Road Trip @ MindSay 
vacation
OK so I want to take a road trip, but like everyone else I am virtually on empty, so I figured why not take a trip here and visit all of my friends and who knows in a world this small meet friends that know my friends. I’m starting out with just the essentials sandwiches, chips, juice and fruit. Nina Simone is sprawled across the front seat just barely touching the armrest and Smokey has claimed the back. There’s a lot more that I need, but with two bears and a small car I'm limited; so Ill take whatever supplies your willing to share or simply want to unload (be nice I cant take all of you junk) food, tunes, a hug here or two, maybe a open door to stay the night or information on detours ahead.
By the way I’m trying to get to Mississippi starting out on 100.00. Don't laugh that’s why it called a road trip, it’ll be fun.
Oregon is abit strange in that you can't pump your own gas. I had a bad experience the first night driving up. Around midnight I we stopped at the shell gas station, and this half drunk lady went to my car and was leaning against it. dang. that's a no no. she couldn't figure out how to open the gas door on my car, so I just went and put the credit card in the station, then she got all rude and told I was doing her job and left. Wow. anyways, I just sat in car the next time I fill up if ever. on the way down I tried to gas up in washington right at the border so I would avoid oregon all together but that didn't work, because of the mountain roads I didn't want to chance being without gas. At the oregon / California borders we can see alot of smoke in over the mountains. Just entering California we drove thru 3 small but still live fires and saw firefighters busy at work. Kind of scary as we were not sure if the roads ahead of us where to be closed or open. It's nice to be back home after the 2 week road trip. We arived at home at 11:55pm friday night. Over all we drove 3568miles and my bmw 323i averaged 32.6 miles per gallon. The highest price gas was Canada, beating California by a bit Can't say exactly because of the exchange rate but it was over 5 bucks for premium.
and truth is I could drop without notice from a million other things *sheesh*. BP medicine is as far as I care to go (other than keeping my wieght 'in check') to try and control my health. As the years go by the more I see that our health, no matter what the doctors and snake oil salesmen tell us, is NOT in our hands.
This is a longer than usual post with photos and three 2-3 minute videos, sit down and take a load off! I am!
To dwell further if only for clarification, my injury appears to be to the heel, not the ankle and though it is fine one day, it is painful the next - today it is fine and my schedule to go explore Carlsbad is still on. A heel bruise, it is called. The brown bruise is where the heel has mashed the fatty layer undeneath it causing it to
'mush out' (bonified medical term!) to the sides of the heel leaving the base unsupported and unprotected.
Cushey shoes is the prescription. Too much in and out of the car and more hiking than I am used to is my guess.
One reason why I bring that back up, is that when I left Carson City Tuesday morning, my foot seemed to have gotten worse after a day of recovery. I was limited in what I could do and basically if a photo couldn't be had from the car, or near to it, then I would be unable to get it. This became painfully clear when I entered Yosemite. Yosemite is a park for hiking. Gorgeous scenery at every turn, more lakes, ponds, streams, mountain vistas, cliffs, and pines than you could ever get tired of photographing. But most are postcard icons we are all familiar with which made this one incident even more difficult. I passed a pond, crystal clear, reflecting surrounding pines, and the dozen or so perfectly rounded boulders sitting in it. Clear water with all the plants and rock under the surface perfectly visible. No place to park.
I used a turnout a 1/4 mile farther down the road and grabbed my camera - a short hike is often how I snag some of my photos though I rarely hike for long distances. After not more than 100yards of trying to walk on the pine needle-soft / rock-littered shoulder of the narrow road, I could take it no more. Every third step, even trying to keep off my heel, resulted in my ankle turning, my heel going down, and stabs of pain. I gave up and hobbled slowly back to the car (fwiw, today I'm fine and having difficulty NOT walking on my tiptoes, I can put my heel down fine). For the rest of the day I obsessed on how car-unfriendly Yosemite is. There are few signs letting drivers know where good turnouts are located. Often they come up at the exact moment some spectacular viewpoint also becomes apparent to the driver. Traffic is heavy and I'm not about to stab my brakes and risk an accident just to pull over suddenly for a picture. Some views which certainly should have been clearly identified, were ignored. Where does one find an unobstructed view of El Capitan?
Half Dome? Only to Bridal Veil Falls did I see a specific sign for a specific parking area. Because of the size of the place and traffic, I chose to not go to the visitors center, maybe THAT is the only place for a good view? Years ago I was here but I went to Glacier Point and saw the Dome and Upper and Lower Falls from a great high vantage point. Tuesday my shots came from the sunroof as I passed a break in the trees - oh well.
So here goes this short week and a long post :
Entering Yosemite
Yosemite Valley :
The gap in the trees to the left of the photo is a road that winds through several tunnels leading down to Yosemite Village and that is where I was traveling as I shot this short video:
Bridal Veil Falls (seen in the distance above)
El Capitan
Half Dome :
So I left Yosemite and headed south to the Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks. Kings canyon is the northern part of the region and the road goes into the canyon and deadends - having been there before, I looped north in Sequoia and took this photo looking farther north at the low road heading into Kings Canyon:
After some great driving through redwoods which I documented with an hour or so of 8mm video, I got to my campground at Lodgepole - by far the nicest camp I've been to, my reserved site was along the river, my name posted on the side of the ranger station confirming my reservation, and the other campers friendly and not the wild bunch of families that I had worried about, LOL! Hell, the noisiest neighbor I had was the river! That is the video under the photo :
2 minutes of park 'silence' :
The next morning was out of the park through the giant redwoods, again, pretty iconic images, so I didn't spend time photographing and with my heel, I didn't hike over to see the granddaddy of them all, the General Sherman Tree. Again, I did catch another 40 minutes or so of road video making the hairpin curves leading down and out of the National Park. The radio piped up with a catchy tune so I grabbed a ouple of minutes of the switchbacks heading south through the pines :
Then it was farther south and back east crossing the souther part of both the Sequoia National Forest and the Sierra Nevadas - a new drive for me! The first half was a great meandering trail up past the Tule River and aquaduct - I passed one guy, the luckiest? trucker in the States - at least the one with the best scenery every day! A Sysco driver bringing restaurants and lodges supplies. I'd hate it in bad weather, and even in good, I guess the number of gear shifts and manuvering around tight u-turns must get old.
