Friday, May 25, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Deserved and unexpected holidays ....
Finally a week off. lets go! after 2 days in SF mixed between house work and paragliding at the the dump and in Half moon bay, I finally decided to jump in the car and drive through the Sierra Nevada toward Utah. The Goal : Get to see some of the most amazing NP's in the US like Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, ...
an early morning start on Monday took me early enough in the Yosemite park. As in the winter, breath taking sceneries. Here are just few snap shots.
I made a couple of hours of walking , got to see some good fishing areas,
as well as few permanent inhabitants in their natural environment : see pictures :-)
This is why they repeat all the time tht if you want to camp in the park, don't leave ANY food in your car or in your tent: The bears will come to get it :-)
After this quite uniue moments, I jumped into the car again toward the Tioga pass. That pass opened only a week ago. There was still too much snow to open it before !!! quite an experience to take that road. Mountain lakes...
View on the Yosemite valley from the high side
And a personal course to change the car wheel.... I think this is when the trip started to go wrong ... At th end of a turn, I hit a rock with the right from wheel. The tire exploded and the rim was broken. Thanks to the grat car, I did not even lose control and nicely parked on the side. Just to give me the time to hear the car following me hitting the sale rock : They left their engine on it ! I guess i was lucky. This is when drivingg in the US is interesting : At that point I we were 150Km from the nearest village hitw no phone coverage and 2 broken cars... Fortunately they have guards patrolling and while I was changing my tire, one stopped by, gave a radio call and helped the other car... At least they were not any more there 3 days later when I came back via the same road.
I drove the 150km at 50Km/h and arrived in the world capital of the mule : Bishop, California. Ii took me a while and few tyres shops to be told that the only one who could help was the Ford dealer of Bishop. I will not elaborate too much on that but in a nutshell, this is the worst efficient service I ever got , but always with somebody smiling and trying to make you believe that they are doing everything possible to help, but in fact screwing you as much as they can and taking 1H to make a 5minute job... lets pass on that as Bishop is really a nice town. First the scenery's are just gorgeous and the people really nice.
Since it was going to take 2 days to get the parts for the car, I looked for a place to stay and paraglider pilotes who I good eventually hook with. the sport shop people were real nice and gave me the number of a local pilot. I called her, and despite some phone issues, we managed to get in touch. Unfortunatelly i would have to find another activity for the day after as there was no one planning to fly the day after. The area around the city is so wilde that I would not have been on my own.
I found a good campground and after a good night with a perfect sky head to the cuty to find an activity. I found a rent shop for motorcycle and after hesitating betwween renting a Harley and dirt bike : I went for the one that would help me to investigate the mountains. After filling the normal pile of waivers, the carriage attached to the car, I headed to the bottom of the sierra.
Great tracks taking me pretty high in the valleys. Amazing places oscilating between a grandiose space and location when I was expecting indians to jump out of the bushes any time.
What a great ride I had. Few deers, and a hawk taking up right in front of me, holding a snake he just captured. Looking a at the bright green color of the snake, I am not sure it was the most friendly animal ...
Took me 4 hours to make the whole tour.
I would have been right on time if I had not fall 100m from the car in a sandy part. ouch : that hurts ! impossible with that shoulder to get the bike back on the trailer. I gave a call to the guy from the shop. he came to fetch the bike and I headed to the hospital nearby. Super nice people, and, unlike the Ford dealer: super efficient.Diagnostic: Collar bone broken.
After that , the whole focus was to figure out how to get back to SF. Grand Canyon and Bryce will stay as a project for the next trip. I spent the night in a motel , got the car fixed and drove back home. Fortunately the pain was quite mild. Too bad for the NP's and for the planned weekend in Big Sur with the friends for Paragliding.
In essence, shorter holidays than planned but the 4 days were quite intense and no regrets what so ever : Animals, sceneries, motorcycling, meeting nice people and discovering the American health system : All new experiences :-)
an early morning start on Monday took me early enough in the Yosemite park. As in the winter, breath taking sceneries. Here are just few snap shots.
I made a couple of hours of walking , got to see some good fishing areas,
as well as few permanent inhabitants in their natural environment : see pictures :-)
This is why they repeat all the time tht if you want to camp in the park, don't leave ANY food in your car or in your tent: The bears will come to get it :-)After this quite uniue moments, I jumped into the car again toward the Tioga pass. That pass opened only a week ago. There was still too much snow to open it before !!! quite an experience to take that road. Mountain lakes...
View on the Yosemite valley from the high side
And a personal course to change the car wheel.... I think this is when the trip started to go wrong ... At th end of a turn, I hit a rock with the right from wheel. The tire exploded and the rim was broken. Thanks to the grat car, I did not even lose control and nicely parked on the side. Just to give me the time to hear the car following me hitting the sale rock : They left their engine on it ! I guess i was lucky. This is when drivingg in the US is interesting : At that point I we were 150Km from the nearest village hitw no phone coverage and 2 broken cars... Fortunately they have guards patrolling and while I was changing my tire, one stopped by, gave a radio call and helped the other car... At least they were not any more there 3 days later when I came back via the same road.I drove the 150km at 50Km/h and arrived in the world capital of the mule : Bishop, California. Ii took me a while and few tyres shops to be told that the only one who could help was the Ford dealer of Bishop. I will not elaborate too much on that but in a nutshell, this is the worst efficient service I ever got , but always with somebody smiling and trying to make you believe that they are doing everything possible to help, but in fact screwing you as much as they can and taking 1H to make a 5minute job... lets pass on that as Bishop is really a nice town. First the scenery's are just gorgeous and the people really nice.
Since it was going to take 2 days to get the parts for the car, I looked for a place to stay and paraglider pilotes who I good eventually hook with. the sport shop people were real nice and gave me the number of a local pilot. I called her, and despite some phone issues, we managed to get in touch. Unfortunatelly i would have to find another activity for the day after as there was no one planning to fly the day after. The area around the city is so wilde that I would not have been on my own.
I found a good campground and after a good night with a perfect sky head to the cuty to find an activity. I found a rent shop for motorcycle and after hesitating betwween renting a Harley and dirt bike : I went for the one that would help me to investigate the mountains. After filling the normal pile of waivers, the carriage attached to the car, I headed to the bottom of the sierra.
Great tracks taking me pretty high in the valleys. Amazing places oscilating between a grandiose space and location when I was expecting indians to jump out of the bushes any time.
What a great ride I had. Few deers, and a hawk taking up right in front of me, holding a snake he just captured. Looking a at the bright green color of the snake, I am not sure it was the most friendly animal ...Took me 4 hours to make the whole tour.
I would have been right on time if I had not fall 100m from the car in a sandy part. ouch : that hurts ! impossible with that shoulder to get the bike back on the trailer. I gave a call to the guy from the shop. he came to fetch the bike and I headed to the hospital nearby. Super nice people, and, unlike the Ford dealer: super efficient.Diagnostic: Collar bone broken.
After that , the whole focus was to figure out how to get back to SF. Grand Canyon and Bryce will stay as a project for the next trip. I spent the night in a motel , got the car fixed and drove back home. Fortunately the pain was quite mild. Too bad for the NP's and for the planned weekend in Big Sur with the friends for Paragliding.
In essence, shorter holidays than planned but the 4 days were quite intense and no regrets what so ever : Animals, sceneries, motorcycling, meeting nice people and discovering the American health system : All new experiences :-)
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