Houston, we have a program

So, we have arrived in Houston and picked up the program for the next 4 weeks of our lives! I'm still not done with the posts of our road trip (coming soon), but just wanted to let everyone know we arrived safely and all is well. In the meantime, you can see some of the uploaded photos by following the link on the right. By the numbers: Our trip took 15 days, 14 nights, 3464 miles, 109.1 gallons of gas, and one oil change. Oh, and we ran out of windshield washer fluid. We stayed at 6 campgrounds, 2 friends' houses, 2 cousin's houses, and 4 hotels, one of which was more a casino with some rooms in the attic... We visited 4 national parks, a number of state and local parks, and one doctor's office. We ate at two Chinese restaurants, one German restaurant, two Mexican restaurants, 2 Arbys, one Sonic, one In-n-Out burger, and got to indulge our hosts or eat camp food for the rest of our dinners. We ate at least 18 hard-boiled eggs... and went through 7 bags of beef jerky, the most popular snack of the trip, with dried mangos second for me, and apricots second for Kim. Ella preferred pepitas (Mexican pumpkin seeds). We shopped at Wal-Mart twice, more than I've shopped there in the past 5 years because of their draconian labor and purchasing policies (I suppose I have also shoppe at a Mexican Wal-Mart in the past year--but "What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico", so that doesn't count, right...). The biggest disappointment of the trip was Ella getting sick with a urinary tract infection, high fever, and not feeling her self for a few days. Because of that, we decided to skip the scenery for the last 3 days and stick to hotels and interstates rather than camping and scenic sites. In the end, the hotels were a nice respite, anyway. Runners-up for disappointments included driving through Redwood National Park without stopping (Ella was sleeping too peacefully), the hectic crowded nature of Yosemite Valley, and missing getting a view of the Hoover dam. The best parts of the trip included simply seeing the amazing diversity of landscape between Washington and Houston, catching up with old friends and family along the way, getting out of Yosemite Valley to visit the beautiful Toulomne Meadows (a much less-visited part of Yosemite National Park), finding an amazing campsite in the middle of nowhere along a scrubby California highway, and seeing how much Ella loves swimming pools. The biggest annoyance was the RVs hogging roads and blocking traffic from Oregon through California, Nevada, and Arizona. The biggest umm, whatever the opposite of annoyance is... was the amazingly friendly people throughout the Southwest--I guess I need to retire some of my Texas prejudices. Anyway, we're here in Houston, safe and sound. Ella is better, and we've settled into our hotel which will be home for the next 4 weeks. It has free breakfast, free wireless internet, and a pool--Ella is quickly becoming a little mermaid. Tomorrow we get to do all our employment paperwork and get oriented to the Pediatric AIDS Corps. It's all very exciting... I will post catch-up posts of the last few weeks' journey as I get a chance (they will be below this, in order of date). In the meantime, please click on "comments" below and say hi.

