(written on the 2nd from notes taken earlier)
I woke up to a very foggy morning, my van perched on the mountainside/cliffside with the ocean far below.
No one bothered me through the night, and I got a decent amount of sleep. 🥳
I don’t remember if I mentioned it last night, but I noticed that the tire that I had replaced was a little low when I went to bed last night, and when I woke up this morning, it was even lower.
Goody.
I got my air pump and tried to use it, but it was blowing air out the sides, unable to pump it up. In fact, instead of pumping it up, it fairly quickly depleted the air to the point the tire was almost completely flat. 😅
Lovely.
I had a spare tire on a rim underneath the van, and I’ve got all my tools and whatnot, so it wasn’t like I was going to be stranded, but with my back the way that it is and everything, digging out that heavy Jack and doing it without hurting myself and changing the tire and all that without risking hurting myself means going really slowly compared to how I’d like to be moving.
So I figured instead of just changing the tire, I would try fixing my pump. So I got my tools and started disassembling the pump and found that the area that’s supposed to hold compression while the pump is making pressure had a loose cap because screws that were supposed to hold it all together had come loose over time.
I guess that’s what you get for making something out of plastic with little tiny screws. 🙄
I can’t say that I’m a super fan of the tariffs and all the craziness that’s going on with that, but it really would be nice to get higher quality stuff, so maybe an unintended consequence of the tariffs might be the production of better stuff.
Doubt it, but that would be nice.
Having our society turn to the majority of what we buy seemingly coming from China seems also to of course bonded to the introduction of the disposable age where we basically just expect everything that we buy is going to need to be replaced within a few years, if the stuff we buy even makes it that long.
What I wouldn’t give for companies that actually made good quality stuff you could count on.
It would be better for our long-term pocketbooks. It would be better for the environment–in multiple ways…
Anyway, I got my pump put back together, found that the issue with the tire was that the tire company from yesterday had damaged the valve stem when they put the new tire on, so I held the valve stem tightly in place in a specific position in order to get the air to flow in, and my newly repaired pump, which I don’t think is as good as it was originally, but it is at least working a little bit, was able to get the tire pumped up to like 30 PSI before I called it good.
I turned on my starlink, called the tire shop in Lompoc that did the swap over for me, and gratefully, they took responsibility and said they would get it taken care of for free. Unfortunately, I was out in the middle of nowhere on PCH multiple hours North of where I had been. Fortunately, the place I chose was a chain that, although they didn’t have any locations East or north of me, such that I could continue my journey North and take the beautiful scenic route through the hills to the next town, they did have a location back south Maybe 25 minutes and then over the hills another 45 minutes, or so.
So I pointed Rover’s nose South from just north of ragged point, California toward Paso Robles where the local tire place in the chain was going to get me taken care of. The earliest appointment they had was that something like 12:15 or 12:30, so I was going to be there a good while, unless they could get me in quicker once I got there, so I decided just to head right over there in the hopes that maybe they’d be able to get me in sooner.
At first, I waited in my van for a little while after letting them know that I had arrived. I think maybe I did some gospel learning stuff and other stuff. I tried to work a little bit. I don’t remember if I mentioned that I got demoted again. I probably did mention that. I just about don’t care anymore. I’m almost ready just to walk away from working for them, except then I wouldn’t have an income, other than interest income that certainly isn’t going to cover my expenses.
Anyway, they came and got the van, and from the moment of my arrival, I have been eyeing the little shop that was in the same building as the tire place–a little I think it was Lutheran Thrift shop.
So I went in to see if maybe I could get myself a pair of shoes or something, another disposable item these days.
I spend so much money on shoes.
The activities that I do are really hard on shoes, and nobody makes anything that’s actually durable anymore. Even the brands I used to trust… What I read now is that they’re just junk, living off the fame of their old names and reputation but are just as crappily built.
What do you do? 🤷
So yeah, periodically, I contemplate starting a business that makes absolutely everything and makes it really freaking well, so people don’t have to go buy more and more and more and more.
Inside the thrift shop, I grabbed a pair of shorts, two long sleeve shirts for Sun protection, and I did manage to find a pair of shoes. A little worn out, but they were only 10 bucks, and still have way more than $10 worth of life left in them when compared to the other crap I could buy brand new that’ll just fall apart.
After having already driven that far across the hills inland, I figured my previous idea of heading over to Yosemite for the first time in… 15 years? was a good plan to go forward with, so I headed east toward the Southwest entrance by Fish Camp.
