San Francisco

For a long time I was misspelling San Francisco and trying to refer to it as San Fran only. Luckily I'm over it now that I have a more personal relationship with the place. I left off with being too lazy to ride back across the Golden Gate - well, not so much lazy, as trying to utilize our time better than retracing previous steps, or tyre revolutions....We caught the famous San Francisco cable cars back up the hills (which we were definitely too lazy for - they were big!!). Unfortunately the historical trolley cars are as old as they look, and half the passengers needed to disembark at the 1st steep hill, walk up and get on at the next flat intersection. The great thing about the drivers is that they ring the bells in very rhythmical way. I wondered if rhythm was a compulsory skill for the job.

So with the jet lag fading for the most recent Aussies, and me over my early morning, it was time to face our fears and pick up a large American vehicle and get ourselves safely out of town. Things were not looking good when I could not work out how to adjust my seat, and then required clarification on the 3 pedals on the floor. Fancy pants pedal park brake...

When I say large, think Ford Falcon, despite requesting a mid-sized vehicle. Having spent the longest recentest time in North America, I was driving out of town, something I was not phased about until getting there. Luckily it was almost insultingly easy to get out of town and over the Bay Bridge. One thing I will say, is that I'm pleased that the US Highway patrol is not as vigilant as they should be, as it took some time to register the miles as opposed to kms, and not speed that big American car along side all the other speeding American vehicles. Other than that I was an excellent driver.

The 1st day's drive took us west (east was out due to obvious geographical limitations) to Midpines, about 5 hrs drive immediately west of San Fran. Most of the trip was built up and passing truck after truck, then a cluster of fast food 'establishments' then more trucks, another truck, and fast food cluster, then truck, truck and eventually there was a bit of wide open space! At the time I mentioned how much the landscape reminded me of somewhere, but I've forgotten now - might think of it later. It was really dry, just like the hills around Wodonga as I remember leaving them - and hilly like that - perhaps it was Wodonga I thought it reminded me of...in summer.

Yosemite, on the other hand, was pine tree after different variety of pine tree. We headed into Yosemite National Park on the 9th Oct - Angie's birthday actually. I mention this specifically because of my frustration at the very few bear experiences I'd had in Canada which resulted in me making the point to one of the girls pre-trip that if Angie saw a bear (knowing that we'd be in Yosemite that date) I would be - slightly upset. Why? Because who wouldn't like a bear experience on their birthday just 4 days prior, and jealousy is an ugly thing...

I'd wanted to see Yosemite since studying Ansel Adams in 1st year uni. He has mastered the ability to produce the perfect black and white print - most of which were taken in Yosemite. So the first thing I did after parking the car and running into some red deer wandering around the visitors centre, was head to the Ansel Adams Gallery for a few pointers. Unfortunately my skill is no where near the realm of Mr Adams.

There are a few walking trails quite close to the visitors centre so that the day visitors don't have to carry food and plan their walks weeks in advance. We started with the walk to El Capitan, following the road slightly, before diverting over to the river where we stopped for lunch. We resumed the trail with renewed vigour (just cause I love the expression) and were wandering along the trail merrily in conversation about goodness knows what before I stopped dead in my tracks to watch what I thought was a dog/coyote/wolf ( as my head tracked it) before realising there was a little black bear crossing our path about 60m ahead of us. I turned to Pooh and Charm to shut up, which took a while as they thought I was mucking around at the thought of a bear in these there parts. By the time they stopped and realised that I would never joke about something like that, Angie had took off about 10m back behind me, which I thought was an interesting juxtaposition with my temptation to just run ahead and get a closer look. I say temptation because I was nearly off before I remembered that mum would not be too far away. Dammit.

For the purposes of story telling, Yogi crossed the path and wandered into some long grass, then onto a log just for one last look, and then was off. I didn't manage to get the camera out - it was one of those moments you know won't last long, so do you fumble for the gear, or do you enjoy it for the moments you have. I chose to take it as it came, and love every second. Need I say that there was much rejoicing after the fact - and I don't mean the sarcastic much rejoicing of Monty Python's Merry Minstrels - honest to goodness beaming grins and hi 5'ing...followed my my realisation that my prediction of Angie having a bear experience on her birthday had come true.

Most of our day paled in comparison to that, but at the same time was a ripper day still. We drove up to Glacier Point, driving through the most amazing variations of Fall colours. By the time we got there it was freezing, so decided to head back down to catch sunset on Half Moon Dome (the single best Ansel Adams pic that inspired me to go) but we were not in luck that day. After an awesome day it was time to head for the ... rest of the hills; delayed somewhat by a truck stick on a narrow bridge crossing, and finally home, ready for an early start.