Saturday, July 12. Austin, TX to Santa Rosa, NM
Met up at the HEB in Leander, TX. at 5:30. Various delays caused us to delay leaving
for almost an hour.
Had breakfast in ?
Tommy had made reservations in both Santa Rosa, NM and Santa Fe, NM.
We’re were hoping to make it all the way to Santa Fe which was about 680 miles.
When we finally made Santa Rosa at about 8:00 pm, Jim “had a vision” that we should
stop there. We all felt pretty good about that.
Sunday, July 13. Santa Rosa, NM to Ridgway, CO
Drove in from Santa Rosa to Tommy’s cabin in Ridgway, CO.
We stopped for dinner at the True Grit restaurant there, then headed
up the gravel road to the cabin. It was dark, and the dust was pretty bad
coming off the road from Jim and Tommy’s motorcycles in front of us.
We were both pretty nervous about that, but made it safely to the cabin.
Monday, July 14. Ridgway, CO to Ely, NV
Woke up to a beautiful view and the sound of Jim and Tommy drinking
coffee and talking out on the deck. We had kidded about there not being any
coffee at the cabin, or if there was it would be years old. We don’t know why,
but the guys had made a pot of “years old” coffee, and I think it was the best
I’ve ever had. Maybe it was just the view.
Drove down the mountain from Ridgway to Ely, NV.
Tuesday, July 14. Ely, NV to Carson City, NV
Drove in from Ely, NV to Carson City, NV.
Wednesday, July 16. Carson City, NV to Yosemite National Park
Woke up in Carson City, NV a little before 6 am.
Walked down to get coffee, but they don’t make the coffee until 7.
Today we’ll be driving into Yosemite and spending the night there at
Curry Village.
Thursday, July 17. Yosemite to Seaside, CA (Monterey)
Yosemite was beautiful. We got up and had breakfast, then took the tram over
to the Mirror Lake trail. It was a nice 1 mile hike up to the lake. We were up
before most other folks, so had the trail all to ourselves. The lake was indeed
a mirror, with only an occassional bug causing ripples on it. With the sun barely above
the valley walls, the lighting was perfect for showing off the mirror images
on the water. We took lots of pictures!
The drive into Monterey was uneventful. We had made plans with Tommy
to split up once we got close, since he was staying in a different town.
Our GPS misguided us though as we got to the 101, so we split off from Tommy
about an hour sooner than we needed to. Tommy was ahead of us and went straight
through a 4 way intersection, and our GPS told us to go right. So we waved farewell
to Tommy, made the right turn, and then was told by the GPS that we were “off route”.
As we got closer to the coast the temperature suddenly dropped into the low 60’s.
We had to stop and take off our evaporative cooling vests and put on our outer jacket
liners.
We got checked into the Embassy Suites in Seaside, CA. They put us on the top floor (12)
with a nice view. Diner at Chili’s ended another perfect day.
Seaside, CA
We’re planning on taking it easy for the next few days, wash some clothes,
maybe a few short trips around the beach towns nearby.