The second half of the trip was over Shermans Peak and down the eastern slopes toward Death Valley. An apparent bad forest fire cleaned out a lot of pines and redwoods but regrowth was pretty stong. The Kern River flows in this area and here a small falls that I think is one of its tributaries :
THE DEVIL'S FLOWERS !!!
Now, now. You won't find that in your gardening books, Sal! So named by MOI, cause it came up as picture 666 when uploaded to the computer this afternoon, LOL!
Still in the canyon lands south of the peak pwetty wittle fwowers gwow! (the DEVIL I TELL YOU!)
Once out of the Sierras it was north on US 395 a few mils before cutting past the China Lake Naval weapons center and going over to Death Valley. I mention that because we know how young guys in the military are. They drive like fools. So I shouldn't been surprised as I cruised at the legal 65 mph when I was passed by someone doing at least, um, eh, well, lets say . . . FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY MILES PER HOUR !
A foreign passerby asked me what the hell that was and gave some jet identification as a guess. I'm clueless as I don't know military hardware - but a glimpse on-line makes me think my blurry little speedster was an F-22 Raptor.
He passed me low and from behind, went a mile or so ahead of me just beyond the mountain ridge to our left, and then his wings went verticle for a moment before he made the tightest right turn at the end of the mountain that I have ever seen and disappeared out of view! By the time I made it around I was looking for a place to pull over to see if he looped around and did it again, or came back on the same course. Before I could stop, he came screaming up out of a canyon from the desert floor (out of view to the right in the picture above and seen in the picture below).
I did park and busy myself with little chores hoping he would return so I could get a clear shot, but he was done. There was a chopper that I had been hearing and it eventually came towards the same canyon the jet had come out of. I used my video camera to capture it and it took me a minute to realize the helicopter has a guy dangling from a rescue rope as it slowly moved out of view! Sorry I don't have a way to transfer that shot to my digital! I eventually got to Death Valley, most of which I have seen before - but the number of different rock beds and their colors is always amazing. Here is a shot of the sand dunes from what used to be the bottom of an inland sea :
I made my way out of the southern end of the park and past Pahrump, Nevada, the home to the infamous
"Chicken Ranch Brothel". Why just today MSNBC did a report on those poor girls hurting in this economy!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25159647#25140740
Shame on you George W Bush, if you had direct deposited my $600 economic recovery check like you promised, I could have helped a girl (or two, LOL!).
Finally it was over the last bit of mountains and into VEGAS, BABY!
A few weeks ago I tossed around the idea of a road trip to NC for next week. It will be Spring break here. Today I just realized I have not seen my Mom since my Dad died 2 years ago. She has never even met my youngest child. For the past year I have kept in mind that my Mom was going to sell her house and move in with us, so it didn't cross my mind too much to go down there and visit. I've called the kennel and reserved space for my dogs. I can call and cancel at any time. Right now I'm waiting to hear back from my husband what he thinks about this idea. He won't care if I go or not. I just want his opinion.
Boarding the dogs will cost $341 for 11 nights. They are also both due for kennel cough, distemper, and fecal checks. I wasn't going to pay for the fecal and distemper until I had them groomed in a couple months. The good thing is that they will each get a free bath before they come back home. These dogs are filthy, and sooooo need a bath! It's about a 15 hour drive, so that will most likely mean a stop in a hotel each way. The halfway point is around DC. My bestfriend lives in DC, but she is also in NC visiting her parents, and getting a new dog. I might save the money and stay at her place on the way back up because she is going home before me.
I'm still undecided about this trip. It would mean all that way with 4 kids, and none of them are old enough to stay alone in the car. At least I don't think so. My oldest will be 9 tomorrow, so I think by law, she is too young to be with the other 3 even long enough for me to go in somewhere and pee. I have gone to a Quick Stop to get milk and left them all in the car, parked right out front where I can see, with the doors locked, and car running. They all know to stay in their seats and always do. The little guys haven't figured out how to unbuckle their carseats yet. I've called and reserved the kennel space. Now I have a ton of laundry, and packing to do. Plus the van to clean that has been neglected all winter because it's been too damn cold to vacuum it. I think I'm insane for considering this, and if I do this road trip I'll be insane at least by the time I return to NY. The good thing is that I plan to stock my mother's house with at least $300 of groceries, and toiletries while I'm there. She has no spare money, and practically can't pay all her bills since my Dad died. My 46 year old brother does nothing to help her out. His idea of a job is selling his plasma twice a week!!! That's a whole other post which I decided to spare you, and write about my possible trip instead. I'll post if I decide to go. Then if you don't hear from me again you'll know it's because I've been locked in a padded cell!
Looking north to the Tehachapi mtns.
The orange you see in the distance is the field pictured above.
Blooming Joshua branch w/trees in background.
These were on the side of the road! Their plants only the size of half my thumb.
Look! It's so little it's the size of my thumbnail! Sooo cute!
I don't know what they are, but they were about a mile from the field in the first pic above. They're the blue field in the previous entry.
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