Country Roads: Part 1B - Yosemite Sam's a one arm bandit

Car is loaded up and all I need to do is pay to get out of the garage. It's $27 for 24 hours, I had the car parked there 30 or so, and it's $27 for a lost ticket. I've got a brilliant idea - I'll just tell the guy I lost my ticket.

Apparently, I'm not the only genius to have this idea. He tells me to pull the car up to the gate because he has to check the license. Great, I'm gonna get busted before the trip starts and all I wanted to do was save a few bucks for a slurpee on the road. Hey I don't know, maybe he couldn't find it or karma bailed me out but he let me go with a $27 payment and didn't say anything to indicate I had done something "naughty". Now that's a good sign for the trip.

Of course because I'm cliche I turned on "Highway to Hell" as I began the trip. Drove over the Bay Bridge for the first time, was surprised that they don't charge for it, figured that was another good sign and headed out towards Yosemite National Park.

I inputted "Yosemite National Park" into my GPS (a Garmin Nuvi - just so you know) and got the directions. They differed a bit from what I had copied down on Google Maps, but then again Yosemite is pretty big and just figured this was taking me to a different part of the park. Besides, it's easier to look at the little screen on the dash than it is to fumble through a notepad and read stuff.

So yeah. The GPS took me to a park on Yosemite Ave, in a residential section of Merced, CA. I tried several combinations, menus, etc. to find the big fucking NATIONAL PARK listing, but it doesn't appear to exist in the Garmin world. Fucking GPS.

It's a good thing I've hated it just about since I bought it, don't trust it, and had the written instructions, which I followed. Amazing that GPS systems cost money, Google Maps is free and only 1 of them knows how to get to one of the largest national parks in the United States.

When the GPS tapped out and read "Low Battery" after 3 hours or so, I gladly turned it off.

Got to Yosemite and was shocked that you have to pay to get in. Not only that, but it's $20. Silently cursed T.J. in my head. Got into the park and didn't really know what to look for/do - other than I'd be exiting the other side. Sort of got lost, but more like didn't really take the most efficient route, but saw some cool waterfalls and took some (hopefully) good pictures*. Also encountered one of the nastiest and smelliest restrooms/outhouses in the world. Unfortunately when you've got to pee, you've got to pee. That's why there's pocket sized hand sanitizer.

So after I had my fill of beautiful natural scenery (and forgiven T.J. in my head) I started to make my way to the other end of the park. Here's the problem. The speed limit is like 30mph (which makes sense), except that when you chart your course on Google Maps it estimates time/distance combos at around 60mph. So yeah... it was a lot later than I planned on when I got out of Yosemite.

Not a problem though, I just won't drive all the way to Vegas. I'll stop somewhere after I get my 577 miles in. (That's the number per day that I calculated to do my original route in 7 days). Besides, it's almost 10:30pm and I started driving at 10:30am.

Now here's the fun part.

After I passed by a small village with places to sleep at 540 miles or so, I was all set to spend the night in the next area listed on the road signs. Except, it was just a few gas stations.

Okay, I'll stay at the next one.

No lodging.

The next one? Gas station.

So now I'm looking at the upcoming areas signs posted on the road, it's nearly midnight, and there's just one option left.

You guessed it, Vegas.

In a way, I was sort of happy. I'd be doing an all day drive to get to Vegas, at night, and come barreling down onto the strip in all it's glory. Plus, since my original plan was to make it to Vegas on Day 1 (not a complicated feat other than getting slowed down in Yosemite by the low speed limit) - I knew of a cheap place to crash. Even had the address.

I hit the Vegas city limits and I'm looking at exit signs for Las Vegas Blvd. Can't find any. Okay, now we're having problems. Get off at one of the exits and try to find it. Not working. I momentarily thought about calling Mr. Scott back home (since he knows Vegas like I know the script to the movie "Clue") but 3am may be early even for him. So I made a desperate move. I tried to turn on my GPS.

To my surprise it worked and after some fiddling had the address entered. Of course it gave me 2 options, North Las Vegas Blvd, or South. I chose North. I followed it and didn't see the Howard Johnson. Problem. However, I did pass by a Best Western, so I back tracked it over there, crossed my fingers it wasn't more than $60 a night and went in.

$49.95 for the night. It's about 12:30-1 in the morning when I get to my room. I set everything to charge, crank the AC, plan a little of Day 2's route and get to sleep.

*A note about pictures from this trip - I'll add them at the end. I shot/shoot everything in RAW format on my SLR so will do some editing/correcting in Photoshop. (Read as: Manolo told me to do this, so I do it even though I have no idea what I'm doing).