And your co-pilot is... well, you

All friends are good to have but some come with some pretty nice extras.

The pictures aren't great but try to spot the more recognisable features of Yosemite. There are no-prizes.

Photobucket

Dream Trip

2nd August:

I hope to write something in here at some point soon... until then, I have pictures in the usual photobucket.

Sonora and Yosemite

20th August:

Better late than never, right?

Yosemite. Pronounced Yo Semite. It’s true. Actually, scrap that; I didn’t go to Yosemite first. I went to Sonora. I was umming and ahhing over going to Yosemite for some time. I knew it was stupid to be so close to one of the US’s greatest National Parks and yet stay holed up in chezbob watching the telly. When Louise said she was visiting me “whether I liked it or not”* I knew this was my chance to get out and do something. I promised her that we would spend a few days at Yosemite and then the weeks drew nearer to her arrival and I had done nothing about it. I was scared. Scared to drive the five hours. I have never driven much. Although you’d think I was a car fan looking at the Dream, I only think them pretty to look at and would far prefer someone else (preferably an F1 driver) to do the actual work.

So I found my solution which was to choose somewhere in-between the Bay Area and Yosemite to stay. The “somewhere” fell in my lap a couple of weeks before the trip as former-Dream-driver suggested going for a trip to Gold Country. I couldn’t make it then but I bookmarked the link and suggested it to Louise. She agreed to the plan. It cut short our amount of time in Yosemite but she accepted that I was the pathetic and whiny driver here and if I wanted to stop half way she couldn’t really stop me.

So we went to Gold Country. The website didn’t really explain what we were in for. All I knew was that I had to meet “Joshua” at a certain location near Jamestown. Bring a packed lunch and shoes that can get wet.

No one mentioned the mud.

Joshua brought Rufus along with him. I believe Rufus was a dog but he could just as well have been a teddy bear. Golden fur and a passive, friendly face. All Rufus did was lie in the shade, occasionally moving as the sun did. I feel the need to mention this as Rufus is to date the only dog that has not brought me out in a panic attack. I am terribly frightened of dogs, be they big or be they small. And yet the gorgeous gold of Rufus had no effect on me in the slightest.

Where was I? Oh, the mud. Yes. Joshua gave us buckets, spades, trowels and pans. And pointed to a hole in the ground, filled with water. “Empty that there ‘ole of water,”** he instructed us, “an’ then dig down t’ bedrock.”

Uhuh. And I paid to do his dirty work for him? What a sucker.

So Louise and I worked on making the hole drier and deeper. We sho

velled and scraped dirt into the buckets for hours. We both ended up knee deep in muddy water with dry soil in our hair, falling from the side of earth we were digging into.

Upon which the Dream was parked.

Digging a hole underneath a road caused me to pause for a little but ultimately we didn’t get very far. Four hours in the baking California heat, fighting the permeating water, didn’t actually result in a very large hole. But it did result in ten buckets of mud to put through the sluice.

This was where we got wet. And slightly cleaner though there comes a point where you have sat too long in a mud hole to ever get clean again (to which my jeans would testify had they the vocal cords to do so). We put the mud through the sluice, plunging our hands into the mud to remove large stones and clumps of clay before letting the stream water run through it. After our buckets, Joshua looked for nuggets. I watched his hands closely for any sign of sleight of hand for how could there be gold out of mud? I was resilient and remained undistracted by his talk of how the sun will one day go supernova and how pi was rational but I still did not see how the dirt suddenly turned into 7 gold nuggets plus some flakes.

Louise and I felt quite rich with this haul but thought we’d postpone retirement for a few more years.

So, we said our fond farewells to Joshua and Rufus and drove the few miles to Sonora. Caked in mud, we squelched into the reception area to the Days Inn. Joe (Joe Joe Nice but Slow) attempted to serve me. At first not seeing my reservation at all, he suddenly found two reservations apparently not considering that my surname was shared by another patron. Half an hour later, another staff member took a look at my case and gave me the room keys within two minutes. Meanwhile, Joe had to deal with someone asking for directions who then left the lobby shouting “you lot are *#!%ing incompetent”. True but did that help anyone?

Relieved to have our room, Louise and I hurried to get out of our clothes before the mud hardened and we would have to use a hammer and chisel to remove them. Louise had the shower first and when I managed to get into it I found a not-so-small pile of gravel on the bathroom floor. I added some gravel of my own to the pile.

The town of Sonora seemed to comprise of purely Mexican restaurants and only one was open. The next day I found out that typically everything was closed on Sundays and Mondays- the two days we were there for. Fortunately, the one place open that day served us with the best fajitas we had ever had for a quarter of the price of them back home. I tucked into the wine while Louise stuck to water perhaps with a frown for my decadence***. But then it was my time to frown when she ordered the deep fried icecream****.

(Yosemite coming soon?)

* She didn’t really say that but for the purpose of this story I will paint her as a go-getting bossy type for the hell of it.

** He was clearly American but I will write as if he was from Yorkshire or somewhere.

*** Not really.

**** Not really. In fact I believe I smiled and indicated to the waitress that two spoons were required for that.

Dates

 Not sure what lies ahead. There should be a Japan trip in October but I haven't heard anything more about that.

22nd September -> 1st October -   New York and Boston.

