Today as we drove through Yosemite and saw the devastation of the recent wildfires I sat in awe.  It is truly amazing to see what fire can do to a forest.  I have seen the after effects of wildfires but none so shortly after they have happened.  As I sat watching out the window you could see where the airplanes had dropped their “red-water” it was still on the dirt.  You could see where the fire crews had shoveled trenches to make their fire lines.  In some cases you could actually see where it worked and where it did not.  Through the burnt trees you could see where those same fire crews had chopped down various trees to try and stop the fire from spreading.  I tell you what between those aircrews and the ground crews they saved a whole lot of that park.

Another thing I find absolutely amazing is what the fire itself does.  I saw trees that were blacked on the front side and brown on the the back side.  There were complete chunks of forest that were scorched along the bottom so all the undergrowth and the bottoms of the trees were gone but the tops of the trees were fine.  Then just a ways down you would see patches where one tree would be completely gone but the trees next to it were fine.  Then you would get to really steep rocky terrain areas where it must of been torture to fight the fires because everything was burnt and the trees looked like burnt out Cuban cigars poking out of the ground.

I looked desperately for animals through all of this.  Because there may be portions of forest missing but there is still lots of forest still there.  I saw none.  I mean there were these beautiful rock cliffs that were just begging for a mountain goat… but nothing.  Gorgeous Rivers running through meadows that needed Elk or Bear or something… but nothing.  So I came to the conclusion that I was either looking and wanting it too much or they are still WAY to traumatized and in therapy somewhere way back in the woods.

So Thank you to those whose souls are called to wood and fire for saving a most awe inspiring place such as Yosemite.

I remember when I was a boy taking long trips in the car and my parents taking turns to drive all night.  This way us kids would awake to find ourselves already at the destination.  While taxing, I’m sure it saved my parents from hours of “When are we going to be there?!”

So in an effort to pay homage to my parents’ sacrifice, as well as to take my turn continuing the proud tradition, I drove into the night.

In another homage to olden times, Jessie and I consulted our atlas and debated the various possible routes to Vegas.  No matter which way we went it was too late to stop into a town for dinner, Sarah Michael was about to go to bed anyway, so we agreed to just follow the instructions from the GPS navigation system:  US 395 south to Hwy 168 to Hwy 266 to US 95.

This was going fine, but I was a little bit concerned when Hwy 168 turned off from US 395 and was only two lanes, I worried it might be an old route, perhaps windy and slow.  But the GPS said this was the fastest route, and the GPS knows, right?

Check this out:

1. You have Google Earth installed, right?  If you don’t, download it from here.
2. Next, download this GPS track, it is essentially the trip from San Francisco to Las Vegas.  Open this file in Google Earth.
3. Now that the track is visible, download and open this file, it will orient the camera to look into the ancient winding narrow mountain pass I was about to enjoy.
4. Explore the route with Google Earth, you can even click to see photos other people have taken on the road to give you more of the experience.

Can’t be bothered?  Here’s a boring static view.

I crawled over slowly up the pass and watched as my Henderson ETA went from 2am towards 2:30 and finally past 3am.  Why is this so slow I kept asking?  Why is the GPS so wrong?

“Oh well” was all I could say to myself in reply.

At one point I needed to stop for a scherdling when I was on a very straight, very flat, very dark section.  I got out of the car, didn’t turn off the engine just in case it wouldn’t restart (not that it wouldn’t start, but this was one of those places on earth where you wouldn’t want to take the chance) but did turn off the lights.  The valley was slightly illuminated by the moon and it was beautiful.  There were so many stars in the sky.  It was neat.  View the approximate spot by opening this file in Google Earth, rotate around so you can see all sides of the valley.  Then pee.  That’s the experience.

As I approached the right turn onto Hwy 266 I saw emergency lights traveling south on 266.  A few miles later, around midnight, I caught up with the emergency vehicles.  The highway was essentially closed by a serious accident.  Apparently the driver of a south-bound car fell asleep and crossed the center line running into the trailer wheels of a north-bound semi truck.

The driver was alive, though I don’t know how injured she was.  They used the jaws of life to open the vehicle up and they brought her out on a rigid board then put her in an ambulance.

