The agriculture police AND bears wanted our food!

Our second big trip of the year was by car over the week of July 4th. We wanted to save our skymiles and get out on the open road. So we packed the car full or camping, hiking and biking gear and hit the road, destination: California.

We headed out 70 West through the mountains toward Grand Junction where we planned to camp that night but, no such luck. We got going waaaayyy too late and ended up staying in Glenwood Canyon. The next day was probably our longest drive of the trip... 10 hours to Las Vegas. We knew it would be a long day of driving, so we stopped frequently in Utah to take in un-earth-like vistas. Utah is full of great rock formations in every color imaginable. We talked to a few resident Utahonians who were telling us how everyone they met from Colorado thought Colorado was better than Utah. I pondered this comparison, Utah and Colorado both have large mountains, vast open spaces with miles of view, and mesas, but Colorado seems to be a bit more green in the mountain areas and Utah's landscapes are like nothing I have ever seen before. They are both pretty impressive states in different ways.

We drive through a small piece of Arizona which includes a great stone canyon and then on into Nevada. We stop for a shot break, as I get out of the car I am immediately hit by the heat; Nevada is very, very hot in the summer and with no relief. Nevada is not much to look at, hills and rock all seem to have the same tan color and the only sparse green color to offset the tan is Joshua trees and small shrubs. Looking at the scenery takes me back to what we read on a historic sign in Utah talking about how some families moved into Utah and acquired great tracks of land for almost nothing because no one wanted it. Well I think I would rather have a track of land that looks like Mars in Utah than this desert.

My dull mood brightens as I spot Vegas under a cloud of haze out in the distance. We arrive at our Vegas hotel, the Riviera for the night. We go out to gamble and get dinner. Luckily we were somewhat resistant gamblers, we didn't lose more than $20... Unfortunately all that we did not lose to gambling we ended up spending on dinner, yikes!

The next morning we left early with the intent of making it all the way to Yosemite in California. Our first road block, literally, was on the California border, we got stopped at an agriculture check point. They searched the contents of our cooler and checked all our produce very carefully. Upon completion it was determined that our avocado was unfit to occupy California because of a tiny puncture hole that could "have fruit flies in it." So it was confiscated and we were sent on our way. Wes and I pondered what exactly they would do with our avocado, we figured the produce police probably have a smorgasbord or fruits and vegetables they munch on all day and look for unsuspecting travelers who have an item they want.

Driving up a twisting two-lane road toward Yosemite National park it becomes apparent that we are going to arrive at our campsite at dusk. This does not make me happy. I wanted to arrive with plenty of daylight to set up our campsite. I am scared of bears and I know that the bears in Yosemite can be sneaky when it comes to people food. We start throwing stuff out of the car in a hurry to set up camp with the last dying light from the sky, soon though, we are enveloped in darkness and we fumble to light a lantern. Now we have a problem, our cooler (which fits in bear boxes in Colorado) does not fit in Yosemite's bear box.

We are trying to figure out what to do when we hear a crashing noise coming through the forest towards our camp. We make noise and the object in the forest seems momentarily frozen (probably confused as to why we are banging on pots and not instead ringing a dinner bell.)

We continue to try to set up camp, putting our tent together when the noise starts again, we can barely see a dark figure of something moving around our camp out of reach from the circle of light from the lantern. We make noise again but the figure is NOT going away. Then we see the eyes reflected in the light of the lantern, right behind the bear box! That is enough for me! Soo, we packed everything up and stayed at a hotel nearby, but not before we spilled a gallon-bags-worth of gold-fish crackers all over the ground -- you should have seen us trying to frantically clean the crackers up before (in my imagination) the bear would storm into our camp and eat all the gold fish and us along with it!)

The rest of the trip visiting Yosemite (for the next two days) went well, no more bear sightings but saw some great views! We hiked a good couple of miles, on part of the High Sierra Loop trail. We rode bikes around the valley floor, saw huge redwoods and sequoia trees, plenty of waterfalls and had picnics in the park. After Yosemite we headed on to San Francisco, more to come on that later!