Day VI--Leaving Yosemite, an exercise in contrasts

July 7, 2006 from Gray's Meadow Campground, CA. "Camp 4" proved to be a peaceful enough place to rest despite the crowds, and I even got to steal over to the main lodge to use the wireless internet access there. There are some perks to the high level of development. We also found out that after the sun goes down, Camp 4 fills with rogue campers who just sneak in, use up the "camp 4 only" parking spots (meaning I had to park far away and walk back to camp), and pitch their tents wherever they want. We got two extra tents in our site after dark, but both had packed up and sneaked off by morning. We had planned to spend 2 nights in Yosemite Valley, but we'd pretty much seen the sites, and with Ella, we weren't going to do any extended hikes into the other parts of the valley, so on we drove. At the start of the trip, Yosemite Valley was one of the expected highlights. In the end, it turned out to be mostly stressful sightseeing and waiting in lines--be they lines of cars,campers or gawkers. I guess that's why we travel, see if reality is the same as our expectations... Anyway, driving west out of the valley we saw some pretty amazing things that most people who visit the valley never bother with. There were some interesting rock formations along the road: and beautiful vistas, of mountains and alpine lakes: After about an hour, we arrived in the sub-alpine Toloumne Meadows. We had missed the wildflowers, but the views were still pretty amazing. We hiked around for a while, and found a few mosquitos, but it was worth it. Even Ella was enchanted by the reflection of Lembert dome in a crystal-clear pool. We lunched under Lembert Dome--chicken salad peppered with sliced grapes and more boiled eggs, and seasoned with Balti seasoning (we brought the last remains of the Indian spices my brother,Ian, gave us for Christmas a few years ago. Mmmmm Balti). The mosquitoes were pesky, but it was a nice restful lunch, and there were no crowds. Driving on, we climbed over Tioga Pass at 9945 feet, then descended along a scenic valley (you can just make out the road on the left wall of the valley in the photo), with views of yet more waterfalls. The terrain eventually opened up to flat scrub with a backdrop of layered hills and mountains: We drove past more lakes dotted with resorts and vacation homes, and Ella slept as we enjoyed the scenery from the road. We woke Ella up for pizza at Pizza Factory in Bishop, California. Their moto is "We toss em, they're awesome". It was certainly tasty, if not awesome, and Ella enjoyed terrorizing the other diners. We finally managed to seat her, and filled her up with green peas from the salad bar. After dinner, we kept pushing southward. There weren't many campgrounds that we could find, so were considering getting a motel room. Then we passed the town of Independence, with a sign down a long road to nowhere but three campsites from 2 to 13 miles off in the wrong direction. We gave it a shot. The first campground was basically a few gravel pads about 10 feet from the main road, and about 5 feet from eachother. We weren't expecting much at this point, but we decided to check out the next campground--another 5 miles--thinking that it couldn't be any worse. Here's the sign that greeted us: Much to our surprise, the campground was perfect. There was a nice stretch of open area between the campsites and the road, offering views of the scrubby hills and mountains: and behind us was a pretty little stream that produced enough white noise that you couldn't hear any of the other campers. When we did walk past the other camp sites, everyone was incredibly pleasant--a number of older Native Americans with their camper-trailers, and in the site beside us a middle-aged couple feasting on lamb chops and drinking wine under the light of their 3 gas-powered lanterns. They offered one of the lanterns to us, but we were happily doing our thing with our little headlamps. I set up the tent while Ella posed and played with a blue ballpoint pen. Then I wandered around taking photos of the scenery as the moon rose above the mountains, and the sky grew dark. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. Nice scenery, tasty food, friendly people, and a great little campground in the middle of nowhere that we'd found by pure happenstance. To top it off were the sounds of the stream to lull us to sleep... All this from a day where we'd espected nothing--only to put some miles behind us after our visit to Yosemite Valley.

Day V--Yosemite

July 6, Yosemite National Park (posted 7/17/06--Houston) We were in a hurry to get to Yosemite before the first-come-first-served campsites were all gone (the Yosemite website warns they often fill up by 9am on summer days), so we set off from Sacramento before 6am. Ella slept as we moved into the brushy hills leading into Yosemite. The trees gradually got taller as we approached Yosemite Valley, but we were on a mission to get a campsite, so we pressed on. By the time we got into the valley and through the traffic jams, complete with rangers directing traffic, we pulled up to "Camp 4" to the site of a long line for sites. The one guy behind the desk was painfully slow, taking more than 5 minutes per person just to assign a site and take $5 per camper. We had to spend 90 minutes in line, but did get a site! Ella didn't mind the wait, and managed to entertain herself. Camp 4 is a "walk in" campsite, meaning it starts about 20 feet from a parking lot. It was something like a mix of a refugee camp and a youth hostel. It wasn't exactly what I'd call a wilderness experience, but it was an interesting mix of people, from cooler-than-thou hi-tech outdoors folk to ex-hippies. The air was filled with lots of foreign accents, and a number of very American accents loudly voicing their political opinions. At any rate, we got a slot in site 8, with 4 other people sharing it, and Ella got to work helping set up the tent. She got dirty fast, but seemed pretty proud of herself nonetheless. Having established shelter, we turned to nourishment. The menu included "cheeseburgers". Now, fed and sheltered, we set off to see the sites that draw so many to Yosemite. The valley was beautiful. And the requisite sites (such as halfdome, below) were stunning. But, there was reality as seen through the lens: and reality as seen on the ground. The place was so crowded they needed rangers to direct traffic, and every inch of roadway was lined with cars. We saw all the famous waterfalls including the vista of Yosemite falls from the site of John Muir's old cabin. Bridal Veil Falls graced us with a delicate rainbow suspended in the mist. But sometimes the nices sites were the quiet, out-of-the-way and un-named spots away from the crowds. As the sun went down, we visited the Valley's general store for a bite of ice cream, and headed back to camp for some Louisiana hot sausages and Annies Mac-n-Cheese. Finally we drifted off to sleep to the gentle roar of falling water, mostly obscuring the sounds of the ongoing political debates a few zippered doors away.

