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July 4, 2016
The Bird in the Bush: Day 2 - Monday(7/4) - June Lake, CA to SF, CA
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in North Beach, San Francisco, CA.
So, this morning, I got up and left my room at June Lake. Now, for the record, June Lake is insanely beautiful, and to think that I'd never even been there before disturbs me on so many levels there just aren't words. Not only had I never been there before, but I'd never even heard of the place. But it's spectacular, of course.
So, in any event, I get up this morning with the idea that I'll try to bolt out of here and make it into SF before the fireworks show tonight.
But I'm having a hard time with the timezone change. You wouldn't think that just gaining one hour would be so confusing, but nothing updated automatically. Not my phone. Not my laptop. Not my cameras. Not my Garmin. Not my KTM. So, everything has to be updated manually, and I'm so stupid that I can't figure out whether to add an hour or delete one.
So, finally, I blow out of June Lake. Stop off at the little store there in Lee Vining and get me some gatorade, some snacks for the road, and a YNP sticker for the bike. Like...let's not forget that, right?
I drive into the east entrance of Yellowstone at Lee Vining, and now I'm rolling through Yosemite park, and it's just stunning. Like...I forgot how beautiful this place is. And I'm stopping to shoot too much, and not making very good time. And eventually, I come to a little visitor center, but I don't really recognize it, so I stop in. And it's the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center. And it says the other visitor center is something insane like 50 miles away. Like...I'd totally forgotten how large this silly park is.
So, I'm racing across the park going well above the posted speed limit. I'm not really clear why, but it appears to me that all of the redwoods in Yosemite are dying. Not clear why that is really. I remember I figured out a while back that they'd accidentally burned a large portion of Yosemite. But now, it looks like it's all dying.
Then, eventually, I come to the exit and take Highway 120 west from Yosemite. I really don't know what route I took to get to SF, because I couldn't get my Garmin Montana to navigate to the SF that was nearest me, of course.
It's hot as hell driving across the central valley, and I stop at a couple of roadside stands to eat peaches, which are delicious. I only get one, because I can't carry them, so they usually just let me eat for free.
In SF, Mark and Lara cook me dinner and put me up for the night. We go up to the roof to watch the fireworks, but it's cold and foggy, so you can't really see the fireworks really.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 4, 2016 at 9:58 PM
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