No Place

I love Home. Home is where you take a brolly out with you even though it is blazing sunshine because chances are it will rain before you can get back. Home is where you hear "and your penny change". Home is where you drive fast down narrow country lanes at midnight. Home is where meals are served with gravy. Home is where clean clothes appear in my drawers and wardrobe. Home is magic.

It is also rather beautiful to me. I know skit feels that she lives in a much better place but to me orchards and vinyards are the thing. And country houses with elaborate gardens.

I went oop north (even skit must agree with me that Hull is north, right?) for Fairie's wedding and experienced the dull and run down villages there. Either the buildings were new and ugly or old and needing work. Many were vacant and up for sale. Down here in Kent (and Sussex- I live on the border) villages are full and vibrant. Basically because everyone that lives there commutes and gets London salaries and so can afford to keep up the mock Tudor cottages with roses around the gateposts.

While Home, I made some effort to do things with the Family. One afternoon we took off to Groombridge place and saw dinosaurs, dragons and zeedonks (those with the stripey toe-socks). There was a raptor show as well and the hawk took a particular liking to my dad's head. This is Kent (or Sussex...). So much more organised nature than the lands skit roams. Another day was spent in Maidstone (morning- much rain) and Faversham (afternoon- blistering heat). We wandered the orchards looking at apples, pears, plums, quinces, cherries and mulberries. Exciting, no. But exceedingly pleasant.

From email to mum:
The bus to Gatwick didn't leave until noon so I should have taken dad up on the offer to have a lift with him. It was incredibly disorganised and I gained nothing by sticking with the crowd. Ah well. The journey to Gatwick took about 90 minutes thanks to traffic. Then it was about 20 minutes to check in because I was lucky and got on one of the first buses to arrive. Then I grabbed a sadwich and a brownie from WHS and joined the queue for the departures lounge/security gate. That queue took about an hour so it was almost 3pm when I got through. There was only one metal detector in operation upstairs. I assume that there were more in the downstairs security but perhaps not as that queue was snaking all over the check in plaza. Gatwick really couldn't handle us all. So I was patted down and sent onto the gate which I reached at 3pm. Just after I got there, they announced that we could bring books, magazines and food onto the plane as long as we showed the receipt to prove it was bought at the gate. Suddenly I found myself in a stampede to the tiny WHS shop which had one poor girl on a till to serve the passengers of an entire 747. I lucked out and got the very last issue of New Scientist on their shelves. Of course this flimsy read only lasted me just over an hour so I was twiddling my thumbs for a while. They started boarding at 4ish. Everyone had to be patted down and their bags inspected again so it took about an hour and a half to get us all on board. Once on board I was quite surprised at how fast we took off. I guess that is why we were at Gatwick. Normally at Heathrow we queue for about half an hour for the runway. Once in the air, everything was okay. No turbalence. They provide us with more food on this leg of the journey as you are not meant to sleep like you are coming from the states to the uk. Which was nice as I get hungry. I think I slept for a bit but as always it is hard. We touched down around 8pm I think. There was no difference in security at the SF end. I got a shuttle ride back to Menlo Park and punced on MR begging her for milk for breakfast. She also gave me strawberries and some snacks for a late dinner.

The Real Slim Apa

Hmm... Sorry, not the best photo in the world. Have some prettier pics of London to make up for it.

So to start at the most important event of the day, I woke up. There were hallelujahs and choirs of angels and the normal giving of thanks. Then things went smoothly until I arrived in London and discovered...

The Comic Showcase is no more!

Holding in my grief, I made sure that Forbidden Planet was still in its normal orbit. I failed to find Mike's comics and resisted drooling over the Marvel ones as I hadn't factored in the extra time for this jaunt and needed to meet with my vict... I mean, friends.

Probably looking gormless and lost, I hesitated at the threshold of the bar Athel recommended (and looking at the bucket of alcohol she called a drink it was easy to see why). Not for long though as Athel and Apocryphalbiped (I just realised that I was the only person whose "name" didn't start with an A) were already there and deep into their intoxication.

I ordered a French Martini. It wasn't as good as the one at Angel's.

It was nearing 6 o'clock and main topic of conversation was which freak of nature we could take a picture of and say it was the absent Apa who had obviously thought twice about having drinks with three older women. There was the man dressed in the Superman costume followed by a Supergirl and Porn Star (we assume). There were the small boys with punkish hairstyles (we feared reprisal from mothers). And then there was the guy in the blue t-shirt we decided to kidnap and make our own.

There were more drinks. I do think Apa going for the champagne cocktail was girly but I am probably only jealous because I didn't discover cocktails (beyond Bucks Fizz) until two years ago.

There was food. In Chinatown. There was also dance. In Trafalger Square. Well, I say dance... but if Apa tried to pull any of those moves on the dance floor, he wouldn't be pulling anything else. People in big wheels was a particular favourite (watchers showed their appreciation by reading the newspaper when the news sheets weren't being used as a shield from the typical summer rain). Biped and I were genuinely pleased by the half nekkid man with a skirt but would have been more pleased had they staged it anywhere near where we were sitting. In the end biped decided that our distance from him and the way we couldn't see more than snatches of his dance due to all the people only served to add mystery. Finally (well, finally for us as we scarpered before it ended) we had what biped charmingly describes as "random percussion sounds punctuated with the howls of a man who might have had his Avocado's trapped in his underpants". There is no way I could describe it better than that.

Beauty

Photo by "jg"