Day 41, Tuesday, July 26

Today started out on a sad note for me. I’d concluded, as I said, that I had to lose some weight from my rig. About the only way to lose the weight was to send some stuff home and I’d concluded that the bicycle had to go. The problem is that having the mountain bike with me was a seriously central portion of this trip. I made it all the way to the UPS store and concluded that I just couldn’t do it. So I sent home about 30 lbs of other stuff, went back to Steve and Heidi’s home, packed the bicycle in the trailer and hit the road. I got off right around 2pm, right at the peak heat of the day, predicted to be well above 100 degrees. I’d heard of the practice of wearing a heavy cotton shirt under a mesh riding jacket and soaking the shirt in water prior to riding. It’s supposed to work as a swamp cooler whereby the evaporating water cools off the rider. Let me tell you, it’s amazing how effective this technique is. With just that effect, I was literally shivering as I rode down the highway in the 100 degree heat. I felt a bit goofy walking into service stations and fast food joints for the sole purpose of soaking my shirt, but the comfort of temperature control FAR outweighed any feelings of being an oddity. I’ll tell you though, you do get funny looks from other patrons when you walk into a restroom in dry clothing and come out soaking wet and dripping. I can only imagine what they must think has happened … serious hose control problems?
The road between Sacramento and Yosemite is, for the most part, very uninteresting. It’s just another hot road through little strip mall towns for most of the way there. Once you get close to the park on highway 120 the landside transforms from strip mall towns into gently rolling hills and then into gently rolling mountains, but none of them are particularly startling in comparison to anything I’ve already seen on my trip. It left me seriously wondering where the beauty of Yosemite was going to emerge from. Even once I’d entered the park, I wasn’t particularly impressed with what I saw. Damage from the 1990 and 1996 fires was everywhere in the form of vast expanses of matchstick trees that had lost their lives in the fires. Further into the park these hills of wiped out trees gave way to areas that were fully forested but with piles of brush obviously cut up and stacked by people. These piles were interesting because they basically looked like someone had imploded every third tree in the forest but in general they created a very unattractive look to the forest.
Then it happened.
I rounded a corner and found myself confronted with a tunnel. On emerging out of the far side of the tunnel I literally said “Oh my God” out loud in my helmet. The tunnel went through the last ridge hiding Yosemite Valley from East bound travelers. What elicited my response was a view of Bridal Veil Falls centered between massive shear rock valley walls which tower up like sentinels guarding the falls. I quickly understood why so many people I’d talked to about the park view it as the most amazing park in the US. The further I got into the park the more amazing the views got. El Capitan looming up on the left, Cathedral Towers on the right, Half Dome off in the distance. Every turn of the road in the park was breath taking.Now back to the concept of camping in the park. I figured I’d drive into Yosemite and would see about finding a campsite once I got there. Having never been there I figured this had a reasonable chance of success. Up to this point, it’d worked in every park I’d been to, even ones that were supposed to be booked solid. I hadn’t even begun to conceive of the international popularity of the park and had no clue how in demand camping spots are. Apparently, during the months of June and July, many people living in European countries enjoy their yearly vacations and seemingly all of them try to pack into Yosemite. According to the rangers I spoke with, all rooms and camp grounds that can be reserved via phone or on line are reserved 5 months in advance! The only sites available are first come, first serve campsites, are walk in sites, and are completely booked by 10am each day. Getting there in the early evening and hoping for a campsite is almost comical. So I rode back out of the park and camped overnight at a private camp ground just West of the park entrance on 120.