Day 29: Sequoia National Park to Santa Clara
My pride gets the better of me. I am going to sleep like a damn Alaskan, in my tent that I so carefully set up. This actually ends up going pretty well. I sleep as well as I possibly can. I never sleep awesome in a sleeping bag since I don’t move when I am sleeping in it. I hear people up talking, coming, and going up until 4 am. Someone actually pulls into camp at 4. Weird. However, all night there was no wind and no bears.
Anyway, I wake up around 7 to the sun shining into my tent. I wander to the bathroom, brush my teeth, put in my contacts, and brush my hair. Ugh, my hair is gross. I run back to my truck and put my hat on. It does not come off until I get into the shower, hours later. I start the laborious process of shoving everything into bags that is just barely big enough to fit it. It is harder than normal to do since it is pretty cold and my hands are slightly frozen. I do a better job folding up my tent than last time. The lack of wind helps a lot. I actually do a really good job of folding up my tent. I pull everything out of the bear box and load it up into my truck. I set out to explore the forest.
The highway that would take me to all of the main sights and out of the forest is closed half way for winter. I end up driving into the forest and then back out the same way I came. I drive along a winding switchback road with steep drop offs and little guard rail. I see no Giant Sequoias. I hit a construction area: One lane road ahead, stop at red light and wait. I stop at the light and kill the engine. I wait for about 15 minutes before the light changes and I continue up the road. It is one lane with construction equipment and concrete barricades on one side and steep rock walls on another. There are switchback areas with inches to spare between the jutting rock face and the concrete barriers. I make it through safely and find the giant Sequoia grove. These trees are massive!
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| Super fun driving!!!! |
I drive for a while, admiring the trees. It is not quite what I was expecting. I was expecting a forest of nothing but sequoia trees. Instead, there are all kinds of trees with a few giant sequoias scattered about. I keep driving until I reach my goal: the General Sherman tree. This tree is the largest living thing on earth by volume. It is an impressive sight to behold. The pictures really don’t do it any justice at all. I had planned to leave part of my letter at the tree but I left it in the car and it is a quarter mile walk from the parking lot to the tree. This would not usually stop me but I am at an elevation of about 5000 feet and it is below freezing. It is cold. I will find another giant Sequoia.
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| Meh, doesn't look that big. Only 36 feet in diameter!!! |
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| Does this make it look bigger!?!? |
I start on my way back down the highway. I stop by a couple of trees that are near the road. I try to take a picture of T Rex by the trees to show just how big they are. It is hard to get an accurate picture due to where I had to park. The perspective ends up being a little off. Oh well!
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| Ok, now that is a big tree! |
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| The truck is even with the tree in this picture. This was a smaller tree though.... |
As I am leaving the Park, I turn on my GPS and set my destination for Santa Clara. My GPS gives me an estimated arrival time of about 1:00. My friend has a rehearsal until 2. I need to stall. I head down the road and stop at a McDonalds to get some food and update my blog. The McDonalds is packed. It seems to be a pretty small town and everyone seems to know everyone else. I feel as though I am getting dirty looks for not belonging. I take my food and laptop to a corner, eat, and start uploading my post. I spend about an hour getting the pictures uploaded and ready; the connection is kind of slow. I upload some pictures of my trip to Facebook while I am at it. Gotta stay connected. Yay for social media.
When I get back to truck, my ETA is about 3. Perfect. I hit the road. About 50 miles later, I totally miss my turn. No GPS, you need to work harder. You know I do not follow directions well, right. It faithfully recalculates a new route for me. I keep going and am met with some horrible driving. In the next few hours, I get cutoff half a dozen times. I also experience more of the people who think the left lane is for slowly cruising in. Hello, if the person behind you is riding your ass and everyone is passing you on your right, get the hell out of the lane!!! I finally arrive in Santa Clara a little after 3. I call Ellie and tell her I have arrived. I find a parking place and sit in my truck until she comes to find me. I think I see her walk by and text her: “I see you”. She calls me, confused. Apparently, it was not her I saw. Oh well. We get it figured out and find each other.
I grab my stuff and we walk to her dorm. I put my stuff down and immediately request a shower. My request is granted and I take the best shower of my life. After I am clean, we hang out for a while. It is nice to see someone I know! Then it is dinner time. Someone had made dinner in the dorm kitchen and stopped at the room to invite her. We head over and I stand around awkwardly and grab some food. I don’t know anyone and have no idea what to do where to get a plate or silverware. Some magically appears in my hand. It is Middle Eastern. Not bad and quite interesting. Ellie does not like Middle Eastern so when I am done we wander off. I get a sweet tour of the campus which ends at the cafeteria area. I end up with some dark chocolate covered almonds. She gets some dinner and we sit down at a table. We talk about my brother/her boyfriend. It is amusing.
We head back to the room and I introduce her to the game scramble on the iPhone. We play a few rounds. I am horrible at it. She is still learning so I might be able to beat her once or twice before she catches on too well. It is then time for the dorm girls to watch a chick flick! We head a to a room with a TV and watch What’s Your Number? (With an incredibly attractive male lead) It is a good movie. I did not have the entire plot figured out at the beginning of the movie. It actually took me to about ¼ into it. Wow.
