Jim and Sue L.
Junior Ranger
What turned us into camping whack-os?(Jim would say "enthusiasts", but that's Jim. I say "Whack-o".) Getting back to the subject: Ever thought about it? I mean, outside the call-of-the-wild-off-the-treadmill-breathing-fresh-air sort of thing, what stared your run to the woods?
For me it was Yosemite. Not the densely packed, smog filled, commercialized nightmare we know today, with traffic gridlock clogging up those two narrow lanes, unending trains of tourist buses, like monstrous centipedes, belching smoke and disgorging their camera toting hoards who fill the landscape with trash and pollute the air with the stink of tobacco, sunblock and sweat. No, not that one.
The Yosemite I remember was golden. It was always crowded, true, but it was in a friendly, comfortable way. This was the crowd of the hometown neighborhood, where everyone watched each others' kids, helped the less experienced drivers manoeuvre their over large rental campers into those tiny spaces, assisted the "new guys" with their stubborn tent lines or Coleman lanterns and shared meals and songs around group campfires. It was a warm, joyous Yosemite where your ears rang with the music of bird song and laughing families, your mouths filled with flavors of fire-cooked food, wood smoke and pine pitch, your skin tingled with the sting of morning mists and the sharp slap of sudden sunshine and your blood raced through your veins like a pack of hounds chasing a fox. Everything there seemed more potent, more glorious, more magical than anything you had ever experienced before. Heck, even the dust sparkled. Oh, I remember Yosemite.
I remember how mom and dad would rise in the pitch dark, gather us kids and carry our little, slumbering, pajama clad bodies outside where they would pack us, along with our pillows and blankets, into the back of the station wagon and pull onto the road as the milkman drove by with the morning deliveries.
The sunrise usually woke us around Modesto. Here we would stop and, while dad gassed up, change out of our PJ's in the back of the car as mom handed out the milk and fried egg sandwiches. If we were really lucky, and dad had be fortunate enough to work overtime, we would troupe over to a small family diner and splurge on pancakes with real butter and true maple syrup-from Vermont! Sticky fingers and faces all washed up, we headed out again.
It was such a long drive back then. Interstate 580-the old MacArthur Freeway-stopped around Tracy and it was all little town driving from there on. You could take the short cut along old Priest Grade (named that because you didn't have a prayer of getting over without suffering a heart attack), but mom hated the sheer cliffs and sudden drop-offs around blind curves...and the speeding trucks that always seemed to take those curves on two wheels. Dad tried that way once and, after the claw marks from mom's nails faded a bit, decided it was wiser to take the longer, safer route: along the Merced River. This pleased the living daylights out of us kids because Priest Grade seemed like a nightmare while the river route was pure joy.
Ever take that river road to Yosemite? We would stop at the town of Merced for lunch, a fill-up and any last minute supplies (no gas stations or groceries stores in the valley in those days) then, with full tummies and empty bladders, we headed out on the last, best leg of the journey. The road would twist and coil it's self around granite walls and evergreen trees on the left while, on the right, the river played peek-a-boo: teasing us with a quick flash of sparkling water, like a sudden smile, before dashing behind a mass of boulders or a hopeless jumble of foliage. And all the while, the music of water on stone swirled and roared and laughed as if the river delighted in our presence. The river sang and we couldn't help but sing back. It was glorious!
Eventually, the road rose and the river pulled away as if bored with our games and wandered West in search of new playmates. The way became steep, twisting through a short cave and around a tall, narrow waterfall. At this point we kids would plaster ourselves to the car windows, hoping to be the first to spot our favorite and most important landmark: a great boulder shaped like the head of a bear. On sighting it, discordant shouts of, "There it is!", "I see it!", and "
See it, daddy-mom, see the bear?" rang through the car as all of us tried to climb into the front seat at the same time. Bedlam! It's a testament to dad's steely nerves and cool head that we didn't wind up wrapped around Sugar Pine.
And why were we so excited to see the stone bear, you ask? Because the bear sighting meant that we were less than twenty minutes from that final turn at the top of the pass; the turn with a wide pull-out and the most famous, most photographed, most magnificent panoramic view of Yosemite Valley. We never failed to stop; it was impossible not to so. Dad would squeeze the wagon into what space was available and we kids would tumble out, clamber and trip over the stones bordering the parking space and muscle our way in amongst the chattering tourists and photographers to lean over the railing
and gape slack-jawed at Nature at her finest.
Oh, that pass...and that view! It is the entire valley in one shot. To the left: El Capitan and the Three Brothers stand guard and hide the great Yosemite Falls in their shadows, while to the right is the glittering ribbon of Bridal Veil Falls, Glacier Point and the blue haze where massive Half Dome rises in the distance. All around, huge swaths of evergreen forests tuck themselves into any available space while granite cliffs, streaked and stained by untold centuries of ice and rain, stand crowned with ancient glaciers like so many pearl encrusted diadems. Below is the long, green snake of a valley where the diamond Merced twists it's way home. Unspeakable beauty.
This was heady stuff for a child of....three? My earliest memories of Yosemite do not include my baby brother, so I must have been just short of three years old. Yet it is so clear, so powerful it's no wonder camping is something I cannot, will not live without.
