Waves of bark and light

Well the second day in Yellowston Yosemite was a bust, for a variety of reasons but mostly because my dad couldn't stand another 4 hours on the horribly twisty mountain roads that populate the park. Myself I wanted to see Glacier Point, the coolest lookout in the lower 48, but it was more round trip than anyone else wanted to endure. Wimps. I guess they just don't appreciate the natural beauty like I do. </niles-crane> So today we get the Oakdale Hershey factory, which strangely I remember doing once before: they had the vats of chocolate with the rollers and the kisses wrapper that they couldn't elaborate on ("I don't KNOW how they work!" - tour guide) and I don't think they gave us free chocolate, unlike the Geolitz factory. None of us could explain how it was possible that I had done this - my sister can't remember it and my parents don't recall going with me - but done it I have. I'm not concerned at all, I mean my parents have done it like 3 times and they're leading the drive to see it again. Well, it's not giant sequioa redwoods or a world-class vista, but at least we're not carsick.

surely the terrorists have won

While the Hershey factory was a good idea, apparantly they're afraid of Osama's agents poisoning the nation through chocolate bars. Public tours are not available no more. They had cheap candy though, so we loaded up.

Finding ourselves SOL in the candy tour dept., we're heading back to Lodi by way of main st and the highschool roach coach. Ever had real mexican food? Pretty damn good. Watch out for the brains and gristle though. One Cali food adventure down, 3 to go. Further proof that little changes around here is in main street, where the hardware store my dad worked at for most of his childhood is still a hardware store, the barbershop is still there, and the drive-in burger hasn't changed. I doubt I will have such success pointing out old landmarks to my children 30 years from now. Do I really think my house will still even be there, much less the lake? How often do schools get torn down/remodeled where I live? Just how much of a future does Minnie's have? Beth's will probably still be there 30 years from now, but what about Shoreline Shari's? I guess you just keep livin' and see what happens. Tomorrow is Frisco and Alcatraz. Tonight I gotta make a call.

backdate entry

Oh yeah, we did stuff in Yosemite too, like take a lot of pictures of half dome and el capitan and the river and etc etc etc. I learned the basics of our old Minolta SLR which was way more fun than I thought. We were lost a LOT because the maps of this park are pathetic and the signage is nonexistent. We hiked to bridalveil falls which was more of a misting but pretty enough. Yosemite falls was dry and Vernal falls was pretty quiet too, sadly. We found the visitors center and Camp Curry, the big "camping" center and ate dinner. We found the river eventually and stuck our feet in to cool off mmm. Dark was approaching and we decided to check out the Awahnee, the Grand Wailea of Yosemite. Built in 1927 at a cost of $1.25 million, this 5-star hotel was designed to last "as long as Yosemite itself" and has such insane features as 4-foot wide beams in the ceiling and 6' x 15' fireplaces. Pretty cool. By the time we were done there it was dark and off we went back to the hotel, which was at least an hour out on pitch dark windy roads with no signs. My poor dad had to drive the whole time and probably exceeded his limits. But safely we arrived and lived to tell.

My sister's making Hershey brownies with Nestle quik to spite those bastards that don't give tours. I'm so full of spaghetti I can barely move, and mom stole the phone. Tomorrow is lots of Frisco and Friday is our first day of nothing since we left 5 days ago. I'm surprised at how busy this trip has turned out to be, but there's lots of days left, including 5 in Idaho Falls, which has even less to do than Lodi, were that even possible. I'm sure I'll fill the days easily enough. My dad's got lots of cell phone minutes left. :) I hear Seattle is nice this time of year.