I used Google maps to find the cheapest gas, which did save me a bundle again, as every once in awhile you can find a gas station that’s like $3.80 a gallon or around there while most others are well into the fours and even the fives.
So I filled up two different times at two different gas stations on the way there wanting to maximize how far I could get on cheap gas, hoping to make it all the way northwest of Sacramento, to the cheapest gas station I can find over there, which is around $4.20 a gallon.
Back home in arkansas, the gas stations near the house are $2.80 a gallon. 🙃
Freecampsites.net had a listing for a good place to stay just before the entrance to the park, so I figured I would check that out first, just in case. So I drove up the little road, and yes, there was a nice little spot, a parking lot, with some camp spots and some dumpsters.
A perfect spot for me. 😊
I was recreating, a little bit, the trip that I took with my sister Heather back in the year 2000 right before I went on my mission. We stopped off at the Giant Sequoia Grove at the beginning of the park and then went on into the park, driving through the valley in one day and then camping I believe on the back side as we were getting ready to head out of the park the next day.
There were some cool memories I had from last time, one of them finding this waterfall with a little cave behind it that was just off of a sharp bend in the road.
Another experience was seeing the deer in the field, and doesn’t 18-year-old, not knowing that the deer in Yosemite Valley are ridiculously tame, so i, wearing only a pair of shorts, started crawling through the long grass to see how close I could get to the deer.
I got to a point where I think I was maybe only like 20 ft away from them? Ridiculously close, whatever it was, when I realized that I was completely covered in mosquitoes.
😧
Seeing my body completely covered in mosquitoes, I forgot all about the deer, jumped up out of the tall grass and wildly started flailing my arms trying to get all the mosquitoes off of me. 😆
The deer, for their part, seeing this 18-year-old, half naked human jump out of the grass just sort of left them in stunned off for a bit. I think there were three deer? And they all just stared at me for what seemed like an age, but was probably no more than a few seconds. 🙃
They stared and stared, and then finally they ran the other direction.
As did I. 😅
I ran from the field over to the river or creek or whatever water was there, and I dipped myself down in the water. I think I had learned somewhere along the way that putting bug bites in cold water after having been bitten was a fairly effective analgesic for me.
I don’t know how true that is or isn’t. I’ve never really been that reactive to most mosquito bites. Generally, out itch for a couple of hours or so, and then it’s done. I think there are some species where I can itch for a good long time and they actually leave like almost bruised looking areas where the skin eventually kind of sloughs off, but those are fairly rare, so I don’t know if the cold does anything at all, or if it’s just the natural reaction my body has to not really have an issue with mosquito bites as much as others might, at least with some species.
I remember when I got out of the water, my sister counted all the bites on my back, totaling up somewhere around or maybe even north of 100, I believe.
😶
Gratefully, as I remember, though I was bitten the gazillion times, I don’t remember any lasting discomfort after having dipped in the water.
Another experience I remember was finding a rock in the middle of the Yosemite River, at least that’s what I’m assuming the river is called that flows through Yosemite Valley 🙃, and diving off the bank into a deeper spot and swimming out to that rock.
Memories.
I wanted to recreate those memories 25 years later, just for fun, so after leaving the potential camping spot, buying an annual national parks pass, and heading into the park, my first stop was going to be to that giant Sequoia Grove. My sister and I had gone to that Grove 25 years ago, but the road all the way to the Grove was closed, and so it was going to be like a 5 mile walk from the parking lot, I think?
I wasn’t up for that. 😅
So I skipped out on the Sequoia Grove and just headed in toward the valley. Each time I came to a sharp bend in the mountain road that leads from the entrance to the main valley, I would look as best I could off to the side. Only one spot looks like maybe there was a waterfall that could have been it, but it came at a spot where there was no where to ditch the van to go back and look, at least not for a good long while. And I didn’t remember us having to walk a long ways. Of course, that was 25 years ago, so the road has probably changed a bit.
Anyway, I didn’t recall it looking the way that it looked when I saw it at a glance, but then again, the waterfall that I built at Provo Canyon was completely destroyed, so… Who knows what 25 years of erosion and wash and maybe even avalanches might have done, not to mention trees growing up to block views and all that.
Anyway, no dice finding the little waterfall cave on the way in, so I just continued on. Shortly before arriving at the huge tunnel that opens up to that epic vista, I stopped at an overlook to look at Cascade creek, which is an impressive set of waterfalls in its own right.