Turns out this section of road had a very side shoulder so we were able to get by the accident and proceed.  Though I didn’t go on much further.  Perhaps partly because of seeing such dramatic evidence of what driving tired can lead to, but also I know because I was getting bored, I found a good spot beside the highway to pull over and go to sleep.

I awoke about the same time as the sun and took the picture to the right.  The desert is beautiful in the morning.  The sky has pretty colors, it is quiet, the sun has not yet heated to air to become lethal.

Speaking of lethal, one of the things we passed was Creech Air Force Base, one of the places where pilots command drone aircraft that fly over Iraq and Afghanistan.  I had the thought to stop and ask the guard at the gate if we could come have a tour, but I imagined he would not have taken kindly to the offer.

I wanted to give the Garmin GPS device a chance to redeem itself, so I when we arrived in Las Vegas asked it if there were any attractions in the area and it suggested the Neon Museum.

Turns out the Neon Museum doesn’t actually exist yet, but the boneyard is there.  I peered through the fencing surrounding the old signs and snapped a few pictures.

Then we finished the drive to our friends Eric and Chrissy’s house in Henderson where we will spend the next two nights.

The drive from out to Yosemite wasn’t very interesting, so I was glad to see a sign saying “Come and See how Cheese is Made” at the Oakdale Cheese company.  Unfortunately they only make cheese on Monday and Tuesday so we were only able to look through the window into the aging room.

Most of the cheese Oakdale makes is Gouda, and they had a lot of flavors.  Smoked, Jalepeno, Cumin, Garlic, Mustand, and lots more.

Eventually we arrived at Yosemite.

The roads through the park is narrow, windy and hilly.  I tried really hard to not abuse the brakes, because not only was I driving a large heavy vehicle, I was also towing the Jeep.  But nonetheless, after several miles the brakes became very soft, smelly and just a little smoky.  At a stop sign I had to say a tiny prayer (and clench my cheeks) in order to stop and not rear-end the vehicle ahead of us.

So I pulled us over at the first opportunity and while we let the brakes cool down we did the same for our feet as we waded into the river.

Yosemite is pretty, and there are many great views from the road, however it seems that Yosemite is really a hiker’s paradise.  There are trails all over and lots of people park their vehicles to take off on foot.  We’re not really the hiking type, so we kept mostly to the roads.  There was a neat spot, however, with a great view of Half Dome and a short trail to an overlook, so we did get some exercise and walked out to take some family pictures.

This place is also custom-made for rock climbers.  One of the last domes we drove past had a couple of people at the top I could see from the road.  Look closely, they’re way up there.

We left ourselves unbooked from any RV parks or resorts, we knew we wanted to get close to Las Vegas, but we didn’t know how close we’d be able to get.  Upon leaving Yosemite, the GPS predicted a 2am arrival into Henderson, LV (where we were going to next stay), I decided to make a go for it and drive as long as I could.

A lot of our family flew in for the occasion and it is always a lot of fun when the Plates get together.  All the cousins and aunts and uncles were staying at the same hotel in downtown San Francisco, so we booked in as well, getting us a reprieve from RV life.

So we left Pacfica and headed into the city.  Jessie and I have laughed a few times at how the Jeep kinda sticks out here.  I just don’t see a lot of Jeeps in San Francisco, and ours with months of dirt and dust and mud encasing it doesn’t entirely fit in with the typical California status cars.

After some showering, shaving and dressing, we met up with the family in the lobby so we could all head to the wedding together.

My dad’s stroke of genius in this affair was to rent two stretch limos for us all.  It was quite an occasion, Plates don’t normally travel in such style.

As you can imagine Sarah Michael really enjoyed this.  The 18 of us split in to the two cars and off we went to Treasure Island for the wedding.  The island lies between San Fransisco and Oakland off the Bay Bridge and has an interesting history.  Today many people visit the island for its fantastic view of San Francisco, and we were there for a wedding.

This was unlike any wedding I’ve been to.  My cousin’s new bride’s family has Mexican background and this was celebrated in the ceremony by having a marichi band participate in the music-playing.  One thing that was fun was when the bride walked down the aisle the organ played the march and the mariachi band played along.  The two musical styles were not in tune with each other, so there was some dischord, but it also sounded neat.

The ceremony was nice and the reception was fun.  Sarah Michael danced a lot and loved it.

