2007-11-26 Tandeming in the Sequoias

Yes, I need to figure out how to format the images in these pages better. Sorry.

Into the Park

  Looking down into the middle fork of the Keowah river   pictographs allegedly depict the life of the Western Mono tribes Taking note of the "last gas for 100 miles" sign and checking to make sure that we had enough fuel to get back to civilization or, barring that, the Central Valley, we turned the car northeast and headed up into Sequoia National Park.

  The road winds up the edge of the canyon The road wound up the edges of the canyon with some great overlooks of the Sierra foothills as we climbed from the central valley up several thousand feet.

Out to Moro Rock

  Looking out from mid-way up Moro Rock

  Posing on the "Auto Log", which is blocked off to automobile traffic now, but for a while was paved on top   riding through the car tunnel log   At the top of Moro Rock, 400 steps later   Looking down from Moro Rock at the road we came up Unusually for this late in the season, the road to Moro Rock was open, so we parked at the Giant Forest Museum and got out the tandem. Took a little while to adjust to 7k feet above sea level, but we tooled out to the "Auto Log", out through the car tunnel, and then back to Moro Rock. The four hundred some-odd steps up Moro Rock were definitely worth it. At the top we talked to a few guys who were just coming off a climb up the face, 7 pitches of 5.7, 5 or so pitches of scramble, sounded like a really nice climb.

To the General Sherman tree

  Standing at the base of, according to the sign, the largest living thing in the world Given the desire to get home before too late, we didn't hit everything, but we did stop at the General Sherman tree, walk the longer than we'd planned on path from the upper parking lot down to the base of the tree for the obligatory photo op, and then back up. And then we high-tailed it towards home.

Bad Thai (pardon the pun)

We blasted down the mountain on 180, thinking of food (having consumed some dried persimmon and some of the jerky from the previous day). Charlene remembered a Thai place in Clovis, but it was closed, so we went into the neighboring Von's to grab a phone book. They had a stack of 'em they were handing out. We looked up Thai food in Fresno, saw about 5 places. I said "I know where that is, it's by the corner with the Starbucks and the Wal*Mart!". I thought I was kidding.

We called around, one was open on a Sunday night, we drove to it. Sure enough, right behind a Starbucks.

Now Fresno is awash in restaurants. They have steak houses and Mexican food, if your idea of Mexican food is 10 types of margaritas, but all the dishes are basically variations on Dinty Moore poured over rice with a side of pinto beans and tortilla chips, and one or two buffets which are what we usually hit when we eat out in Fresno because at least you make a good salad at those. We didn't have high hopes, but those declined even further when the menu came and we saw that they had assorted Chinese dishes as a fallback.

A Marin-dweller taking pot-shots at a Thai restaurant in Fresno is really shooting fish in a barrel, which is why I haven't named the place, but we ordered 3 dishes, a Pad Thai, a mixed veggies, and a veggie curry. The first had the sort of lack of bright tones that happen when you cook citrus in cast-iron, the latter two were cold, had to be sent back, and had all the hallmarks of being frozen veggies poured into a sauce and heated briefly. The curry was way too heavy on the... well... I sleep better if I tell myself it's butter, but it was probably hydrogenated vegetable fats of some sort.

Next time we're running through Fresno on a Sunday evening we eat at a buffet or try to assemble salads at a grocery store.

Category: Dan Lyke life Category: 2007-11 Honeymoon Trip