My plan was to stay home for September and watch the leaves start to turn from my house. But I’m bored and the 395 corridor is calling. So I’m doing a three night midweek quickie. It’s really quite amazing how much cool stuff is in a three hour radius of Reno … particularly south along 395.
Leave on Monday after the roof dudes come visit. Coffee FAIL, deli success, drive to the cheapest diesel on the way outta town, and I’m rollin!
Steak and eggs special at Topaz Casino, a stop I really enjoy whenever I do it. The steak of their steak and eggs special is usually a quality hunk of meat. They also advertise their Steak House, which probably helps. It’s usually not crowded, so I get a sweet booth on the window with the sweeping view south or east across the lake.
I do not stop at my usual at Walker Canyon rest area. Instead head straight to Travertine Hot Springs. No scary people today, hooray. Some annoyingly loud people, but I mostly kept distance between me and them, so it was all good. Soak 4-6ish, thence across the wide, wide valley to Buckeye.
Camping area was crowded, the roads seemed holiday-busy, which is a long way of saying that I did not walk down the hill and wade the creek to have a morning soak! This seems shocking in retrospect, but at the time, there were a lot of cars about and I just had a feeling it wold be crowded, and a crowded hot pool ain’t nearly as much fun.
Tuesday (Sep 17)
Lunch at the Sportsman’s Grille in Bridgeport, which was actually pretty good! Past Mono Lake, stop at the Visitors Center, which I haven’t done in years. Take a right on 120, then up, up,up the long steep road to Tioga Pass … to get in the line of RVs at the ranger checkpoint to enter Yosemite.
I drove pretty much straight to Toulemne Meadows. It’s kind of a shock to come upon such a huge campground after so many miles of no human footprint. I pay my fee i the fee-paying building, take my receipt to the site-assigning kiosk, get myself an assigned site, then drive the extremely bumpy, jolty half mile to my site.
I hang for a little while, then walk around the valley for the rest of the day. Very nice stroll through the meadows and creek. Back to camp to eat, then another stroll to soak up the sunset and moonrise.
Wednesday
Writing this at Toulemne in the morning. I’ve slept really poorly both nights of this trip. The first night out is usually tough, and Toulemne is at 9,000′, so I’ve got plausible rationalizations for both.
Because of the way the campground road loops around, the drive out was quite a bit longer and thus even more unpleasant that the drive in. Certain kinds of potholes make my tall van sway violently. A little less than a mile at 5 miles per hour means it took about 10 minutes of unpleasant driving just to escape the fucking campground.
Beautiful day in the mountains though. I had lunch in a little meadow on the east side of the park. The Sierra Batholith had ended, so the rocks were more interesting, red sandstones and such. Really pretty spot.
Back down the spectacular 120 to the canyon floor, then the short drive to Mammoth, where I am hungering for some quality time at Looney’s Coffee Roastery.
My wifi and coffee respite was everything I hoped it would. Drop by the Vons for tonights food, then off to June Lake to find a campsite.
I’ve driven the loop a dozen times, camped once at Silver Lake, but never had occasion to stay near June Lake. Well, tonight’s the night!
Thursday morning
It is a blessing to be here, sitting in the van looking out over the valley to the mountains, the turning aspens quivering in the foreground. Sitting here last night watching the illumination of the full moon work its way down the mountain faces was awesome!