From S.F. to Yosemite

Woke up and went to breakfast at the Cafe Mason.  Ooo-la-la.  I cannot believe the waitresses there.  Really.  It is something from a movie.  I don't know why they are working there but that 3/4 of them are from another country, so maybe they are illegal or simply dumbfounded.  Still, even such beauty looks beat early on a Sunday morning.  They were more than a bit worn and put away. . . . you know.

After breakfast, I packed the room and then the car, and headed out of town to visit my friends in Yosemite.  The drive was easy but long, me without music but the FM radio which was mostly Mexican which I liked but also bad Country and a lot of sneaky Christian.  I cruised about twenty miles per hour over the speed limit and made good time through towns like Stockton and Modesto and other places a decent person would never consider living.  In Merced I stopped at a CVC pharmacy to buy toenail clippers that I had left at home but needed if I were to climb and got some water and hair conditioner as well.  Then leaving all the rednecks and immigrants behind, I drove on to Yosemite on 140 through Mariposa where I stopped to fill up the Jeep before prices really began to climb.  Just then my friend called me to say they were going to a beach beside Cascade Falls and to meet them up there.  As I passed the check-in Ranger station to enter the park, I gave them my friend's name and said I'd be staying for the week.  The ranger girl was young and cute and told me her birthday was coming up, and I told her I'd remember.  Things were going well.

I found them at the beach with another couple swimming in the pool of cold river water, so I yelled down some smart alec comment and we began.  Two children now, two and a half and a little over one years old, so they are very, very busy.  We played and I drank a beer and then it was time for home.

After dinner in the hundred degree heat, my friend said, "Let's go to the river and cool off," and even though it was getting dark, I followed him and slid in over the slippery rocks and the deceivingly rapid current and soon was drifting too rapidly down river while he laughed.  It was cold all right, especially naked.

But things worked out and we got dressed and walked back up the bank and over the road and back up to his house looking for rattle snakes and bears, both of which are in abundance just now.

And now I am tired and worn after a long hot drive and beers and wine and whiskey.  The kids are in bed and I am in the downstairs room trying to be quiet and grateful.  And tomorrow, if my knee holds up, I will climb two waterfalls and come back down intact.  And I will be slimmer and more beautiful, too.

But for now, knee throbbing, I will lie down on their couch and try to go to an early sleep.

Hopefully. . . pictures tomorrow.