Travel
Tuolumne Meadows: The Place and the Ale
(Personal note: I just found out today that Wheels of Change, my book on the history of California automobiles, won the James Valentine Memorial Award for 2010, awarded by the Southern California chapter of the Society of Automotive Historians to the best California car book of the year. Award ceremony in Nov. Champagne to pop now. Or should it be beer? Read on...)
At 8,600 feet above sea level, Tuolumne Meadows is on Tioga Road in the Yosemite high country. The Tuolumne River runs through it. Most impressive are the peaks that surround it: the striking, sharp-faced Cathedral Peak and Cathedral Range to the west, and the Lyell Range to the southeast, which is anchored by massive Mt. Lyell, the highest peak in Yosemite Park (13,114 ft.). Bulky Lembert Dome is the dominant landmark of the meadows and at the top, it affords some spectacular views.
I know Yosemite Park fairly well, having hiked and climbed there since I was a teenager, but until a recent trip I hadn't really spent much time in the Meadows. Because Yosemite Valley is so hot in the summer many rock climbers migrate up to the Meadows because it's slightly cooler, and young, frisky-looking men and women weighted down with climbing gear about to scale Lembert or some other granite wall are among the pleasing sights there. Needless to say, I took the hiker's path to the top of Lembert, while rock climbers take one of the more direct vertical routes up the face.
Tioga Road is closed in the winter, due to snow. But it's open in the summer, which in turn opens up Tuolumne Meadows to armies of vehicles and the two-footed invaders that pilot them. It's a busy place, but not without a funky high country charm. There are campgrounds, a lodge, horseback riding, bicycle paths, fishing in the Tuolumne, and a busy little grill and general store right on the road.
Many of the people I saw at the store seemed to fit into two categories: scruffy mountain types, and those who read the New York Times on Sunday mornings. Well, that's not quite right. There were some unwashed, beer-swilling tourists like myself around as well. I was standing in front of the cold case deciding what to do when a friendly, mustachioed East Indian guy grabbed a six-pack of a heretofore unknown brew (unknown by me, that is) by the name of Paranoids Pale Ale. "Is that any good?" his buddy asked him. "I don't know," he said with a smile. "We'll find out."
The Mammoth Brewing Company, which makes Paranoids, is in Mammoth Lakes, California, a tiny town south of Yosemite in the eastern Sierra Nevada about a half-hour south of Mono Lake. It has a top-drawer ski resort beloved by Los Angeleno downhill schussers and snowboarders and it is also the summer training center for United States Olympic long distance running in the country. Seeing that I was actually in Tuolumne Meadows, it seemed only right that I follow my fellow beer-swiller's example and find out more about Mammoth's products. So I bought a self-arranged six-pack that included two Paranoids, one Double Nut Brown, and three Tuolumne Meadows IPAs.
I haven't tried the Double Nut Brown yet, but I'm looking forward to it because I loved the Paranoids, especially its name. I'm not sure why they call it that; perhaps if you drink too many Paranoids and combine it with certain illegal substances you might begin to feel a little 'noid. Or not. Anyhow, the beer I chose for that night was a Tuolumne Meadows IPA, which seemed fitting given where I was. I drove back down Tioga Road to my campsite at Yosemite Creek and then popped open a bottle and drank it with an improvised dinner of Top Ramen soup and tuna. Now that's living, eh?
Dog Lake in Tuolumne Meadows, with Mt. Dana and Mt. Gilbert in the b.g.
A Most Unique Retail Experience
In the category of "unique retail experiences," it is hard to top Bass Pro Shops. It has a Vegas-y approach to the great outdoors: super-sized and somewhat garish perhaps but always entertaining. Even its sign out front, complete with bleached antlers, is so big I couldn't fit it all into one picture frame.
Bass Pro Shops is a national chain, and the closest one to me is in Manteca, which I visited on my way to Yosemite Park over the Labor Day weekend. In Yosemite I saw a deer, chipmunks, and several squawking jays where I made camp. But this was nothing compared to the wildlife I saw in only a half-hour of wandering the aisles at Bass Pro Shops.
Of course, the wildlife at Bass Pro Shops is not alive and often you see only the head of the animal detached from its body and mounted high on a wall. But the store is for more than just gun hunters; bow hunters and archers, bait fishermen, fly fishermen, campers, hikers, boaters, kayakers, RVers, ATVers, backyard barbecuers, and anyone in the market for a personalized shot glass or a "Home for the Insane Redneck Fishermen" welcome mat will love the place, as I explain further after the jump page.
I am not sure if a Redneck Fishermen welcome mat is my cup of tea, or even personalized shot glasses. But there are lamps with bases made of antlers or carved in the form of wildlife, which I was thinking about bringing home as a surprise gift for my wife, but then I thought better of it because I'm not sure it'd fit into her sense of décor. Probably a good idea I restrained myself.
