An Epic Journey, A Modern Quest Part 2

We woke up around dinnertime. If you didn’t know this about me already, you should: I really only take 3 hour naps. And it seems as though it’s rubbed off on Megan. ☺ We awoke rested and rejuvenated, but, unfortunately, it was STILL raining. We went and got dinner at the cafeteria style dining where we recalled events of the day and laughed heartily. Being in Yosemite was refreshing and allowed each of us to truly relax and just enjoy life as it was happening around us. A woman at the table next to us commented: “It’s so nice to hear such joyous laughter!” Did she mean my hyena laugh? Sweet. From there we went to the Ahwahnee Hotel, which is where Megan worked the summer that she stayed at Yosemite. This is one classy hotel. Actually, the juxtaposition it is extremely bizarre to me, this luxurious hotel ($450/room/night minimum) is situated in the valley amidst camping areas and hiking trails and our little tent cabins. Regardless, it was a cool place. The dining room looks like the one at Hogwarts. We ended up in the bar listening to live piano with a glass of port and a slice of cheesecake. That is The Life. Interestingly, when the pianist took a break he came up to chat with us—Megan was wearing a UGA Ultimate hoodie that I sold her (to raise money for my team) and this guy actually had attended school in Atlanta. He ended up chatting it up with us for a little while and talking all about how this was the best poppy season in years, and that we should be sure to take a gander at them on our way home. He loved that we were from San Francisco. On his days off, he usually drives to the city (a mere 4 hours…). Nearing the end of our drinks and dessert we heard rumors of a weather change: snow in the morning in the valley. The last thing we wanted was to be stuck there and miss work on Monday—that happened on our trip to Atlanta just a few weeks ago! The report said snow would fall in the valley around 11 am Sunday morning—though the concierge seemed a little skeptical about the report, he thought that it would fall sooner. We left the hotel and realized that the temperature had dropped significantly, and, not to worry, it was STILL raining. At this point it was dark. Megan and I briefly entertained the idea of driving home that evening, but then realized that would be more ridiculous and more dangerous. So we played a round of cribbage—no skunking! And then we fell asleep.

I awoke confused around 4 am. I could not figure out why I had woken up. I lay there for a few minutes, and then I heard an odd sound: no loud rain drops, instead soft ones—hardly raindrops at all! Then I heard the sound that must have caught my attention despite my sleeping: a loud sliding sound from our canvas roof down the side of the canvas walls. Megan awoke. I realized that it must be snow! I announced my revelation, and together we layered ourselves and cautiously opened the door. At 4 am, everything was already dusted in 2-3 inches of snow. Megan groaned with disappointment (she feared getting home) while I laughed with glee! I love snow!!! We decided to venture to the bathroom, potentially the other reason that we both awoke. It was gorgeous; the snow was still coming down full force. We had planned to get up early to miss the mini blizzard, but clearly that was no longer possible. I turned off my alarm and we settled back into our sleeping bags comfortably. Around 9 am people around us started stirring. I was so anxious to see how much snow had fallen; Megan was anxious as well, but in an entirely different way. I opened the door to discover a good 4-5 inches on our stairs, and we were under tree cover. A good 6-8 inches had probably fallen! In the bathroom, I managed to wash my hairs and dry my face, but Megan had already sprinted (so it seemed) back to the tent to begin packing up. By the time I got there, she was headed out the door to investigate the car. I packed up most of the rest of our things and ventured to the car. I got there and found that my car had a high and tight haircut, but Megan was nowhere to be found. So, I took out my camera and started enjoying the scene. The snow was coming down full-force. I got my camera out just in time as Megan came back with the last load from the tent.






She didn’t even consider breakfast as we headed for the park entrance. I made her slow down for a few shots though. I have several more pictures that I took with my SLR, but I have yet to get those developed. As we approached the park exit, we saw a ranger vehicle, and we saw the sign: “Chains Required or Snow Tires and 4-Wheel drive OK”. We rolled down the window and he explained that we would have to go back to the “garage” to buy chains and have them installed before we would be allowed to leave. I loved the excitement of it all. Plus, Megan had rushed and not allowed me to enjoy the snow as much as I wanted, but now there was little excuse—we weren’t going to get anywhere fast. There was a line to buy chains. $70 later, we decided to skip the installation and get some breakfast—we were both getting grumpy from a lack of food. Not to worry! Yosemite comes through again with some amazing Velvetta croissant sandwich thingies that nearly cause Megan to barf. It’s been such a lovely morning for her…

We finished up and headed back to the garage to get the chains installed on my tires. Unfortunately, the line was long—and extremely slow moving. Here is a little video I took as we were waiting.
Clearly, it was snowing still. However, the longer we waited, the more the sky was clearing! This was great for my picture taking and the ability to see how gorgeous Yosemite could be! As the last car in line for the installation process, we finally got into the garage. They hiked up the car and then closed the garage door behind my car—this made the very clear statement that was being echoed by the clear sky: no more chains would be necessary in order to drive out of the park. Grr…luckily (maybe this isn’t really the right term) we had another problem: my car smelled like gasoline. It was bad. Anytime you turned on the ventilation system (to, you know, defrost the windshield) it stunk! While waiting in line we had determined that it was better to be cold than to inhale those fumes. Bummer. They popped the hood and poked around a little bit, but nothing could be found EXCEPT: a multitude of ants. They are potentially the reason that Megan and I have been discovering little bites on our bodies lately—Side note: Megan and I have been continually waking up with bug bites. At first we thought it was her bed. So we stayed at my place for a couple days in a row, then we thought it was my place. We cleaned. We itched. I realized that I had been finding like one token ant each time I got in my car, but there was by no means any sort of cause for alarm. I mean, I would kill the token one each time so as to reduce the gross factor, but I didn’t notice an infestation. The likelihood that one ant each car ride was managing to bite each of us multiple times on some regular basis is absurd. Or it seemed absurd until this guy popped the hood. Ants were swarming on my battery and on the vents. The good car owner that I am, I closed the hood and haven’t actually thought of it much again since. Well, until yesterday when I got back from driving myself home from the train station: there was an ant on my hand. He had managed to hang on to me for a good while, so it seems that we may have discovered the source of the bites. Back to the story at hand: we shut the hood and vibrated down the street with our new chains. We made it to the park entrance/exit where there was no longer a park ranger, of course. Then we headed down out of the park. After about 3 bumpy miles, we stopped and took the unnecessary chains off. I guess it’s kind of nice that I have them now that we are heading into summer…

The drive home was pretty, though it was longer than either of us wanted it to be. Unfortunately, it was raining a little so the poppies were not out in full force.

All in all, I loved my inaugural Yosemite trip. There are many more adventures to come!