Day 26 - Tunnel Vision

Woke up having had a great night sleep 💤 Unfortunately, Jackie had been kept awake by my snoring, allegedly.

As we enjoyed it so much, we went back to Sugar Pine Cafe for a big breakfast of eggs, French Toast etc. We kept looking round, but couldn’t find anyone who appeared willing to take care of our cheque. The is was made all the worse for the fact that Jackie was feeling a bit queasy & didn’t really fancy her breakfast after ordering it.

We returned to the motel, packed our rucksacks & hit the road & followed California 140 back to Yosemite 🏞 National Park. The journey in was slightly torturous. We were in a procession of cars following a very slow car at the front. It was noticeable that there were more vehicles about today, either because it was Friday and people were having a long weekend or the weather forecast was better.

Anyway we got to the Park entrance & as valued customers, we were waved through the Fast Track lane. This time I was on a mission with a clear goal. We were going to ascend The Mist Trail to Vernal Fall. We motored past the ‘tourists’ taking photos & arrived at Half Dome Village car park.

As I drove into the car park, I did my best to avoid the potholes, but one puddle was deeper than I had anticipated & we grounded the car with an almighty crunch. Praying we hadn’t trashed the bottom of our car, we drove around the already full car park & didn’t find a space so I created a new row!!! The 1st RV that tried to get round us struggled, but ‘Hey, if you can’t manoeuvre it through tight spaces, you shouldn’t be driving it’.

We left our abandoned car & made for The Mist Trail. I was praying it wasn’t too strenuous, because Jackie had already played the ‘sick note’. At the start, an information tent told us that The Mist Trail was very wet & slippery. We headed up a lovely tarmac path & came to a spot where the Nevada Fall was crashing down the mountain to our right. It was spectacular, but as always photos never do it justice. I particularly liked the slabs of grey granite covered with bright green moss. It reminded me of one of my favourite songs.

We continued to a point where the tarmac path ended & granite steps took us higher to the foot of Vernal Fall. Jackie was still suffering & didn’t want to go further, so I bravely forged ahead on my own. The steps were slippery from the spray of the Vernal Fall, but I continued upwards barging grannies & kids out of my way.

I got to the bottom of the waterfall & was blown away by the sheer beauty of it. This had to be shared, so using semaphore, I eventually got a message to Jackie telling her that she should join me. Despite her ‘illness’, Jackie trudged up to me & hopefully appreciated my scouting mission.

We now had two options, 1. Continue upwards to the top of Vernal Fall by scaling the steps beside the fall or 2. Turning round & going back. I looked up at the steps & bravely decided that going up may be ok, BUT walking back down the saturated steps would be suicidal. NOTE: For those who may have been up or down this leg of the trail (Jonathan), you need to remember that this is Spring & the waterfalls are raging!

We made our way slowly back down The Mist Trail, which felt more treacherous. We even stopped to fill our empty water bottle up with water off the mountain (Hopefully we won’t get the sh*ts!). Back at the bottom, we took a leisurely amble through the ‘Happy Isles’. I had to keep reminding Jackie where we were!

We returned to our car, relieved to discover no idiot had bumped into us. We took a slow drive around the Park, taking in The Majestic Yosemite Hotel, that was previously known as the famous Ahwahnee Hotel (Why would they change the name?).....Idiots.

We continued through Yosemite Valley & marvelled at the (mentally sectioned) lunatics that were climbing halfway up El Capitan. I noted the orange tent towards the top of El Capitan appeared to have not moved.

It was now 3.00pm, the rain clouds were gathering above. We took the California 41 south out of Yosemite. It was now that I had to confess that we had not yet been to Tunnel View. I suspected this was the case, but I didn’t want to admit to it after saying we had been there the day before!

Tunnel View is impressive & it was particularly as we were shrouded in clouds, but the Tunnel View was still in sunshine. We attempted a couple of pathetic selfies & an a granny offered to take some for us, which I jumped at. (The View from Tunnel View is impressive, but it was heaving with tourists, particularly Chinese or Japanese, still haven’t worked out which. I dread to think what it would be like mid morning in the summer!).

We then drove south on 41, but yet again we got stuck in another convoy headed by a selfish inconsiderate Chinese driver, who failed to pull over & braked all the way down the mountain to Yosemite Exit. We passed through Fish Camp, Sugar Pine, Yosemite Forks to Oakhurst where we stopped for a McDonalds.

Honestly, the main reason we stopped was to try & find somewhere to sleep for the night. McDonalds currently have a deal of 2 burgers for just $5, which we had with a coffee each. Using the WiFi, we looked at where we could stay for the night. Jackie didn’t fancy anywhere. i also sadly downloaded the McDonalds App.

I overheard 2 middle-aged bikers discussing their sleeping arrangements, so I asked them what website they used, it wasn’t ‘grinder’. Jackie went to the loo & they showed me how to use Google Maps for accommodation. They sorted themselves out & left without saying goodbye to us....bit rude.
Jackie was adamant that we weren’t staying where they were.

Jackie said that she didn’t want to stay at the same place as them, so I randomly chose the ’Vagabond Inn’ at Fresno. The name sold it to me. We continued out of Yosemite, through Course Gold until we hit Fresno, a big sprawling City.

We followed the SatNav until we reached our destination, a business park of cheap money, petrol stations & fast food outlets. The car park was full& included several brake down trucks conducting repairs. We got out & walked to reception & waited for 2 guests to check in. They were dirty road workers or breakdown recovery workers.

In the queue, we looked at each other & both knowingly agreed this was not for us. This was confirmed by the guest who checked in before us spat a mouthful of phlegm out in the car park & another drugged loser who was totally out of it started doing karate kicks in the car park with his trousers & pants halfway down his legs.

I drove away as quickly as I could, whilst Jackie cancelled our booking on Booking.com. In a road lay-by, we chose the town of Reedley that had two potential motels to our satisfactory standard. After driving through the most ridiculously straight roads, we arrived at our destination, Edgewater Inn. We checked in & then realised that the bikers Jackie was avoiding we in the room below us.

A drop of beer & wine was all we needed before we were out for the count.

FITBIT = 16,186 steps / 7.51 miles

Song of the Day - Green & Grey by New Model Army.

Bonus Songs of the Day :-

Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin
Tunnel Vision by Lenny KravitzRead more