Cocaine, Whiskey and Midget Hookers

I spent this past weekend in a place that has been referred to as California's Cathedral, The Yosemite Valley.

It was an eventful and relaxing weekend all wrapped up in one neat, little 3-day bundle.

I arrived at the allotted camp site at Hogdon Meadows on the Tioga road around 8pm, after driving for nearly five hours. I only live 3 hours away from Yosemite. Ha. Give it an hour for weekend traffic and I'm still high on drive time an hour. Somehow (even after driving home I still haven't figured it out) I missed a turn somewhere and ended up on highway 49 headed up North. Luckily I stopped for gas and followed my gut, asking the cute little old attendant-woman to confirm that I was indeed headed to Yosemite. "Well sure, you can get to Yosemite that way. It'll take about eight hours. But if you head back down the road about 30 miles and then head left, it'd work out better fer ya."

Right. Ha. So my route ended up taking me out through some gorgeous country. I went by way of Sonora. I managed to pick up a passenger along the way, after he hit me on the side of the face. A dragonfly about 5 inches across. I found him on my lap about an hour after getting smacked. Good times. I'm not gonna lie, I screamed like a little girl when I saw it on my leg and chucked it out the window.

So after arriving (late) to the campsite, waiting for my friends Amy and Wade to get there, eventually Amy and Wade pitched a tent and we all settled in for a good night's rest... Not. We giggled like school kids for hours and were generally unruly camping neighbors. It was fabulous.

Saturday was destined to be a gigantic flop of a day. It wasn't horrendous, just mildly terrible mixed with gorgeous scenery and good company. How often can you say that you eneded a flop of a day with a smile on your face? I wish that I could report that I kicked butts and took names and conquered the hike that I set out to do, but that just is SO not the case, much to my chagrin and the pain of my hiking companions. My body simply would not participate in the day's scheduled activities. Luckily, the highlights of the day included a delicious orange popsicle, a great hot dog (well, a bite of one that left me jonesin' for more) and hilarious encounters with random people on the hiking trail. Including:
-One child whose life was obviously too hard to cope with:

Love the kid.

-The most fantastic Australian wanderer I've ever seen - floppy-haired, bushy bearded and completely shoe-free on a VERY difficult hike (saw him coming down from the Half-Dome hike). Impressive. Wish I had a photo.

-A hilarious and fatigued hiker, a heavy-set man accompanied by his (much more in-shape) wife, to whom he said while leaning on a rock to rest: "Hold up babe, my lifestyle's gettin' to me. It's all the Cocaine, Whiskey and Midget hookers."

Midget Hookers? Right.


The hiking plan had been this: drive both cars 20 miles down to the Valley and then 30 miles up the road from the Valley to Glacier point. Drop off my car at Glacier point. Drive the other car to the Valley and hike from there to Glacier point. 8.5 miles. Cool. Should not have been a problem. Except it just didn't work out that way. So we ended up 2.5 miles up the trail (3.5 miles in) at the junction between the Mist Trail and the trail we took (no clue what it's called now) and ended up just hiking down the mist trail (1.3 miles down... its shorter but harder) back to the valley and getting back in the drop off car. So here's where our problems started. The drop off car had enough gas to get back up the valley to the gas station (on the way back to our campsite), but not enough gas to get back up to glacier point (30 miles) and then to the gas station (30 miles down and then 20 miles back up the other side of the valley... SO, that meant we had to: 1. Drive 20 miles up the Tioga road to get gas. 2. Drive back down to the Valley to the Glacier point turnoff (20 miles). 3. Drive up to Glacier point (30 miles) to get my Jeep. 4. Drive both cars down 30 miles to the Valley. (At this point it's DARK) and then 20 more miles back up the other side of the Valley to our campsite at Hogdon Meadows. That's right. We drove ourselves in circles ALL DAY. Crazy. UGH.

Other photos from the day:

I'm a bit tired... chillin' at the Emerald pool.

We decided that before going back to our campsite for the night that we wanted to shower while we were in the Valley (since it was on the way back to camp anyway). I don't know about my friends, but it was exactly what I needed. I was smelly, coated in several layers of dirt (Yosemite is DRY AND DUSTY!) and desperately in need of hot water and soap. Yay!

We crawled back into camp around 10:30, fired up my gas grill and made 1 grilled-cheese sandwich and about 6 smores in a frying pan. That's right, frying pan smores. Where there is a will, there is a way.
There was no talking and giggling last night. But there was one threat of punching (for trying to keep me awake) and one bout of talking in my sleep. Apparently I had things to say. I had no clue I talked in my sleep! Ha! Highly entertaining.

