite, articulate and good company.
Perhaps because we’ve spent much of the day sitting down, we find the time and the energy to get almost as drunk as we were in Delirium, and stumble back through the empty streets of Monterey in high spirits.





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