So we started driving down Route 395 towards Yosemite. Route 395 was interesting, as much of it was like a freeway, then randomly we’d have a stoplight. We’d go from a speed limit of 65 down to 25 in a span of like 30 seconds. We passed through Nevada’s state capital of Carson City and a few more towns than I thought we’d go through, before reaching the California border!
Figures that the only border check between any states was going into California. I couldn’t imagine why we had to go through this check. Did they think we were smuggling drugs and would bring dogs to sniff the car? Could we have been bringing in illegal immigrants? Did we have any livestock? (yes we’ve driven by signs saying we can’t bring livestock into certain places) While we of course weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary, we stopped at the border patrol, I rolled down my window, and the guy asked me, “where are you coming from?” I said “we were just in Reno.” He asked “do you have any produce?” Produce….that’s a new one, I was asked if I was bringing any produce into California. Thank God I wasn’t because who knows what would have happened to me if it was!
So we drove through the boonies of central eastern California (yeah not too many people go on vacation there I imagine), and passed through a lot of small towns. One thing of note – all the gas in this area was ridiculously expensive. Yes gas is on the high side right now, but I have never seen gas cost this much in my life. The stations in this area were charging nearly $5 a gallon. I wish I had a pic of one to show you, but you’re just gonna have to take my word for it.
Eventually we reached the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park. Looking at the California map, I thought it would probably be about 30 miles, and maybe take an hour to get through the park, and since the Miner’s Inn seemed to be in a nearby town, I figured we’d be there by dusk. The GPS said it would take us three hours and 103 miles to get through the park and to the hotel, but I figured it was probably wrong, as its over-estimated the lengths of some of our previous drives on this trip.
Yosemite was one of the most amazing yet terrifying places I have ever been to. Words can’t describe, and pictures can’t do justice to how truly spectacular this place is. I have a little bit of a fear of heights, so driving on the sides of cliffs and through windy, narrow roads in a car I wasn’t quite used to was a somewhat unsettling experience. We made many stops in the park, and it ended up being about 57 miles through, and we spent probably 2 to 3 hours in the park itself. Here are some of the pics – be forewarned, there are a lot of them…
We ended up being in the park for sunset, which was awesome. However it quickly became very dark, and we still had supposedly over an hour long ride ahead of us to the hotel, but again, I thought it couldn’t have been that long. Near the exit, there seemed to be some sort of test for the emergency systems in the event of a fire, and we saw this amazing fire on the side of the road. Unfortunately we were unable to stop, and we couldn’t get a good angle for a picture, so we’ll have to preserve the memory in our minds.
We finally reached the end of the park, after many miles of driving in darkness, possibly on the side of cliffs. In some ways the darkness might have helped out me fear of heights, because I wasn’t able to see what was off the road. Then again, I was also afraid of what I couldn’t see as well. Guess I gotta get over that fear and get on with my life haha. After getting out of the park, the GPS said we had about 30 miles to go. I was hoping it was a highway of some sort in between the park and the hotel, but of course it was a long, windy road without any streetlights, so we accepted the inevitable, that it was going to be a long ride. At one point in this ride, we came across a one-lane bridge with a red light in front of it, and a sign that said “expect to wait 15 minutes” I nearly ripped all the hair out of my head. Fortunately it was only about 5 minutes later that the light turned green and we were able to continue on our trek through the dark mountains.
We eventually came to the town of Mariposa, and after overshooting the hotel, we parked and checked in. The Miner’s Inn was certainly an interesting place. The main lobby had a gift shop, wine store, and all sorts of stuff there. They had a restaurant and a lounge too. Since it was nearly 9 pm when we finally reached the place, we skipped all the exploring and just went to the room, which was probably the nicest we’ve stayed in so far. It was there I learned of the pathetic demise of the 2011 Boston Red Sox, and watched the Rays celebrate their Wild Card berth. Truly a disgusting collapse. Anyway, I didn’t have very good internet, so I wasn’t able to update this blog, and basically just went to bed.
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