Yosemite

Instead of spending the night in San Francisco like we'd planned, we decided a rest area was far more appealing. So an hour or so outside Yosemite, we pulled in and selecteds a parking spot farthest from the lights of the building, next to several other cars with other people already asleep in them. After finishing our nightly wash-up routine (which usually consists of opening and closing every door and the trunk several times regardless of how well we packed and organized everything that morning), we settled down to sleep. I locked the car, then promptly dropped my phone beside the seat. So I opened the door to retrieve it, setting the alarm off, and causing everyone to wake up and glare at us as I waved and said, "sorrysorrysorrysorry" as the alarm is still sounding because I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW TO TURN IT OFF.

Ang made us get up at 6:30 after we had fallen asleep at 3, so I was kinda cranky and refused to relinquish my blanket and yelled at her. She tried to take my blanket away, and I screamed until she was embarrassed to be associated with me.

NOH. MAH BLANKET. YOU CAN NOT HAS.

She cajoled me into getting out of the car by promising to give me quarters to get delicious, delicious coffee from the cappuccino vending machine thing that we find at all the Chevrons and drool over. She lied to me, because it tasted like butt.

Our route took us through Modesto, where they had - drumroll please - a SONIC! After figuring out that we have to pull into one of the little stalls, we took some more time before deciding we had to press the large red "PRESS HERE TO ORDER" button. What to order, though?

Me:  ::gasp:: I want chili cheesy tots! Can I have chili cheesy tots?!
Ang: No. NO. I will NOT be in the car with you after that trainwreck.
Me: ::roaring out the window:: I WANT CHILI CHEESY TOTS! I WANT CHILI CHEESY TOTS NOW!!
Ang: FUCK. NO.
Me: FINE. I guess for my first time at Sonic I won't get chili cheesy tots and I'll probably not be able to get them ever. But that's fine. That's cool. Don't worry about it. ::sniff, sniff::
Ang: ::sigh:: Okay. Okay. You can have your damn chili cheesy tots.
Me: I WIN! I want jalapeño poppers and chicken, too.
Ang: I hate you.

We press the big red button and can't figure out if we're supposed to press and hold the button, so we just mashed it several times until someone responded, and told us it would be about a 15 minute wait because they just opened. I don't care, I want my chili cheesy tots, and I'm never going anywhere until I get them. We sit there for 30 minutes having conversations that will send us to hell and picking our noses next to the speaker, but they'll never see us again, so it doesn't matter.

Finally, the guy comes out and apologizes for the wait being twice what he told us, and so the food is all free. You know what's better than chili cheesy tots?

FREE CHILI CHEESY TOTS!

They were a work of art. Perfectly crunchy outside, deliciously melty inside with hot chili poured on top and a generous coating of cheesy goodness. It was a religious experience that I will cherish forever. I ate one of the jalapeño poppers and didn't even touch the chicken because I gobbled down every last tot, perhaps moaning in between, as Ang cried for her future olfactory senses.

Dammit, now I want chili cheesy tots. Wasn't this post supposed to be about Yosemite?

The night before we were going to do Yosemite and Death Valley, we took out the map and seriously contemplated skipping them both just to get out of California as soon as possible. We eventually decided that we would probably end up regretting that decision because a lot of locals said how much they love it and it is their favorite place, so to compromise I pretended Yosemite was in North Dakota. As we started the drive up the tiny windy road and the thousands of feet in elevation ticked off rapidly, we were surprised to happen across a school bus crossing sign some 9000 feet up in elevation. WTF, a school bus?

This...

After all this. Now, I understand that this picture can't convey the full scope of wending your way up the side of the mountain. Just go with it.

At the top of a mountain? Oh, hey, a town! Wow, this is a really nice town. We drove through a little town at the top of the mountain and it was hopping and not at all the sketchy tourist trap hole in the wall that we were used to in past backroad adventures. We regret not stopping, but we had to somehow fit Yosemite, Death Valley, and arriving in Las Vegas all in one day, so we had to step on it.

We decided at the beginning of Yosemite that the trees were better than in Yellowstone. The first bit of road in Yosemite wasn't much to look at, as all the trees were dead and burned, but as we rounded the corner at the first view of the halfdome it was fairly breathtaking. We pulled over to give our brakes a cool-off, because at this point the brakes had started to shudder when we went down mountains. We took a little trail, and wandered through until we found this hidden little part of a cliff to sit on.

It turns out that Ang is must more interested in national parks when they involve lots of big rocks. She was sitting there working on organizing pictures on the laptop or something, and then looked up and got mad I didn't tell her there were rocks. So, Yosemite delivered quite spectacularly in that regard. We were also surprised at how short the drive around the valley was - I guess most of the park is trails, because we went on the main loop of the valley floor and then all of a sudden it was over. We also sort of missed all the turn-offs. Oops. And spent waaay too long at the village in the center, but they had all sorts of shops and an Ansel Adams gallery. I honestly can't remember much about it, so here's what Ang said when I asked her what she remembered:

It had better trees than Yellowstone. It was lots of rocks. Yay, rocks. It sucked to get up there, cute little town that threw us off, sucked to get down, but we had to get down because we had to go to Death Valley. And there were animals? I don't remember a thing about Yosemite. We spent more time in the gift shops. Oh! We climbed out to that ledge, and got awesome shots, and chilled for a little while. We're the worst tourists in the world. Oh, and gas was $5.00 a gallon.

Yeah. It was beautiful, but it was kinda boring. Here's some rock pictures so you can agree with me:

Tree covered rocks!

Rocks under trees!

Short trees big rock!

Rock mountain tall trees!

Tree grass tree mountain!

Mountain mountain tree... water?

OMG! WATER!

On a side note, we had stopped at the entrance of Yosemite to use the restroom, and it made us really, really miss Steve from Sugarloaf. Yosemite, you need to hire a Steve:

This was not the only stall that looked like this. ALL of them had a shitload (ha, get it?) of toilet paper.

On another (somewhat related) side note, it turns out it was a good thing we didn't really stick around, as I was warned soon after by two different people about a hantavirus outbreak. We didn't lick the floors, so there's that.

As we left Yosemite, we came across what I think were the mammoth lakes. They didn't even look real. They were deep, deep blue with white sand formations around and in them.

There were also lines of huge rocky mountains on either side of us as we drove toward Death Valley.

We stopped into a little town for gas, and I saw a postcard for the Sierra Nevadas.

Me: "Sierra Nevadas? Is that where we are?
Lady: "Uh....yes. You're in the Sierra Nevadas."
Ang: "OH MY GOD WE'RE IN NEVADA?!"

These may or may not be the Sierra Nevadas.

She was devastated. Anyway, we left, and began the trek through the desert. We were really looking forward to some desert after the mountains, so once we started seeing some scrubby little pineapple things we think are Joshua trees, we flipped out. Then, Ang started taking pictures of piles of dirt. Then she took a picture of a different pile of dirt because it was darker. As she was doing this, she realized that all the pulloffs on the side of the road were leading up to Joshua trees. We took one of the little roads, and sure enough, it just drove up to a Joshua tree. I may or may not have tapped one when I thought the car was in reverse instead of drive.

Waaaay better than that pile of rocks a mile back.

We soon realized we had no idea why we were so excited for the desert. It's a bunch of dirt and scrub bushes. Apparently this is "high desert" so we don't even get any sand. Or cacti! :(

Yup.