The views of the Bay Bridge, San Francisco, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge from the island were stunning.  The reception hall had large windows that looked over the water, so everyone was able to enjoy the sights.

We had a wonderful time and it was great to celebrate with family.

Congratulations Erica and Shawn!

It gave Jessie and I a good laugh.

One of the San Francisco landmarks you can easily see from the Fisherman’s Wharf area is Coit Tower which site atop Telegraph Hill.  I’ve often seen this tower and wondered what it was, and I’ve also previously wonderered where Telegraph Hill was, so going up to see both was good for me.

In fact the way it went today was Sarah Michael asked us about the tower as we were driving on the waterfront, because it reminded her of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  I didn’t know what it was, or what the hill or park was called, so I used Google Maps on my iPhone to determine that it was probably Pioneer Park.  Then a Google search informed us the name of the tower and the name of the hill.  Jessie and I got excited when we learned this was Telegraph Hill.

We were excited about Telegraph Hill because of the docmentary we’d seen, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, the subject about which I wager you can guess.  Jessie and I enjoyed the film (and we suggest you add it to your Netflix queue) and so to see the area in person would be special.

We drove up the windy roads to get to the summit, then waited in a line of cars for a parking spot, then enjoyed the views from the park.  We didn’t go up Coit Tower, but from the park you can see the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge, and Treasure Island (where we’ll be tomorrow night), Alcatraz and more.

The weather also cooperated.  While the morning had been foggy and cold, by this time in the afternoon the clouds had broke, the blue sky revealed and the sun warmed us up.

After walking around the parking circle in the park we found a path that went down into the neighborhood just blow the park, as I hoped that we just might get lucky and see the parrots.  I wasn’t hopeful, though, I really had no idea where the on the hill the parrots like to visit.

But we were lucky.  As we descended some steps we heard the sound of the parrots and saw a group of them fly into a tree just in front of us.  Before I could snap any shot, though, they flew away!  But they didn’t go far, I could hear their squaking just a few houses away.  Then one flew back to the tree in front of and I was able to get a shot of it (click here for large size).

Before we left I saw in the distance more of the birds flying around, and of course we could hear them, but no more landed close to us.

I was so pleased we were able to see the parrots, it really made my day.

After Telegraph Hill we headed to the nearby and famous Lombard Street.

Everyone has seen this street in commercials, television shows and films, and we thought it would be fun to drive down it.

I was worried there might be a long wait, but thankfully there wasn’t.  There was certainly a lot of tourists both driving, walking and looking at the hill, but there wasn’t any major jam-up.  There was traffic, of course, so there was a lot of stopping on the hill, but it was something to do and it wasn’t a problem.

You’ll see in the movie the two yellow three-wheeled vehicles in front of us.  We saw these little rental vehicles all over the place, they look like a fun thing to rent.

The sub is the USS Pampanito which served during World War II.  Sarah Michael was quite anxious to see it, and wanted to go inside– until she got inside.  We climbed the ladder down into the aft torpedo room to begin the tour and she seemed fine, but once we had to walk through one of the narrow doorways to visit the rest of the ship, she grew scared.  We finally convinced her to go on, but she still wanted to get out.  Every time we’d enter a new room she would pull on my arm and say “Let’s go!!”

It was a fun unexpected tour to take, though Jessie and I would have liked to have spent more time taking it in.

Today was touristy-stuff-in-San Francisco day for us.  We started off going down to Fisherman’s Wharf to see the sea lions and have lunch.

The sea lions are entertaining, a lot noisier and active than those we saw in the caves.  These San Francisco sea lions are quite noisy as they battle each other for positions on the floating docks.  Some of the sea lions lay on the docks quite mellow, but others refuse to let another onto their dock and are happy to fight it out.

Mapleton

Pacifica

Of course having the Pacific Ocean right beside us is a nice plus.

We have arrived in San Francisco.  We’re actually making Pacifica our home base for the next few days.  The RV park Resort we’re at is called the San Francisco RV Resort, and it is right on the ocean.  Our spot is one of those on the ocean-side, so we get to hear the waves while we sleep.

The tour starts with a video that explains the history of the company, which is interesting.  The company started on Mrs. Grossman’s dining room table in 1979 with a heart sticker design and now they have a 110,000 sq. foot facility that produces over 15,000 miles of stickers each year.