From the Road IV--July 5th

Backdated July 5th, Sacramento (posted July 17th from Houston) After a peaceful night's sleep at Burnt Ranch Campground, we loaded up the car and had cold breakfast of our previously boiled eggs and some granola bars--by now we were out of milk and cooking fuel. As we set out, we were able to fully appreciate the pretty mountains and the river that meandered below, now that the fog had cleared. We finally descended from the mountains and the Shasta-Trinity National Forest on one of the twistiest stretches of road I've ever driven. The driving required a lot of concentration, but each corner revealed a new vista to keep it interesting. Eventually, the terrain opened up and we headed south to take a loop detour around some pretty little mountain lakes, and later through broad flat agricultural fields that felt more like they belonged in the midwest than California: right down to the barns... and the grain elevators. The fields of sunflower seeds were definitely not midwestern. We stopped in the town of Red Bluff to re-supply on camp fuel and milk, as well as get an overdue oil change. I abandoned my no chain restaurant resolution altogether with another trip to Arbys while our car was on the lift... Mmmmm Super Roast Beef. As we approached Sacramento, we passed our time trying to teach Ella to imitate Arnold Schwarzeneger--"A'll be ba-ack". The first syllable was pretty convincing. We knew we were getting close to Sacramento when the dry flat fields gave way to developments of suburban cookie cutter homes, coated with some Spanish-flavored sprinkles (click for a better look). Even the latte's apparently had the same flavor sprinkled on them. Finally we arrived at the home of Kong and Muouah-Chi, the older brother and sister-in-law of one of my best friends form grade school. We had a nice dinner and a great chance to reminisce on friendships, and the process of growing up and reconnecting with family. It was a welcome break from the road.

From the Road III-Independence Day

Posted July 13 from El Paso, backdated July 4--Siltcoos, Oregon Coast (Waxmyrtle Campground). We woke up bright and early to the sound of 4-wheelers with no mufflers tearing around on the nearby dunes. The neighboring campground had coin-op showers, so we all squeezed into one stall and came out sparkling clean, but poorer by $2.50. As we packed up camp, Ella did her best to help out. She ended up dirtier than before her shower... We were on the road shortly, Dad at the wheel, Mom navigating, and Ella chatting herself to sleep on her toy cell phone (note the change of clothes from the above "helping out" pre-dirtying-up picture). The scenery was mostly quite pleasant, but we did get reminders of the clearcut logging which scars Northwest hillsides. I know we need wood for housing and paper, but there has to be a better way than this... After a short while, Ella woke up fussy, and it was time to take another look at the coastal scenery, and join in the Fourth of July festivities at Port Orford, OR. We just missed the parade, but there were still food stalls selling hotdogs. Ella posed dramatically with the remains of my snack. Hyunjoo wasn't to be outdone.Finally, bellies full, Ella hopped in the car and drove us on our way. We got a few last vistas of the Oregon Coast, near Cape Foulweather (the weather was fair): and finally stopped for a late lunch at a somewhat dodgy Chinese restaurant. No matter how small a town, anywhere in the world, there always seems to be a few Chinese people there (I even ate red-braised pigs' feet with some Chinese friends in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea once upon a time). Hyunjoo thought the hot-and-sour soup was ok. Ella was just happy to be out of the car. Here is Ella's fortune--advice she didn't need. Maybe the numbers will be helpful, though? We drove on through the northern parts of Redwood National and State Parks. The drive was beautiful, but Ella was sleeping so peacefully, and we needed to get in some more miles that day to catch up, so we didn't stop or get any pictures... one of the biggest regrets of the trip so far. Just north of Eureka, CA we turned eastward on California 229, which was a beautiful drive (see photos tomorrow...), but soon we hit mountain peaks shrouded in dense fog, the sun was very low in the sky, and Ella was very unhappy about how long we'd spent in the car. We would have to stop soon... California isn't Appalachia, but driving through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, as I rounded each corner, I half-expected to encounter a barefoot toothless kid plucking dueling banjos on his front porch... It just had that kind of a vibe... Eventually, we passed the town of Burnt Ranch, population 200-something, which was evidenced only by a biker bar with a bunch of beat up 4x4s and Harley's out front, then came upon this sign: We were desperate, so we pulled in. It was $8 for the night, and we needed to stop.. But there were no other campers to be seen (did they know something we didn't), it was only a half-mile from the seedy bar, and we were in bear country now. with no bear-boxes provided. The bears don't make me afraid for my personal safety, but just for the survival of my car. In many California campsites with bears, you can't even leave food in your car because the bears will break your windows to go after it--even tearing out the back seats to get into the trunk-- so many campgrounds provide heavy duty bear-proof food metal boxes at each site. Anyway, we needed to stop, so we set up camp. It was a fairly pretty and quiet site (we got our choice of all the sites...). After us, two more parties of campers pulled in after dark to set up their tents as well. Maybe seeing us already there made it seem less scary. At any rate, we had a delightful night and slept well. It was much quieter than our site at the dunes. Happy Independence Day!!!