What happened when we returned to the car and drove into the valley is a tale for another time. I have been at it for two hours and this has gone on long enough for now.
Now, chime in with your stories. We'll share a bit and I'll continue this tale later.
Sue
For me it was Yosemite. Not the densely packed, smog filled, commercialized nightmare we know today, with traffic gridlock clogging up those two narrow lanes, unending trains of tourist buses, like monstrous centipedes, belching smoke and disgorging their camera toting hoards who fill the landscape with trash and pollute the air with the stink of tobacco, sunblock and sweat. No, not that one.
The Yosemite I remember was golden. It was always crowded, true, but it was in a friendly, comfortable way. This was the crowd of the hometown neighborhood, where everyone watched each others' kids, helped the less experienced drivers manoeuvre their over large rental campers into those tiny spaces, assisted the "new guys" with their stubborn tent lines or Coleman lanterns and shared meals and songs around group campfires. It was a warm, joyous Yosemite where your ears rang with the music of bird song and laughing families, your mouths filled with flavors of fire-cooked food, wood smoke and pine pitch, your skin tingled with the sting of morning mists and the sharp slap of sudden sunshine and your blood raced through your veins like a pack of hounds chasing a fox. Everything there seemed more potent, more glorious, more magical than anything you had ever experienced before. Heck, even the dust sparkled. Oh, I remember Yosemite.
I remember how mom and dad would rise in the pitch dark, gather us kids and carry our little, slumbering, pajama clad bodies outside where they would pack us, along with our pillows and blankets, into the back of the station wagon and pull onto the road as the milkman drove by with the morning deliveries.
The sunrise usually woke us around Modesto. Here we would stop and, while dad gassed up, change out of our PJ's in the back of the car as mom handed out the milk and fried egg sandwiches. If we were really lucky, and dad had be fortunate enough to work overtime, we would troupe over to a small family diner and splurge on pancakes with real butter and true maple syrup-from Vermont! Sticky fingers and faces all washed up, we headed out again.
It was such a long drive back then. Interstate 580-the old MacArthur Freeway-stopped around Tracy and it was all little town driving from there on. You could take the short cut along old Priest Grade (named that because you didn't have a prayer of getting over without suffering a heart attack), but mom hated the sheer cliffs and sudden drop-offs around blind curves...and the speeding trucks that always seemed to take those curves on two wheels. Dad tried that way once and, after the claw marks from mom's nails faded a bit, decided it was wiser to take the longer, safer route: along the Merced River. This pleased the living daylights out of us kids because Priest Grade seemed like a nightmare while the river route was pure joy.
Ever take that river road to Yosemite? We would stop at the town of Merced for lunch, a fill-up and any last minute supplies (no gas stations or groceries stores in the valley in those days) then, with full tummies and empty bladders, we headed out on the last, best leg of the journey. The road would twist and coil it's self around granite walls and evergreen trees on the left while, on the right, the river played peek-a-boo: teasing us with a quick flash of sparkling water, like a sudden smile, before dashing behind a mass of boulders or a hopeless jumble of foliage. And all the while, the music of water on stone swirled and roared and laughed as if the river delighted in our presence. The river sang and we couldn't help but sing back. It was glorious!
Eventually, the road rose and the river pulled away as if bored with our games and wandered West in search of new playmates. The way became steep, twisting through a short cave and around a tall, narrow waterfall. At this point we kids would plaster ourselves to the car windows, hoping to be the first to spot our favorite and most important landmark: a great boulder shaped like the head of a bear. On sighting it, discordant shouts of, "There it is!", "I see it!", and "
See it, daddy-mom, see the bear?" rang through the car as all of us tried to climb into the front seat at the same time. Bedlam! It's a testament to dad's steely nerves and cool head that we didn't wind up wrapped around Sugar Pine.
And why were we so excited to see the stone bear, you ask? Because the bear sighting meant that we were less than twenty minutes from that final turn at the top of the pass; the turn with a wide pull-out and the most famous, most photographed, most magnificent panoramic view of Yosemite Valley. We never failed to stop; it was impossible not to so. Dad would squeeze the wagon into what space was available and we kids would tumble out, clamber and trip over the stones bordering the parking space and muscle our way in amongst the chattering tourists and photographers to lean over the railing
and gape slack-jawed at Nature at her finest.
Oh, that pass...and that view! It is the entire valley in one shot. To the left: El Capitan and the Three Brothers stand guard and hide the great Yosemite Falls in their shadows, while to the right is the glittering ribbon of Bridal Veil Falls, Glacier Point and the blue haze where massive Half Dome rises in the distance. All around, huge swaths of evergreen forests tuck themselves into any available space while granite cliffs, streaked and stained by untold centuries of ice and rain, stand crowned with ancient glaciers like so many pearl encrusted diadems. Below is the long, green snake of a valley where the diamond Merced twists it's way home. Unspeakable beauty.
This was heady stuff for a child of....three? My earliest memories of Yosemite do not include my baby brother, so I must have been just short of three years old. Yet it is so clear, so powerful it's no wonder camping is something I cannot, will not live without.
What happened when we returned to the car and drove into the valley is a tale for another time. I have been at it for two hours and this has gone on long enough for now.
Now, chime in with your stories. We'll share a bit and I'll continue this tale later.
Sue
