Angeline and William's Excellent Adventure

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Photos from Dimond-O and Carlon Day Use Area, Yosemite

Berkeley to Portland

Thursday night we had the pleasure of staying in Berkeley at C's house and we took advantage of every outlet and appliance we could find. Laundry was done, food was cooked, dishes were washed, and computers, batteries, and iPods were charged. I wish we could have stayed longer but I'm sure we'll go back to Berkeley sometime, probably before the end of the year. Friday morning we loaded up the car (we've just about got the system down now) and headed north to Portland. It is a LONG way, even starting in the East Bay instead of the South Bay like we usually do, and while there was plenty of scenery and other oddities to look at we were both ready to get out of the car long before Portland. We decided to stop in Eugene, OR at Wandering Goat Coffee and as luck would have it, our friends K and K were able to get a break from work and come meet us there. However, even though we've been there several times before, we got completely lost and had to call them three times for directions. When we finally found the place, we were ceremoniously presented with a street map of Eugene and a map of the Western US. Friends are nice.

We staggered into Portland about 8:30 and got some dinner at Tsunami Thai with our friends A and K. Even though we were both exhausted, we felt like we should really get all we could out of our visit so when A announced his intention to check out the "Potato Cart", we didn't feel like we should argue. I'm glad we went, even if we didn't get out of the car to experience the full glory of the street corner...crepes, pies, burritos, anything and everything you could want to eat in the middle of the night. The pommes frites were some of the best I've ever tasted, and in true European style, they came with mayonnaise. Lots of people hanging out, music playing, cars parked haphazardly but always leaving enough space for other to get through...if you're in Portland looking for a place to hang out at night, check out 12th and Hawthorne.

That's how our weekend began, and pretty much how it continued..."where are we gonna eat next?" was a constant refrain. On Saturday we slept in, went to Powell's (of course), got some lunch at Blossoming Lotus, and headed off to the Saturday Market. As we walked through the crowds, the groove of the one man band playing Elvis faded gently into the bongos-and-buckets percussionists (with a belly dancer for good measure) and that, in turn, merged seamlessly with the bagpiper. Never a dull moment in this town. We ran some more errands, did some computer stuff, and had dinner at Mudai which was just as good as we remembered it from last summer. That night, yet another K came over and we played tunes until 11 or so when we decided we had best pack it in before the neighbors complained.

Sunday we had every intention of NOT going out to eat but A offered to buy us breakfast and we couldn't refuse. We ended up at Francis where our table had everything from country-fried steak to the vegan burger. Excellent stuff. We went to the farmer's market to get ingredients for the Thai curry which would get us to our next stop (and which I have just polished off during the writing of this post), stopped at a few other places, and finally rounded off the day by going to the Irish session at Kells (free food and drinks for musicians!!). The bar was crowded and there were a lot of people playing but we managed to get a few good tunes in before heading home to prepare for Monday's drive.

We're currently in Bozeman, MT...details of that drive (including spending an hour at a dead stop on I-90 just after crossing into Montana!) coming soon.

June 15

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Photos from the car

Sunset, on the way to San Francisco.

Black Butte, just off I-5 near Weed, CA

Mt. Shasta...it was too cloudy to see the entire mountain...

Somewhere in NoCal

The State of Jefferson.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Logging at 6 am and other stories

From Thursday June 4th to Thursday June 11th there was only one night that we didn't spend in a tent - Monday, I think. We became intimately familiar with every angle and bump of the place where our tent was set up at Kowana Valley; although it was almost flat there was a slight incline downhill which meant that if William went to bed before me, I would come back and find that he had slid down towards my side of the tent. The good news about this was that we were able to get almost all of the water out from under our tent that had accumulated on the groundcover tarp during the rain - we got a long stick and lifted up the floor of the tent until the water came out on the downhill side. Also, we learned to set up the tarp properly instead of just throwing it down and plopping the tent on top of it. Very useful information. When we got to Dimond-O, we found that they had level tent pads built into each campsite, and we set up our tent with a sigh of relief. I'm still fairly convinced that there was a slight incline which put our heads about a centimeter lower than our feet, but I could have been imagining it.

So, the campground was quiet on Tuesday night, with everyone near us keeping well to themselves and no loud music or partying that we could hear. I woke up in the middle of the night convinced that I was hearing a bear, but further listening assured me that it was the gentleman sleeping in the site next to us because I don't think bears snort in such a rhythmic fashion. And then dawn...and the loggers...arrived. Evergreen Lodge is apparently building new cabins, and the trees are apparently in the way, and what better time to cut down trees than at 6 am? We could hear trucks, chainsaws, the falling trees, and an occasional exuberant whooping sound from the loggers, and as it was still too cold to get up, we enjoyed the aleatory reverberations until about 8 when everything stopped and presumably the loggers went home for the day. Nice work if you can get it...

We spent 2 nights at Dimond-O and it was cold at night (low 40s) but pleasant during the day. We decided not to go into Yosemite as we didn't feel like we would spend enough time there to justify the park entrance fee, and we've already been into the main area of the valley so our plan is to come back sometime and spend a week or so exploring. We walked down to the creek near the campsite on Tuesday afternoon after we got set up and took a nap, and on Wednesday after the previous blog post we went to the Carlon Day Use Area to attempt to find a waterfall. We didn't find it - turns out we were on the wrong side of the river - but we did see lots of wildflowers and a lovely scrap metal heap in the middle of the woods. That night we made a fire (after many attempts) and played tunes and contemplated the marvelous thought that this would be our last night in a tent for a while.

Thursday we went back to the Bay Area to run some errands and have our last cup of Barefoot Coffee for a while. We spent the night in Berkeley and drove to Portland on Friday. I think I'll save the details of those two days for the next post.