Posted by bronson
Sat, 22 Jul 2006 19:38:00 GMT
The afternoon before a Whitney day hike is a little surreal. You’re tired, you try to nap, but your head is buzzing and the eyes don’t close very well. Your backpack has been ready for hours and yet you’re still thinking if there’s something you’re forgetting. More food? How’s the first-aid kit? Will it snow?
Ross killing time.
Tim & Marnie, afternoon nap.
(From a 2003 Whitney trip)
You’re surrounded by good friends except there’s not much to talk about. There’s equipment, and the hike, but those topics were exhausted hours ago. There’s a Star Trek rerun on but the TV just seems irrelevant. Time barely moves.
Even the last meal is alien. We headed to Angel’s at 8, just before they closed. You should select bland food so it won’t weigh you down or cause trouble. Food poisoning is bad enough at sea level; imagine a cramp attack in the bitter pre-dawn cold at 12,000 feet. Table discussion was weak, mostly idle chitchat or morbid humor.
Finally, at 10:30 PM, we piled into the car and started the drive to Whitney Portal. Suddenly we were in high spirits, talking and joking again. We won’t see the trailhead until midnight and the sun won’t appear for another 8 hours but finally the trip has started.
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Posted by bronson
Sat, 22 Jul 2006 19:35:20 GMT
July 13th, Thursday afternoon
A little Whitney shakedown hike. Gotta find the hotspots in the boots to know where to put preemptive moleskin tomorrow night.
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Posted by bronson
Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:18:00 GMT
July 13th, early morning:
On the way to Mark’s place, the full moon over Lee Vining Canyon just blew me away. I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road. That’s as good a time as any to learn how to take long-exposure pictures so I tried to balance the camera on Bessie and figure it out. Turns out you really really need a tripod.
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Posted by bronson
Sat, 22 Jul 2006 17:49:00 GMT
Time flies.
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Tim & Marnie 2003
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Tim & Marnie 2006
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With few exceptions, the weddings I’ve seen are frantic beehives right up until the moment guests start sitting. The immediate families are all sweaty as they sit down, frantically looking around the room to see if they forgot something. It’s one aspect of weddings that completely turns me off. (notable exceptions: Pat&Carita, my dad&Jan, and now Tim&Marnie).
Mark in front of his hotel room.
On this wedding day, July 2nd, we strolled down for an opulent Ahwahnee brunch with the groom (why is it that “groom” and “doom” rhyme? They must share the same root word). Then I joined Tim and some best men on a quick hike partway up Upper Yosemite Falls. We kicked about, chatted… There was no hint whatsoever of the big event that was only a few hours away. As the time approached, everybody rolled their eyes and relucantly went to put on formal wear. The ceremony was hot and quick, then we spent all evening eating and drinking and carousing. It was brilliant, a completely suitable wedding for Tim & Marnie. Pity the Ahwahnee.
Except for the shots here, I didn’t take any pictures. It’s a shame because everything was stunningly beautiful. I’d apologize but, what the heck, people were paid to do that. I had other responsibilities.
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Posted by bronson
Mon, 17 Jul 2006 08:33:00 GMT
I rejoiced when I heard that, thanks to government inaction, Cassie would be able to join the cross-country trip.
Update: Cassie wrote her version of the story here.
The need: get our junk back to California
The car: Spike, a 1990 Range Rover
The date: Monday, 19 June 2006
The deadline: Colby and Sizhen’s wedding, 11 AM Saturday
This car is beat. It’s got 360,000 miles on the clock, the A/C doesn’t work, the radio was destroyed by the blown heater core, and it has a chronic rod knock that, like high blood pressure, might cause instant death tomorrow or might last another 10 years. It’s rough but it runs.
I originally wanted to leave at noon but packing took tons of time and setting up a car computer for in-flight entertainment sure didn’t help. We left at 5pm on Monday, just in time for rush hour traffic. Oops.
We kept the motor humming and made good time for the entire first day. At 3:30 PM on Tuesday, however, as we climbed toward Omaha, the engine started overheating. I tried the usual tricks (check coolant level & pressure, look for water in the oil, etc) but didn’t find anything. Then it started backfiring. I didn’t have the tools to diagnose further so we limped back to the last town we passed through, Stuart, Iowa, and found a garage. By then it was 6 PM so we were done for the night.
At 6 AM on Wednesday morning I limped to the garage with a car that could just barely muster enough power to cross the highway overpass. The mechanic immediately discovered that the timing was over 9° retarded and figured that the timing chain had jumped a tooth He twisted the distribuor, re-timed, and the Rover was back to its normal underpowered self. If it can go 2000 miles without jumping another tooth, we can still make it. If it jumps again, we’re stuck because the distributor was twisted to its limit. That’s a chance I’m willing to take.
I triumphantly drove back to the motel, collected Cassie and our gear, and by 8 AM we were heading West at again. About 30 miles later it felt like we were low on power. We turned around and, sure enough, the car started overheating and backfiring again. Doing 20 MPH along the shoulder, we got back to the garage at 10:30 AM.
