Road Trip to Yosemite and the Redwood Forest

A Coyote in Yosemite

I drove over a thousand miles in the last week, most of that on hairpin mountain roads on the edge of a cliff. Yosemite, and then the Redwoods, with the Big Nothing of the Sacramento Valley in between.

I started the week in Yosemite. Yosemite is where young people test their life insurance policies. If you are looking for Death, he takes appointments here.
Added to that creepiness is the Ahwahnee Hotel, which is very recognizably the source of the sets for The Shining.  I kept expecting two little girls to appear around every corner.

From there, I drove to the Redwoods near Garberville, CA. There is simply nothing between the two locations. Driving through the agriculture of the valley was like a wasteland. Monoculture eats up the soil the way bacteria strip bones. I couldn't help thinking, "This is a desert! Who thought of growing anything here in the first place?" California looks nothing like the movies.

The road through the Redwoods.

The Redwoods are a primeval forest in which people suddenly become very small. It is a representation of the world before man. At any moment I expected a velociraptor to disembowel me.   Even the clovers are the size of my hand. It is the single most impressive natural place I have seen in the past ten years.

Go.

But don’t get lost.

Apparently, you don't have to leave California to find West Virginia. While looking for a coastal road, I had the misfortune of driving through Honeydew, California. It's a town so big you could spit across it. It's made up of two empty buildings and ten pickup trucks filled with men who had more rifles than teeth. Being a man, I did not stop to ask for directions.

At the end of the week I drove back to Carson City, Nevada. Wild horses roam the desert and guys like me can shoot big ass guns. Good times. 

Awww, yeaahhh.....

Wild Horses.