The Yosemite Saga
Home from Yosemite
In September 2022, Max and the cousins arranged a big family visit to Yosemite. It was a great time. The whole thing made me very happy.
Everyone else was comfortably staying in tent cabins. I'm an old man and have to pee in the middle of the night. Trying to pee quietly into a can, or hiking down the path to the restrooms, completely wakes me up and going back to sleep becomes impossible. So Sarah and I stayed at a hotel in El Portal, just outside of Yosemite.
On our last evening there with the family, going to the hotel after dinner, I hit a curb damaging our rim and tire. It was very dark, that’s my excuse.
The next morning the tire was low, but not flat, so I filled it with air and we went for breakfast with the fam, and then back home to L A with Lily we went.
The next part of the story is told by Sarah in the text she sent to the family.
On the Road Again - a Saga in two chapters: Hi Fam! We were cruising along pretty well toward Fresno on Rte 41, despite our flattening tire and dented rim. We stopped at a gas station to fill the tire with air, alas the air machine was broken. Well okay, we'll stop in Madera as planned. Not five minutes outside the gas station outside the town of Coursegold, the tire went badly flat. We pulled over, called AAA around 4:25. David emptied the trunk and got out the spare tire. When no one had arrived an hour later we called again and got put on interminable hold with the Dispatcher. But just as we were getting grumpy, and David and Lily started to change the tire, a pickup circled round to give us a hand. The really nice guy had all the power tools for lug nuts and jack- spare tire on - easily done. So back in the car grateful and looking forward to getting home, another wrinkle. The emergency lights flashing for over 90 minutes drained our battery and the car wouldn't start. So I called AAA on my card to tell our tale of woe and how no one had come and now we needed a jump. Spent a long time on the phone with an apologetic woman who tried to find out where our service person was. In a 50 mile radius there was only one - maybe two service people out. Sunday? 9/11? Just when AAA called David back to say that our Madera truck was 45 minutes away, lo and behold, a car pulled up behind us - a couple who saw us from the road with ten minutes to check into their hotel, went to check in and drove back to help us. They had jumper cables. Kindness of three strangers, saints alive! Writing this from the 99, heading home. The moon is rising, deep amber cut by a cloud - looks like Jupiter. There is lightning in the distance. Lily and David will fill in other details. It was so good to see you all!!! I hope your returns home are uneventful.
Hello, me again.
Only two small additions to the story.
Part 3. After two hours of waiting by the side of the road, we all had to pee. We opened the two right car doors for some privacy. Sarah got a honk.
A while after that 3 buzzards started circling.
Total time almost 3 hours by the side of the road
When the AAA guy said it would be 45 minutes I thought it was very unreasonable. Then we were rescued by the people with jumper cables, and so we didn't need the AAA. But 5 minutes down the road we came to an hour long construction delay, so maybe the AAA guy wasn't so unreasonable after all.
Passing through Bakersfield Lily offers to drive. The In-N-Out south of Bakersfield was a good place to stop, trade places, and a pee break.
Through sheer blind dumb ass luck we just miss getting in a head on wreck with someone trying to get on the freeway through the exit.
Another car behind us wasn’t lucky.
Lily drives through a violent monsoon through the grapevine.
Thunderbolts and Lightning, very very frightening me.