I can't sleep. I close my eyes and see SUVs and the crazy shit we were doing on the hi-ways.
Omg what a weekend of twistys through trees, unimaginable vastness, snow covered peaks, high altitude meadows with sweepers over rolling hills and, waterfalls cascading in front of sexy tarmac, weird little mountain villages with $5. gas and unforgettable cherry pie... so I write you instead of sleeping.
My three Italian friends and I hit the road for Yosemite via Sonora pass Bridgeport, Mono Lake and Tioga Pass. That would be my 848, Alfonso and his Monster. We got out of the city at the crack of dawn only to stop in Dublin for a World Cup match not be missed. Did I mention I was with Italians? Germany V Argentina. Germany owned it. Two precious hours later we were facing the Sun heading up 108. There's a decent burger in a speck of an old cowboy town in Jackson at the Diamond Back. Local jail-bait serves frufru buffalo burgers with San Francisco prices with French cheese from MARIN. fek really? A local chick at a gas station told us it was not to be miss. Don't listen to the locals. $15 and 50 miles later I had a brick in my stomach and we were rapidly ascending a redwood forested mountain. The pickups dotted the terrain and made for a challenging obstacle course. The sweepers turned into woopty-doos with surprising kink turns over crazy mountain road geometry without warning. No more turn-ahead signs, no more guard rails. No more trucks. Almost no one at all.
8,000 feet.
Massive boulders between redwoods and huge pines greeted the entrance to turns as the textures started to glisten from the snow. We'd had a little break from the early Sun smack in our eyes through the forest but at 9,000 feet the trees thinned, the boulders grew, and the mountain was bursting with powerful waterfalls.
My 848 championed the bouncy highway leading our charge trumpeting victoriously through it's Termignioni. I listened as the wind instrument that it is changed it's voice. I started to worry. It was getting really breathy. It lost it's crackling high note and was growing into a dull rumble. We stopped in the trees to drain a sec. It was difficult to start for the first time ever. It kept changing every 500 vertical feet. The altitude was seriously messing with us. At a skip and a jump shy of 10,000 feet my head started feeling like a balloon.
We peaked. A snowy surreal landscape and space. Violently cascading water. Deep blue skies and massiveness. Late-Spring in the Sierras on July 3rd and 'change' was the theme. Cracking mountain, fighting trees, twisted road, gnarled jagged rocks tortured by ice and Sun.
Down
The 848 grumbled quietly in the turns faithfully kicking all it had out the back wheel. Every now and then a snap of unburned gas flamed out the back. 9,000 - 8,000 - 7,000feet back to normal. Thumping across high plains, animals and farms, windmills, and a small outcropping of civilization. Thank God, because I was OUT OF GAS.
Bridgeport
There was jail-bait, old men, and cows. That's it. Its like they ship the women off at a certain age or something. We stayed in the "cowboy rooms" of an old Victorian B&B. We got authenticity without electricity and shared bathrooms. I wanted a fekking Jacuzzi.
The stars were there just like I left them the last time I left San Francisco. A brilliant beaming swath of Milkyway down to the horizon, no moon. 70F at 10PM. Alfonso talked with his G-friend on the cell where we noted better reception than in the Mission next to glaciers and buffalo. He couldn't be bothered with such things like starts. To each his own.
I was up before the Sun to shoot some photos of crackling mountains on the horizon. Pancake breakfast was served at the Memorial Hall down Main Street by an army of 19-year-old girls and old men worn like wrinkled leather.
Mono Lake
Little forest service plaques remind us of what once was next to the hi-way. Local Indians used to pan for worms in its salty waters to get through winter. They're drinking beer now wherever they are.
Yosemite Tioga Pass. HYW120 begins. Epic. Heaven on earth.
120 is a racecourse worthy of Hollywood's best cinematographers. Granite outcroppings make mind blowing cliffs and a strange harmony with the forest. Massiveness beyond anything comparable and somehow some dudes went and carved a road in it for us.
The colors and textures keep changing, heart racing, motors ripping it up, speckled light through fat low twisted trees, cliffs higher than you can crane you neck. You could spend a lifetime getting to know the magical intricacies of that place.
We thawed at a cafe in the Sun. Then we slowly noticed it was actually 80F.
We did laps around the park zipping through SUV puttering along, taking pictures and sticking our heads under waterfalls. Pictures can only describe.
120 Southbound after the park
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That was fun. 3,000 vertical feet of hairpins after rolling sweeper after hairpin on perfect black tarmac cut out of hillside. Grassy roller-coaster yes please, again and again and again. Sparse Harley Davidsons dotted the road and a few SUVs, just enough to weave through, making it more ridiculously fun than it was all by its self. No hiding places.
We lusted a moment of throttle after the polite bliss of Yosemite. My gauges read 100F. We moved quickly through the idiots getting knees out for the corners. Leaning harder than you would anywhere in Marin, we blasted downward. At sprawling lake views at the bottom we pulled over to hi-5 and turn around.
We went back up and did it again.
Like 5 year olds with a new toy we hit that pregnant dog 3 times.
The Sun was far into the west and we had the endless hell know as the "East Bay" and the torture of head bobbing slab, grannies in 3.5 ton trucks tightly stacked cruising in the passing lane, head winds, the stink of 2million people trying to live next to the ocean and burning metal and rubber. My eyes were so fried from dodging rearview mirrors in the Sun I could hardly walk a straight line in the driveway. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Just need to rest a bit.