We spent all morning calling around looking for a 1990 Range Rover timing chain. If we found one in the area, we could have the garage install it that afternoon and be back on the road that evening. Find an obsolete British part in the middle of the heartland? Bollocks. At best I could mail order one overnight it to Stuart, have in installed on Thursday, and be back on the road some time Thursday afternoon or evening. In theory. That would leave 36 hours to cover 1800 miles, totally possible but leaving no margin for error. What if something else went wrong? What if it isn’t actually the timing chain? The chance of successful repair was starting to look dim…
Across the street a used car dealership had no pickup trucks for less than $5000 but they did have a rusty, lifted 1993 Bronco. Cassie and I had a fine lunch at the Lincoln Lounge while we tried to figure out what to do. U-Haul would cost $1800 for the truck and $300 for the transporter. A rental truck would be $2400 plus dolly. Flying back and sending the Rover by auto transport would be $1400 plus air fare. Suddenly the sun disappeared and a freak thunderstorm smashed Stuart with torrential hail for 20 minutes. We decided to buy the Bronco, tow the Rover, and then sell the Bronco in CA. The sun came out, I talked the guy down to $2800, put the Bronco on the red-hot Visa card, and by 8 PM this freight train was rolling again.
A 1993 Bronco towing a 1990 Range Rover on a car dolly. Could this trip get any more ghetto?
The rest of the trip slid by in style. She’s big, she’s bad, so Cassie christened her Bessie. Bessie has one of the best A/C systems I have ever seen. Even in the middle of the Utah desert she has the ability to make the cabin uncomfortably cold in minutes. It’s true, when you first turn on the fan trail dust blows out the vents but you get used to it. Just pretend like you’re offroading in the mountains.
We kept the wheels rolling non-stop except for for gas breaks and a little volleyball peppering. The sun rose while we were still in Nebraska, set as we entered Nevada, then rose again right as we reached my brother’s place in Davis. It was 6 AM Friday morning. The trip was over and, despite the problems, Sizhen’s wedding was still 30 hours away. Mission accomplished.
I replaced the Rover’s timing chain a few days later and yet the problem persists. So I’m still driving Bessie as I try to locate a working distributor for less than $900… Freakin’ British cars. If we’d tried to replace the timing chain in Iowa, we almost certainly would have missed Sizhen’s wedding.
It will be hard to sell Bessie once I’m done with her… Her throaty flowmaster, her “get outta my way” stance, her bodacious mudders, her convertible top… If you ignore the rust, she’s one hot truck. But I only have room in my life for one gas guzzler and, despite all this, I think the Rover still has some life left in it. We’ll see.
The best part of the trip was spending a lot of time with Cassie in an uncertain, stressful situation. I admire that girl more each year. She was afraid of driving the Bronco+Dolly+Rover trainwreck and yet, when I could go no further, she drove through most of Nevada, hills and night and everything.
The second best part of the trip was finding $5.00 flip flops at a Nebraska K-Mart. Best flip flops I’ve ever owned. It wasn’t a real pleasant trip.
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Posted by bronson
Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:22:00 GMT
I must invent a word to describe the condition that I suffer from. I shall call it being weblocked.
The healthy adult male will normally collect articles from his surroundings, digest them a bit, and deposit them into his blog. Occasionally, however, an article may be delayed for some reason. Maybe a picture needs to be rotated or a panorama stitched together. Maybe it’s the utter horror of the event or maybe it’s just laziness. For whatever reason one article just sits there and doesn’t get written. Subsequent articles pile up until the blockage is resolved. The more articles get blocked, the harder it is to resolve the blockage.
I’ve contracted this disease twice now (February and June, 2006) and it has been ugly both times. The cure? Just remember that blogs are stupid anyway. Why try for perfection? Smash it out, whatever you’ve got, and get on with life. A ton of imperfection beats a small amount of perfection, Google and Craigslist have shown that. Just don’t take that lesson too far!
And wouldn’t blogstipation be a more obvious and appropriate term? Too late. Bloggers have decided that “Writer’s Block” is not blogtastic enough and took it first. Problem is, their version of blogstipation describes the condition of a lack of material whereas the original term describes a crippling overabundance of it! Yes, all bloggers are stupid.
Well, maybe not so stupid. A beautiful definition by example can be found on blogstipation.com.
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Posted by bronson
Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:29:00 GMT
The garden isn’t going so well… Right after we planted the tomatoes and peppers, a cold snap hit. The plants seemed to survive but a few weeks later, their leaves started turning yellow and falling apart.
Then the peas sprouted. At first they grew like crazy then, after a few more weeks, they started doing the same thing! Maybe there’s an herbicide in the soil? Although the soil looks rich, maybe it’s only suitable for weeds? Maybe they’re just not getting enough direct sunlight? It’s hard to say.
And then it was all moot. On the final Sunday of May we found that red crap was covering everything. Apparently the workers said, “Hey, I think there’s a garden here. Should we rethink this?” And, although the landlord gave us permission to plant a garden, the property manager said to bury it.
This is what you get when you rent.
A day later Cassie, Amola and I tried to dig up the hapless victims. It was too late. The peppers and one of the zucchinis were killed right off. Some of the tomato plants appeared OK, others had stem damage and fell over. The peas, amazingly, didn’t seem to mind and, last I heard, are still growing fine.
Our garden now consists of peas and weeds and some zucchinis. Good thing I like peas and weeds.
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