Anyway, I am now chillin’ out. I think I am sleeping in some random person’s bed who is gone for the night. Sweet!
Day 30: Santa Clara
I end up sleeping in a random person’s room. Well, not completely random, Ellie knows her, but I have met her once. And have not met her roommate at all. It works out great for me. The street below is full of parties is kind of loud but I am good at ignoring noise and sleeping. As long as I am not camping and trying to stay half aware of any potential danger… Sleeping when I am inside is a whole different story. I wake up and am feeling quite refreshed. I wander out of the room and back to Ellie’s room. She and her roommate are already awake. Excellent. I am not going to wake them up. Her roommate goes to the freezer. The night before she had tried to freeze some yogurt. It didn’t go well. However, this morning, it is frozen. She is really excited about the frozen yogurt. We are all impressed by the frozen yogurt, which is super delicious and tastes like ice cream. (from what I hear)
Ellie and I then get ready to go to the beach. We head to the T Rex and drive the 27 miles to the beach. About half way there, my speedometer stops working right. It is jumping all over and reading 20 to 30 mph low. I know this because my GPS also reads my speed to me. Shit, this is going to be a pain in the ass driving. I can’t use the cruise control with the speedo all fucked up. Also, anything wrong on my truck causes me distress. Anyway, we make it to the beach and I do a sweet parallel parking job. I’ve done better but this isn’t too bad. Ellie is impressed with my mad parking skills. While I am changing into my flip flops, she checks out the parking meter situation. Even though it is Sunday, I still have to pay. Dollar coins and quarters only. I put in some quarters and then a dollar coin. The dollar doesn’t register. WTF parking meter?!?! I end up just leaving it with an hour of time on it and risking a ticket. I am out of quarters.
We head to the beach and pick a spot. Time to lay in the sun! This entertains me for a little while. I then decide that I need to make a sand castle. I find a nice spot with the correct moisture conditions for sand castle making and start building. I make a little castle, a wall, a moat, and a bridge. The bridge has an actual arch going under it. It is not that impressive, with the exception of the real arch that I made out of sand. I decide I am happy with my sand castle and take pictures. I wander back to Ellie and try the laying in the sun thing again. After a little while I suggest a walk. We ask the people next to us to watch our stuff and wander down the beach. It is nice and pretty. The water is a little on the cold side. We find lots of cool things in the sand.
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| Ohhh yeah! |
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| My creation |
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| Horseshoe crab shell |
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| An unfortunate starfish |
By the time we are done walking, it is about 2. Since the Patriots are playing, we have to watch it. Therefore, we decide to head back. We get to the boardwalk and I don’t want to put my shoes on since I hate sand in my shoes with a passion. We walk along for a bit and I notice my foot feels weird. I look at the bottom and there is a grey thing on it. Ewww. I must have stepped in gum. Or bird shit. Or something else gross. I thought I was watching where I was going. I run back into the sand and try to scrape it off. It doesn’t work. I examine the bottom of my foot. Turns out, it is a blister from my boots that is now full of sand. Awesome. This poses a whole different set of problems. At least I did not step in something gross. I put my flip flops back on and walk to the truck. We drive back with my dysfunctional speedometer laughing at me.
I park on the street and Ellie heads to the store to get some flashcards. I have an idea of what might be wrong with my speedo so I decide to check it out. I pull apart the dash of my truck. I reach around to the back of the instrument cluster. Bingo, the speedometer cable is loose. I push it back in tighter. Hopefully that will fix it. I head back to the dorm and spend a while trying to wash the sand out of my blister. I am finally successful. I finish just in time to find a chair in the common area to watch the start of the Super Bowl.
I spend most of the super bowl playing scramble with Ellie and uploading pictures onto my Facebook. I think I have gotten her addicted to that game. At one point during the game, someone asks the room if anyone wants to go get pie. I think that is an interesting request and kind of random. Then I realize that I can’t hear. High. If anyone wants to get high. Big difference. I text Ellie what I thought I heard. Ha. I run out of coins in my scramble game so I can’t keep playing scramble. I have to wait for a while. Oh well. I watch the end of the game intently. It was an action packed ending. Sadly it was not favorable to my team. Oh well. Next time!
The cafeteria closes soon so we decide to get dinner. We see Ellie’s roommate and wave. She is deep in conversation with a guy. We end up having some fajitas. Not the best ever but not bad at all. We both used to figure skate. Some of her old skating friends are in Nationals so we head back to the room and watch friends skate on YouTube. One of them skates to Pirates of the Caribbean. We end up listening to the POTC soundtrack because it is awesome. Her roommate comes back and tells us about her adventure with the boy we saw her with. She then pulls out another frozen yogurt, which is just as exciting as the one this morning from what I can tell. “It’s too cold,” she complains. Ha, I guess that’s what freezers do! Anyway, I might need to try this at some point. Time to go play another round of scramble…. Around 11 I wander off to another room to sleep.
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| See how the bridge is actually a real bridge???? :D |
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