San Francisco to Yosemite National Park (Day 3)

Smokey the bear!

Driving in America is stressful! 

We decide to ditch our plans for looking at more of San Francisco in favour of just getting on the road. Just like our previous trip to the States, Nicole is going to do all the driving. She's a better driver than me, and has more experience driving in America. That said, we get a car with GPS in the hope that our navigation will be semi-automatic. 

Oh, so naive!

Here is my artist's impression of the roads in San Francisco...

To scale

The GPS had no hope at all of taking us out of the city. On several occasions it said we were on an unnamed road, or showed our car floating out in the sea - not very inspiring stuff at all. After a fairly horrible 40 minutes or so of getting hopelessly lost, I convince Nicole to just keep heading in one direction in the hope of getting out of San Francisco via any means possible. It's quite a scary feeling to be driving on 10-lane roads on the 'wrong' side whilst trying to merge into overpasses and listen to an incorrect GPS. Every time we re-enter one of the main freeways, my toes curl over so hard that they feel like they're going to break.

Eventually we grind to a halt in San Mateo and stop into a gas station to get a map and use a toilet. The attendant there directs us about a mile down the road to use a separate restroom. It's hot, we're at the end of our tether, and Nicole isn't ready to get back in the car yet. 

We decide to try our luck at the dentistry next to the gas station, Apple Tree Dental.

Amazingly, the lady there lets us use their toilet despite the fact that we're not customers. I tell her about our morning while I wait for Nicole to finish in the bathroom, and she is so lovely and sympathetic that she looks up directions to our destination (Yosemite National Park) and prints them off for us. How fantastic is that? I could hug her but luckily, for her sake, I don't. The directions turn out to be just the thing we need.

The San Mateo-Hayward Bridge

We continue to head south and get onto the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, a bay-crossing road that is a staggering 7 miles long over the water. It's the 7th longest bridge in America, and it feels it. 

Denny's - don't do it

After a glistening all-American meal at Denny's Diner in Oakvale, we find ourselves creeping up a long mountain road to Big Oak Flat. After climbing a few thousand feet I see a Priest Station. Turns out it's just a gas station in a town named Priest, though a little of my wonder is rekindled by their advertisement of 'Turkey dinners on Fridays and Saturdays' and 'traditional-made elk and buffalo jerky'. 

Up the mountain...

Yosemite National Park is huge. We arrive at 3 pm, which gives us limited time to explore. I feel like a complete wally after asking the ranger what he would recommend... he just stares at me oddly and tells me a few times that I can't see anything because I don't have enough time. I feel like an idiot, one of those tourists... but Nicole comes to the rescue, switches on her charm, and gets a few tips on places we should visit on our travelling through the area.

Yosemite!

Tenaya Lake in Yosemite National Park

It's a spectacular forest. Huge granite mountains jut up out of the landscape like the earth-worn bones of half-buried titans, haloed by pines and methusaleh trees that cling to the rock firm as gargoyles. We pick our way down one of the mountains for a little while and freeze as an explosion of chipmunks bound back and forth across the stoney hillside around us. I'm transfixed. A lady from New York tells me that the squirrels back in her city are afraid of people and not at all like these bold critters that dart around our feet. I could watch them for hours, but the sun is sliding out of reach behind us and we need to get east before Yosemite is plunged into abject darkness. 

Nicole, me

Chipmunk in action

At its highest the Yosemite National Park is 11 500 feet high. I'm not great with heights, and this makes our descent into the east a little hairy for me. Especially when I look out the window over the edge of the clifftop drive and see dozens of avalanche channels gouged into the mountainside opposite us. 

7:30 PM and we reach Mammoth Lakes, where we've booked a Quality Inn. Mammoth Lakes is a skiing town during winter, but as its only the start of the American Fall there aren't a lot of people around. The hotel clerk tells us to make sure we leave no food in our car so that bears don't try to break into it. We notice a claw mark on the elevator in the hotel's garage. 

Canisters to keep bears out of your food

Bear mark on outside of elevator door

Comparison shot

Bears are a real thing around here!