Today (Sunday) was my favorite day. I took off on my own in the morning before heading back home this afternoon. As much as I like hanging out with friends, I'm discovering that as I get older, I have less and less tolerance for other people on trips. Even the ones I like. I just don't want to be bothered (Sorry guys!) So this morning was fabulous. I packed up and went back down to the Valley for one last gander/wander and a hot dog. I revisited places I'd gone with my family to as a kid and just enjoyed my morning at my pace.













I headed back up to leave around 11:30. Got to the gate at noon and just as I was heading out the gate I saw a sign for a place I've been wanting to check out for a backpacking trip: the Hetch Hetchy wilderness. Hetch Hetchy is actually a twin valley to Yosemite. Back in 1930-something, there was a little fire in San Francisco that pretty much took out the city. Much of the problem with that fire was that there wasn't enough water accessible to put it out. So the decision was made to build a dam for water supply and The Hetch Hetchy valley was dammed up and basically drowned. Crazy, eh? The dam and hiking trails around it are part of the Yosemite National Park, but you can't access it via the Yosemite park. I drove the sixteen miles on the narrow, winding roads and eventually made it to the Dam. It was really cool. I'm really excited to go back and backpack back there.

The peak in the distance is where Rancheria Falls is. That's the backpacking trip I want to go on.

On top of the Dam looking down. The overflow stream of water is realllllly cool.

The really cool tunnel you have to go through on the far side of the dam to get to the backpacking trails

On the other side of the tunnel


Around 1:30 I headed back out to HWY 120 and made my way home. I was home by 4:30. Yeah, like I said, it's a three-hour drive.

Be Warned!

What a day, what a day!

Brutal honesty: grooming practices and real-life body functions in this post. Be warned.

Today was absolutely nuts!

Woke up this morning with my eye kind of bugging me. I realized when I went in the bathroom that I'd left my contact in my right eye overnight. I'd done that before, no biggie. My eye was just tired at this point. I took out the contact and wore my glasses. Bloodshot eye. No worries, I thought to myself, It'll go away.

Got to work this morning surfing the crimson tide. I'm in pain, my eye aches and I'm not looking forward to finishing a project that has been a thorn in my side. Not because it was difficult, but because my work PC has been malfunctioning for about 9 months now. I've been waiting for our very busy tech to take it and re-image it, but meanwhile, it has been less and less functional each day. Well, the last two days have and the current project have apparently been to much for my poor, ailing computer to handle because the thing practically blew up.

So amidst the computer problems, my boss comes in and asks if he can take the project I'm working on from me, to which I heartily agree, because he needs me to move on to a series of animations (based on my Macintosh computer) for a RUSH project. Glad to unload the project, but not excited for the new project, which I have been dreading for a week. Before starting the new project, I have to:
1.Copy the old project to a hard drive to give to my boss
and
2. Update my animation project and plugins to be able to work with the file formats I need to use.

Cool, so I just need to access my hard drive and copy the files for my boss.

Wrong.

The computer completely goes haywire. All of my icons dissapear and when I restart the computer, the computer doesn't recognize that I have a mouse or keyboard any longer. Tried a couple of tricks. Nada. Remember my monthly hormonal girly visitor? Its got me nearly in tears. My eye is wigging out at this point (still bloodshot). My co-worker is clearly disturbed as she watches me attack my keyboard and spasm while yelling at my computer. I got up, walked down the hall to the computer tech, who was kind enough to drop what he was doing when he saw my clearly distraught emotional instability and come and make my computer work just enough to copy those files. (While I went upstairs and sat with my sister to calm down).

Got the files copied and passed off. Updated animation program and start the animation. Get a good pace going, Feel pretty good about it, calm down a bit. Phew.

Get home. Check out my eye: still red. Tried Visine. Nada. Ran my finger over my eyeball to find a nice gouge in my eyeball. Lovely. I'm supposed to drive 3.5 hours to Yosemite tomorrow. Great.

Poked some neosporin onto my eye and covered with a patch. Tried to work on my project here at home. That's not working out because it's my Right eye covered in a patch. If you don't know, my Left eye is a lazy eye (it doesn't drift), my right eye is basically my good eye. I get peripheral vision from my left eye. As a detail-giving apparatus, my left eye is useless. I once had an eye doctor tell me to guard my right eye zealously. I never disbelieved that advice, but until tonight, I never panicked about not being able to use my right eye... Wow. Heaven forbid I lose my right eye or my graphics and video career is done. Wow. Wow. Wow. Reality check time.

