Yosemite village was almost as good as civilization but our plan for this day really brought us back. It started with breakfast at the famed Ahwanee Hotel. We heard about this place from a ranger in Great Basin NP. We told him of our itinerary and he made us promise for him that we would eat at the Ahwanee. Back in his younger days he worked as a youth leader and seemed to have many good memories of coming off the trail and dressing up for dinner at the Ahwanee. After breaking camp in the morning, we also dressed up with slacks and nice shirts - petending for a moment that we might have had a shower in the last 6 days.

Yosemite had been pushing my perception of a national park and this was the last stretch. Built in the 1920's this hotel inspired awe. The main floor had the lobby, a huge high cieling lounge, a solarium, and an even higher ceiling grand dining hall. It was very tastefully deocrated with local baskets, flowers, rocks and photots. It is a very high class place with the hosts wearing tuxes and bowties and the servers awaiting your every wish. Although it is a high class hotel, the friendliness from the staff was fantastic. We had great conversation with our waitress who has been working here for many years, our busser Kasia from Poland, and the omelet chef Edwin from Ghana. Everyone was all smiles, and genuine, especially us after we left. Our waitress told us that Ahwanee is a native word meaning something like, "canyon like a gaping mouth", and that the people of the area are the Ahwaneechee (sp?). The icon for the hotel is a bold circular design representing a man running inside a circle so fast that he has 3 legs. It appears on all their china, letterheads and so on.

Now it was time to get some more vistas. We took the drive out of the valley and up to Glacier point - where Ansel Adams had taken the signature shot of Half Dome. Another high volume, highly developed area with bathrooms, store and paved paths. It is an amazing viewpoint. At the top of a sheer cliff over 3000 feet above the valley floor it offers amazing views of The Valley, Half Dome, Vernal and Nevada Falls, Clouds Rest, and the alpine are to the southeast. The viewer gets a great impression of the expansiveness and drama of the granite landscape of Yosemite. I had some questions earlier about the National Park Services policy concerning fire in the park and it was partly answered here. From Clacier Point we could see a small fire out in the apline region to the southeast. There was a large sign with huge bold letter saying "Do Not Report Fire". Explained on the sign was that it started by lightning several days ago and was being allowed to burn but was being closely watched. This made me happy as I believe that natural fires should be allowed to burn because they are natural process. However I can only assume that if it threatened the trees in The Valley that some kind of action would be taken. That's another google search for another day...

After being satisfied with views of rock and people, we headed to Mariposa Grove to see trees and people. Here stand some of the most voluminous trees on the planet. It was explained in the hiking guide that giant sequoias are not the tallest or largest around, but the trees that take up the most space, and it's something you can really see. One of the largest and oldest trees in the grove, The Grizzly Giant, is an estimated 2700 years old. Grizzly is a great name for this fat tree with huge crooked limbs. One of it's limbs is over 2 meters in diameter - wider that the trunk of any other type of tree in the park!

On the way back, we had a conversation with one of the hybrid shuttle bus drivers about the hybrids and it seemed something was amiss. She claimed that the busses got 1/2 mile the gallon. When I asked her what the mileage of a regular diesel bus might be she said about 6 mpg. Hmmm. So why are these "hybrid" busses good? She said it had to do with the soot filters on the busses that took out the black smoke - claiming that the busses are not fuel efficient but environmentally efficient. I'm very familiar with the idea of environmental efficiency, but this didn't sound right. I figured it would be just as easy to put the soot filters on a regular diesel bus and you'd be better off. So, either her MPG numbers are backwards, or GM and the park service are in some fishy business. I will get to the bottom of this.

Now it was time to head for the big city. Seish took the wheel as he was excited for big city driving. The approach to the city was uneventful until we hit the rush hour traffic. While the traffic exiting the city was worse, we were still slowed down amongst a sea of cars. My position on city driving is to not bother playing the "get to the fastest lane game" because I'd found it to be an game that got me nowhere and just frustrated me. But I think Seish was pumped for zig-zagging around the lanes trying to get ahead. It's certainly a more active way of playing with the traffic jam. Siesh got a bit more excitement than he had planned on when an unexplained rapid stop happened in our lane. He noticed just in time to swerve to the side and avoided the car in front of us. However our swerve continued left and right a couple times as the contents of the car were jumping from one side to the next. Afterwards we looked at each other, checked that all was okay and let out a sigh of relief - exhilarated by our brush with disaster. Seish had always wondered about the seemingly unexplainable S-shaped skid-marks on the freeway. Now he knows.

The drive across the Oakland Bay Bridge was magical as always. Sunlight was kissing the tops of a light shroud of clouds over San Francisco as we descended to the west side of the bay filling me with excitement for visiting that nexus of culture and ideas. As we were listening to On The Road earlier I think we felt some kinship with Jack. With only a small hiccup we succesfully followed our Map Quest directions and map to Nayabei's house just south of Golden Gate Park. Our first encounter at 1524 10th Ave was with Rich - the owner of the house. We knocked a few times, then noticed the face of an old man through the glass in the window. As Seish made eye contact the old man opened the door and stared at us with a still, slightly scornful face. I immediately thought we had the wrong house. Seish asked "Is this 1524?". The man simply replied, "Yes." After a strange pause, we asked if Naya lived here. With an annoyed tone he asked, "Why?". I was impressed that we had probably found one of the few paranoid old men in San Francisco and that we still had the wrong address. Seish answered back, "We are friends of hers and she's expecting us."

"She didn't tell me about it. She's gone for the weekend."

As soon as I heard that I realized that this was the right house and this guy was totally toying with us. Naya's distant "Hellooooo" from inside confirmed it, prompting Seish and I to break out with laughter.

"Wow, good one." I said. No response, still a completely flat face. This guy is good I thought. The whole night he never cracked a smile but threw out a few dead-pan jokes. What a character.

We quickly offloaded some junk and went out to eat. Naya immediately impressed me as a very open, curious and friendly person. She a beatiful girl who's family is still in Mexico. From Oaxaca, she came with her family to Polson Montana when she was 15, very similar to Seish coming from Japan to Kalispell Montana ( only 50 miles from Polson) at 16. Despite their prioximity for 3 years they actually met at Carroll college in Helena, MT. They certainly had some history, but I felt able to talk with both of them as friends. We at at a Hotei, a very good Japanese restaurant with fantastic prices. We all had a noodle dish, and being Japanese, Seish took the lead with appetizers, ordering some specialties I'd never had before. We had the option of dancing that night, but we opted to just hang out with Naya for a bit because she had to get up very early for work - 5:00 - OUCH. She let us sleep in her bed while she took a foam pad on the floor. She was a great host. I slept very soundly. Thank you Naya!

-jesse