"Restraint" is not, however, a thing you should generally bring to Bass Pro Shops. Better to have a wallet with plastic and a sense of appreciation for the marvelous excesses of the American merchandising imagination. In Manteca there is a giant three-story high fake redwood tree that you walk through when you enter the store. The only way to improve this, in my mind, is to make it a drive-through tree, perhaps with customers riding through it on one of the dirt bikes or ATVs that are on sale there. Other cool sights are the museum-sized fish tanks with live fish in them; there are also lots of plastic fish on display. Most impressive is a waterfall inside the building with a black bear perched on a ledge. Shoppers and tourists take pictures of themselves posed with this bear and the waterfall in the background. Now how many other retail shops can claim that?
Express Your Inner Road Warrior at Oceano Dunes
When people think about driving on the beach, they usually think of someplace like Daytona Beach, but not California. No, never in environmentally polite California. Actually there is a spot in the Golden State, Oceano Dunes, where you can bring your beast right down to the surf. And here's the kicker: It's a state park. Well, actually in bureaucrat-speak it's a "state vehicular recreational area," just south of Pismo Beach east of 101. It's wild. These big firebreathing trucks pulling these monster mobile homes large enough to give shelter to three or four super-sized families are coming down the beach towards you as your tires are spinning in the soft sand and you're thinking maybe you're going to get stuck or spin out right in front of the other vehicles, and the waves are breaking and the water is licking your tires and the wind is whipping. Go there to express your inner road warrior.
Book Tour Takes Scandalous Turn: Author Visits Naked Beach!
Posted 1/15/10. Monday, January 4 was Take Your Sons to a Radio Station Day, a fictitious national holiday I made up to justify bringing Hank and Gabe with me to a radio interview at KPFA in Berkeley. Denny Smithson, the host, was as gracious to me on the air as he was to my sons off the air, letting them sit next to me in the studio during the interview. (Pictured is a KPFA producer in the control room.)
This
was actually the second radio interview on the Wheels of Change Tour in which
I’ve brought my sons, the first being an NPR “California Report” gig I did in
San Francisco in November. After that interview I treated the boys to lunch at Mel’s Diner on
Van Ness and took them to see Baker Beach in the city. Baker Beach
is just west of the Golden Gate Bridge with swell views
of the bridge, the Marin Headlands, and the mighty Pacific. I had not been
there in a long time and so, while the boys were chasing waves, flopping around
in the sand and getting completely wet and filthy, I decided to take a quick
walk to stretch my legs.
I started walking toward the bridge past other children, families, and couples when I noticed something rather, well, unusual. Suddenly the only people on the beach were men. All without swimsuits, and all with their doppelgangers hanging free. Now, in my younger years, I did occasionally go to a naked beach, but the naked beaches I frequented all had women bathers on them as well as men. This was a strict requirement of mine. I immediately hit the brakes, and turned around.
As I did two women, both fully clothed like myself, were coming down the beach behind me. “There seem to be a lot of guys in that direction,” I said. They said, “Yes, we know,” and made an abrupt right turn away from the water toward the parking lot. By the time I returned back down the beach to where the boys were, they were fighting and throwing sand at each other, and it was time to go home.
Note to families and others: Baker Beach in San Francisco is a terrific spot, well worth a visit. But if you take a walk on the beach, you might want to head west, away from the bridge, rather than east. Fewer doppelgangers in that direction.
On another note, Mel Atwell of Walnut, California recently dropped me a line, mentioning as an aside that his wife Millie had turned 83 and he was 87. Mel is a retired Pasadena fire fighter whose brother Dick played for the House of David barnstorming baseball team. During the Depression (and even later) the Israelite House of David in Michigan sponsored several barnstorming teams, and Dick (standing, far left) was one of their top performers.
The bearded Davids (though there were no religious requirements to play on the team, you did have to have a beard) traveled across America in the 1930s astounding fans with their trick-catching and throwing routines, sort of a white baseball version of the Harlem Globetrotters. I wrote about Dick and Mel, who also played a little ball in his younger days, in The Golden Game, and am now lucky enough to count Mel and Millie among my friends. (Dick has passed on.)
Mel and Millie report they have five children, 18 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. Now that is truly an astounding trick.
Speaking of people I’ve written about who are friends, Washington D.C. FBI Agent Adam Lee sent along pictures of the car he is working on with his son that he wrote about in my last blog. You may look at these pictures and merely see the front and rear end of a rebuilt Dodge Charger, but they're more than that; they're lifelong memories, being created by a father and his son. And when they're finished, those memories will be able to go pretty fast too.
Finally, on Tuesday, Jan. 19 at 6 p.m., I will be speaking about Wheels of Change and showing slides at the Mechanics Institute on 57 Post Street (between Market and Kearny) in San Francisco. Stop by and say hello; friends and family are free. I promise: Everyone will be wearing clothes.
