This weekend B and I went to Yosemite. It's about 4.5 hours from SC via a whole mess of highways that cut through the south and east bay. We realized on returning today that it's almost a straight shot across California west - east; you start at the Pacific Ocean (four blocks from our apartment) and end up within spitting distance of Nevada (imagine a gross spitting noise at this point in the paragraph.)Yosemite was very nice. The weather, while banal and stupid in the context of civilization, was welcome in the context of big rocks and meadows - 70 degrees and sunny the whole time. We stayed at the Yosemite Lodge, which has not had updated decor since c. 1988, and got to see all of the essential pretty stuff the park is known for. We also added to our collection of funny cheesy magnets from tourist sites: "Speeding Kills Bears."
I have only two points to make. First, it was nice not being in SC during Halloween, a holiday normally celebrated here by a flurry of stabbings three blocks from our apartment. This time, the cops cleverly spent the evening literally annoying gang members all night (this strikes me as brilliant policing strategy; I would help shut down the local ACLU if it meant the cops could spend every day doing this.) Second, I got kind of choked-up and nostalgic on arriving in the park and seeing how beautiful the Merced River is. I hate that I never get to spend any time in actual natural settings living in California. Nature here is just squared-off little blocks of scrub surrounded on all sides by concrete. I miss the real stuff.
2 comments:
1. I spent 5 hours writing a proposal halloween night while listening to the freakin' helicopter circling SC.
2. No nature?! Ok look dude, there are plenty of really awesome little places right off Henry Cowell redwoods where you can skip rocks on streams and walk under huge redwood trees and see changed leaves. In Nisene Marks you get to see the places where earthquakes moved the land and 300 FT redwoods. And I ran over 2 hours the other day entirely on redwood forest trails. It may not get as much rain, but I don't see what you're complaining about?
P.S. My views may be skewed considering I spent much time in Paris, Taipei, and Washington, DC suburban hell.
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