Saturday August 26th
I slept in a little after such a big day. Walking was rather painful with the blisters. I was supposed to check into the campground belatedly before I left. The place to check in was a bit of a walk from my campsite, so I drove to the entrance kiosk meaning to either sort it out with them on the way out, or park nearby and walk. I couldn’t talk to the attendant while I was driving out, and once out, there was no parking, and a line up to get back in!
I ended up parking close by at a dumping station. I think you weren’t meant to park there unless you were using the station, but there was no other parking, and there was another person also parking there not using the station, who said he'd let me know if anyone wanted to come and use the dumping station where I’d parked. There was a line on foot and a line of cars waiting to go through the check in station, and I waited about 20 minutes but eventually checked in, as I was checking out! They thanked me for taking the time to do that.
I was to stay with my friend Ron again for the weekend, and wanted to see the redwood forest not far from there at Mariposa Grove. I drove there expecting to just take a quick look, but found it was necessary to take a shuttle bus to get in there. I was there anyway so I took the bus in, and did a hobble around some of the shorter trails. The trees were truly amazing, such a size! There were quite a lot of people around. I took the bus back, and tried to get Google Maps directions to his place, but there was almost no signal, so it was really struggling.
I don't know what happened, but Google started directing me into some tiny town, into roads that were getting smaller and smaller, which definitely didn't seem right. I tried to do a U-turn on a small side street, and as I was backing, heard a clunk and felt a bump, and wasn't able to go forward again. I got out and found that one of the back wheels had fallen off the edge of the road. Many of the roads there are raised from the ground, and this had something like a 9 inch drop off from the road, and the wheel was at the bottom, unable to get back up again.
I'm not sure if I could have backed and taken a bit of a run up to get up again. It probably wouldn't have been great for the van. But the Lord was looking after me – almost right away, even before I had prayed about it, along came a ranger. I was still in the national park apparently, and she saw my predicament and got out and asked me if I was stuck, and offered to tow me out!
Once out, she directed me to a big place called Fresno, telling me how to get there, after which I should have phone service to get the rest of the way. It turned out to be a bit out of my way, but was probably the easiest to direct me to. While on the drive, I encountered something I hadn't seen before - traffic lights at intersections right out in the country. This turned out to be relatively common in quite a few places throughout the US, in rural areas.
Something that surprised me was the sheer scale of what I encountered. I'd see a town on the map, and think of a place with a road going through a main street, and it turned out to be a highway with several exits going into a city! I took one of the exits into Fresno and found a 7-11 or some such place, and got some lunch there and ate it in the parking lot before going on.
It was in the high 30s as I drove through the California hills on various highways and smaller roads. The countryside didn't look too different from some parts of South Australia, with vineyards and rolling hills of yellow grass. I made it to Ron's in good time in the end, probably around 4.30 or so. I hadn't had a shower for a week - I don't think any of the campgrounds had had showers. So I was glad for a shower. I was especially grimy after sweating so much on the hike the day before.
Ron's son was staying with him, and for dinner we went to a place called In n Out Burgers, which was nice. Apparently they have other burgers that aren't on the menu, but if you know what they are you can order them!
I topped up on supplies at a local supermarket, and I had decided that while camping, getting up in the middle of the night when I needed to go, and finding my way to the toilet block wherever it was, was not for me, so I got a bottle to serve that purpose, which worked very well for the rest of the trip.
Comments