So I'm not able to work on my project. I decide that I might as well wax my lip and shave my legs. Legs shaved (miraculously, nick-free! I realized later that with today's crazy vibe going I should NOT have even attempted working with a razor blade today...), check. Microwaved the wax. I punched the numbers into microwave with my wonky-vision (not to be confused with Wonka-vision). A few minutes later I realize that the microwave is still going... uh... Opened it up to smell boiling wax and melting plastic. Tried to lift the container and whoosh! Out came all of the wax all over the microwave and one of my kitchen towels. I grabbed the applicator spatula and scraped up some melted wax and then applied to my lip. Grabbed some paper towels and began to sop up the wax while still hot enough to be sopped up. It covers my hands. I'm running around, lip covered in wax. Eye covered with a bandage. Running into things half-blind with sticky fingers. Ridiculous. All I need now is for someone to come over and see this. Thank merciful heaven that didn't happen.

...I just did a load of laundry without adding detergent. Fail.

All things considered in this train wreck of a day, I'm surprisingly calm and optimistic. Wierd. And cool. 

2 Days +

Monday morning I went back to work after my lovely, relaxing Virginia vacation. It was a very slow day at work. Based on that fact, I brought my schoolwork to work on Tuesday to get a chapter or so done. I should have known better! At 8:30 my boss called me from his car. He needed me to cover for him in a 9am meeting as he was stuck in traffic. Cool. I went. Major projects started raining from the sky during that meeting. Three videos for me to work on, all due in two weeks, including one video I needed to fly out to Atlanta to tape some interviews for. And by fly out to Atlanta, I mean immediately. Paperwork, emails, phone calls, travel arrangements and appointments set: Wednesday morning I make my way yet again to the San Francisco Airport via our lovely (ughh!) BART system. I had planned on driving in (I love my Jeep and haven't driven in further than the gas station in nearly a month!) but this weekend the Bay Bridge will be closed for five days (huge bridge construction project going on) so driving was shot down. Ugh.
BART.
Airport Checkin.
Heavy Luggage (camera equipment).
4+ hour flight to Atlanta.
Rental Car pickup.
Hour drive to Alpharetta.
Hotel Checkin.
Nap: no-go.
Workout: short.
Dinner: CPK.
Sleep: Unsuccessful.
Jetlag: Making me hate life.

Thursday morning I was scheduled to do two series of quick interviews at two locations with a total of about 12 people. 8:30-12 and 2-4. They end up taking about five minutes each and I've finished all of them (including a 1-hour drive to the second location) by 1pm so I drove an hour into Atlanta.

I'd been to Atlanta once before in 2001. My college roommate and I drove down from Virginia for Spring Break. I was unimpressed by the place. It was loud, busy and dirty. That said, I'm not a fan of most large cities (with the exceptions of London, Paris and Rome thus far) I will report that nothing has changed in 8 years. Well, I think they had the Olympics there a while ago and so there are a lot more large peach sculptures everywhere. I went once again to Underground Atlanta. The idea is cool, so is the execution, but the shops, stores and restaurants are unimpressive.

I will say that I realllllly liked Alpharetta and the surrounding areas of Atlanta. The people are lovely, the scenery beautiful. But what the heck is up with the 55MPH speed limit? Seriously!!??

Lunch at an over-decorated, overpriced (for the area), over-cooked and under-flavored Italian restaurant filled with too many people aspiring to be southern socialites. I expected people to talk with the lovely, legendary southern lilt, but it was absolutely NOWHERE to be found. Disappointing! Instead, it seemed that the place was filled to the brim with California transplants. Which explains the extreme presence of suburbs filled with "McMansions" and surrounding retail outlets packed with familiar restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen. One thing Atlanta has going for them that I love and will love until my dying day is an overwhelming amount of my favorite chicken chain (and I hate fast food!): Chick-Fil A. Not even kidding. LOVE that place. It's a favorite flavor from childhood.

After stopping at a local Barnes and Noble and spending way too much on book (that I then had to pack into my suitcase... not my best plan!) I got in my rental car, reclined the driver's seat all the way and passed out for a 45-minute nap. Mmmmm. Nice.

30 minutes in slow traffic back to the airport.
Dropped off the car.
Shuttle to the terminal.
Checked in for my flight with three hours to spare.
Read half of my book. 4.5 hours to San Francisco.
Book finished.
30 minutes waiting at bag check for my luggage.
BART ride home, in at 11:30.
Bath.
Bed at 12:30.
Narcoleptic sleep until 7am, when I am woken up by a text message sent to the wrong number.
Nice.
Up, dressed, BART to work.
Tired.