Bonus Chapter 10: The Inevitable Letdown (which doubles as a title for all of my TR's)
Just like that, it was time to leave Yosemite. Reality comes crashing down hard very on us very quickly during these road trips.
We packed up our stuff and ate our Pop Tarts and started the drive out of Yosemite Valley. None of us really wanted to go, especially since the day ahead was mostly going to be a boring drive. So when Julie asked if we could go see Tunnel View one more time before we left, I readily agreed.
We drove right by El Capitan on the way up.
As you might expect, Tunnel View isn’t quite as spectacular in the early morning, since you’re looking back east directly into the sun. But it’s still an amazing view, and worth the effort no matter what time of day.
From there, we headed back down to the valley and then drove north. We couldn’t explore the Tioga Road through Tolumne Meadows because it was still closed due to snow (it wouldn’t open to the public until mid-May). There’s one reason to come back someday.
I was determined to see as much of the park as we could, so we took a side road that led to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Also, “Hetch Hetchy” is just plain fun to say.
We briefly crossed the border of the park on the way, which gave us a chance to see the “real” entrance sign for the park. This was significantly fancier than the one we’d barely seen on the way into the park.
Speaking of roads less traveled, the road to Hetch Hetchy was like driving on a giant cheese grater. Step up your game, California! We’d never stand for a road in such horrible condition in Delaware! Hey, I can say these things…I’m a trained professional. And I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express on this trip.
After about 12 miles simulating the Dinosaur ride at AK (without the dinosaurs), we arrived at the gate.
Where we had another 8 miles to go. Better fasten those seat belts.
The road ends at a parking area next to the O’Shaughnessy Dam, constructed in 1923 to block the Tolumne River and create the reservoir, which provides both water and power to the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The dam was a highly controversial project, opposed by many environmentalists (including John Muir) at the time due to the beauty of the Hetch Hetchy valley, which was said to rival that of the Yosemite Valley. Ultimately, the project went forward, the reservoir was created, and all that was left now was for my family to endure my never-ending supply of dam jokes, which have been scientifically proven to never get old.
We parked in the dam parking lot and walked down the path. You could see a resemblance between the granite cliffs here and Yosemite, and I started to wonder what valley looked like before the dam was built. There’s a
photo on the Wikipedia page that makes it look like a very lovely place indeed.
On the other hand, I’m sure San Francisco is glad to have electricity.
The big draw of this area is a hike that takes the dam tourists across the structure, through a tunnel, and around the reservoir to some waterfalls on the north side. Unfortunately, it’s about 5 miles round trip, so I didn’t think we had the time to attempt the dam hike on this particular morning.
And as it would turn out, the dam tunnel was flooded and we didn’t have proper footwear, so we ended up not doing any part of the hike whatsoever. Add that one to the list for the return trip.
If you thought the dam jokes were bad enough, I forced Julie to take this photo on the drive out. As if you needed further proof that my sense of humor has been stunted since age 10.
We left Yosemite National Park behind for good at that point, and settled in for a long 5-hour drive through the winding back roads of California. I don’t have much to say about this drive. There were a lot of climbs where we thought the poor hamsters in the Dodge engine were going to give out from exhaustion. I found myself leaning forward, hoping to get the van up the hills through sheer willpower.
Everyone else was so bored they started trying to see how many pretzels they could fit in their mouths at one time. Julie was the winner, with 7. Congratulations, honey!
Yeah. It was that kind of drive.
It became a little more interesting once we got up into the mountains, where the last vestiges of winter could be seen if you looked hard enough.
After about 4 hours, we reached the Lake Tahoe area. If I’d taken the interstate, we would have missed Lake Tahoe altogether. My feeling was that if we were going to be in this area, we might as well see the lake. After that drive, the rest of the family might have been fine with skipping it.
Before we caught a glimpse of the water, we made a turn in South Lake Tahoe to drive around the western edge. We were on our way to meet my cousins in the town of Truckee on the north side, and Julie had just gotten a phone call from them. She started talking with them about our arrival time when suddenly she shouted, “Oh my gosh! I have to go! We just spotted bears!” and hung up on my poor cousin.
In her defense, we did indeed see a couple of brown bears, just playing around in the woods.
Then, at long last, we finally saw Lake Tahoe. And there was much rejoicing.
This little offshoot is known as Emerald Bay. There was a nice overlook where I’m sure we could have gotten some wonderful photos of it. But we all just wanted the drive to be over with at that point, so that means you get whatever crappy shots we could get out of the car window as we blew past. Please remember to tip your tour guide on the way out.
We made it to Truckee and met up with my cousins at their house. I hadn’t actually seen them in years, so it was really great to catch up. They took us on a dime tour of Truckee, including a burger place for dinner called
Burger Me. I had a BBQ bison burger, which was pretty delicious.
That evening, they took us on a drive up a mountain to Donner Pass. If you’re not familiar at all with the
story of the Donner Party…well, feel free to check it out, but just be warned that the burger above might not look as appetizing to you afterwards.
Thankfully, we had just eaten, so no one was in dire need of whatever food they could find for survival, but instead could just enjoy a nice sunset view of Donner Lake.
I supposed we could have pitched a tent and spent the night there at Donner Pass, but…well, I wasn’t taking any chances. We went to the Best Western instead.
Coming Up Next: Back to San Francisco for our final day of the Spring Break California Spectacular. And no, none of us actually called it that. Except for me, just now.
ETA: map for the day.