Beautiful.
You can see bridal veil Falls, the top of el capitan, and even Half Dome in the distance.
After a little scramble and some photo taken, I headed toward the valley again, turning on my headlines as I entered that long tunnel that leads to the breathtaking View on the other side.
Gratefully, both because of the time of year and the time of day, being somewhere around I think maybe 6:00 at night by this time, when I arrived at the tunnel view parking lot, though they’re certainly were tourists there, the parking lots were mostly empty with only a handful of tourists hanging out to see the view.
That view. Wow. Man, if there’s a place that I wouldn’t mind living. Park me and my house right where that parking lot is, get rid of the crowds, and let me have the valley to myself. 😆
Of course, I would invite people in 🙃… just… not the crowds that make it feel like you’re at the zoo. 😅.
Pictures never do it justice. Everything is so big. So majestic.
Despite having been there multiple times before, I did the little walk over to
Despite having been there multiple times before, I did the little walk over to bridal veil Falls, the one that you see in the picture above. I think I spent most of my time while in the park listening to scriptures while taking the incredible scenery.
I stood in awe of the sheer enormity of El Capitán, taking pictures of that huge wall of rock.
I took pictures of the waterfalls, of the light from the setting Sun making Half dome look almost like it’s glowing, though I missed the best pictures by about 2 minutes, trying to find a place to park my van, so I could get out and take pictures of the last light shining on its face.
I called my sister earlier, but she hadn’t answered, but she called back about that time, so we chatted briefly, I letting her know that I was in Yosemite, replaying our trip from just a handful of months shy of a quarter century ago.
Time. It’s just… flown.
More pictures, from the north side, El Capitan is even more impressive, as you get right up close to it. I didn’t leave the road, just taking pictures as the light was fading.
And I missed some things I would have liked to have seen, but what a beautiful place.
What a beautiful place.
As I was standing on the side of the road taking pictures of El Capitan, a couple of backpackers walked toward me, wearing their big 50 or 60 lb packs. I chatted with them for a bit, and then they asked me for a ride to their car that was about 11 miles away. They had misjudged their adventure, and it was almost dark, and they were still probably a four-hour walk, or five, back to their car. It was only 11ish miles away, but it was uphill for a good chunk of that.
So I made some room for both them and their packs, and I gave them a ride from where we were in front of El Capitan to the Old Big Oak Flat Road trailhead where they had parked their car, getting to know them a little bit on the drive before dropping them off.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to be doing from there, so I just sort of stayed there in the parking lot after they left. I briefly thought about spending the night there, but after looking it up, I found that it was prohibited to spend the night in your vehicle in any of those little pull-outs and trailhead parking lots. I guess you need a permit to be able to park your car there for overnight stays–something like that anyway.
I called my brother Richard and chatted with him for nearly 2 hours, which was good, and then I made the decision to drive an hour from where I was, back down into Yosemite valley, back up the other side, and all the way back to the little parking area I’d checked out as a camping spot that was an hour away.
I’m glad I did.
I wasn’t sure where else to go, and driving all the way back there would give me peace of mind, relative privacy, and would be cheaper than staying at any of the in Park camping places, my only expense being gas and vehicle wear and tear from the 30ish mile drive.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful I was able to fix my tire pump enough to pump up my tire sufficiently to get the van drivable.
- I’m grateful I was able to find some articles of clothing for a good price while waiting for most recent tire/wheel issue.
- I’m grateful that Google maps allows you to search gas stations all over, and you can find the cheapest really easily. Saves a lot of money when traveling in expensive gas areas, sometimes more than a dollar a gallon.
- I’m grateful for the beauty of the earth. Yes somebody is just an absolutely gorgeous place. It’s harder for me to enjoy places when there are so many people there, but there is no denying that view, that you just can’t properly capture in picture, when you come out of that tunnel is just breathtaking. The sheer size of what you’re looking at is mind boggling. I wish I could come up with better terms, but my brain just doesn’t work these days.
- I’m grateful to have been able to find that little camping spot and for the people who took the time to list it for other people. Thank you!
Success:
- Do I feel like I’m failing more often than I’m succeeding, I am battling the no distracted driving thing.
Improvement:
- But still, distracted driving is a big deal to get solved. 😅
Loves!
Lift the world.
Bring it on (I’m a little more tentative about that today 😅)
~ stephen
Lift the World 