Then we toured the production floor.  Unfortunatly we were forbidden from taking pictures of the factory so I can’t share that love with you.  We saw machines making a variety of stickers and labels, and it was fascinating.

Next we were given little packets containing stickers and a blank postcard so we could design our own postcard, maybe to send to a friend who couldn’t come with us on the tour.

We learned other neat things, like how they give factory seconds away to charities, how they recycle the waste from the sticker-making process into pellets that are used for heat and energy, how they filter the water used to clean ink from machinery so it leaves the factory cleaner than when it entered…

This was a fun thing to do, thank you Joanie for the recommendation!

Jessie drove some yesterday, and though she was apprehensive when she started out I thought she did great.

Jessie received another Elk wish on the road, a herd was actually crossing the highway in front of us and we had to stop for a moment.  I didn’t have the camera out, but it was more exciting the two we saw yesterday.

As you’ll learn in a later post, we had a plan for this afternoon, so I plugged the destination into our Garmin Nuvi and its estimated time of arrival meant we had some time to kill.  That’s always good news when you’d like to find something interesting.  So a little ways north of Eureka I asked Mr. Garmin if there were any landmark attractions nearby and we were directed to the Carson Mansion. This place is amazing!  You can’t go in, but looking at it was really something.

Then we moved on and Mr. Garmin next suggested the Avenue of the Giants, a scenic alternative to Hwy 101 that drives between more of the stunningly large trees.  It was beautiful.

During the drive through the forest we saw a river not too far away so I got it in my head to check it out.  We navigated a road that seemed to head toward the river and then we came upon a one-lane bridge.

We crossed the first section of the bridge then parked on the rocks and disconnected the Jeep.  It was fun to drive on the beach and through the water, and Sarah Michael loved it.  In fact, Sarah Michael had been wathing videos on the iPod on the RV and decided she didn’t want to stop yet, so despite my counsel to the contrary she brought the iPod into the Jeep.

We were cruising down the rocks and sand and I decided it would be fun to splash into the shallow water.  As we hit the water it splashed high all around us and covered the windshield, I couldn’t see a thing!  But my hands couldn’t find the wiper controls quickly so I didn’t see the larger rocks coming.

The rocks we had been driving on ranged in size from sand to golf balls, like you can see in the picture above, but the rocks we found ourselves on after the soaking were probably more like melon or canteloupe-sized.  They didn’t break anything but they were a surprise!

We continued on a little ways down the river then turned back, we had places to be.

First thing we did when we got into the park area was find the Mystic Forest RV Park and get the RV settled so we could take the Jeep out and about.  Pretty close to where we were staying was the Trees of Mystery park, where they have huge statues of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe, trails through the woods to see amazing trees, plus a gondola that takes you high above it all.  Oh, and Paul Bunyon talks.

The Brotherhood Tree is one of the most impressive trees in the park, it is 19 feet in diameter and 297 feet tall.  It is incredible to look up and see that its diameter remains nearly the same.  This isn’t just a tree trunk, this is the tree trunk.

The picture to the right is of just the tree, click here to see Jessie and Sarah Michael standing in front of it.

There were lots of other amazing trees to see as well, the Elephant Tree, the Cathedral Tree, the Candleabra Tree, the Lightning Tree, and many more.

The gondola ride was fun, but it was cloudy up above the trees so  we couldn’t see anything once we got up top.  If it were a clear sunny day the view would be amazing.

After the Trees of Mystery we went and drove through the Tour Thru Tree.  And it was only $4 to drive through it!  Compared to the other tours we’ve been doing, this is a steal.

Next we went and found the Corkscrew Tree, south of our campsite.  We didn’t know what it was going to look like, though we figured twisting was involved, but it was cooler than I would have thought.  The tree is huge and it is very hard to capture in a photo what the thing is all about.  You need to see it to appreciate it.  In my opinion of course.

We keep seeing signs warning of Elk that could be on the road but to Jessie’s disappointment we also keep not seeing any Elk.  On the way out of the park Jessie finally got her Elk wish.  There were only two of them, but it was fun to see some wildlife.

The Redwoods were neat, better than I expected.  Thank you Mr. Bunyon!