Kettleman City, California: blazing hot in the summer, freezing cold in the winter, bone-dry yet humid as hell. Also, it's in the middle of nowhere. If there's an upside in all that, I'm not seeing it.
Interesting -- or really, not at all interesting -- story as to how I got here. Basically, after my misadventure in the Teton mountains, my legs were too beat up to even walk for the next few days, so instead of going up to Glacier, like I'd planned, I skipped that part of the trip entirely (gaining an extra 4 or 5 days) and went down into Utah early.
I discovered two things about Utah:
1. People in Utah are creepy.
2. In southern Utah, it's 110 degrees in the desert, making any kind of outdoors activity completely miserable.
There were 4 parks in the state that I'd intended to hit: Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, and Bryce. It was about 110 degrees at the first two, rendering them pretty much car-only trips. This sucked so bad I decided to skip the other two altogether and come back in a more forgiving season.
I drove through the Navajo Nation and got to the Grand Canyon after sunset and camped out for the night. The next day, I went for an 8-mile, fairly flat walk along the canyon rim...and it started raining. Now, rain in July in Arizona, you'd expect that to be fairly mild and warm...but in fact, it was absolutely freezing. My hands were numb by the time I made it back to the car. I checked the weather forecast...rain that night, rain the next day, rain the day after that.
Bleh.
So I figured, okay, I'll drive to Vegas, spend a few days gambling a bit. I set a firm $150 cap on my losses, and, between a disastrous slots session and a run of terrible poker luck (had a flush, and lost to a full house...how do you like that?), I lost all of it in one day. I dutifully set forth once more, to...well, somewhere, anyway. I stayed with my aunt in LA for a couple of days, and hung out with my friend Lisa. That was fun.
And then I had a full week left before I could move into my place at UCSF.
Not entirely sure what to do with myself, and my newfound lack of a plan, I figured I could spend a good chunk of the time just chilling on the beach and hiking in the hills along the coast. Unfortunately, because for some strange reason lots of people like to hang out along the California coast in the summer, I wasn't able to find any open campgrounds...at all. After spending a sad night in a fleabag motel north of LA, I decided to head inland for the next night. Since I'd spent most of the day puttering along the coast, I ended up having to motel it out that night, too, in good old Kettleman City, California. I pigged out a local In-And-Out, where I had possibly the world's worst tasting two hamburgers. That was really the only noteworthy thing about Kettleman City. Bad hamburgers.
The next day, I drove through Fresno. I have a peculiar affection for the city of Fresno. I'm not really sure why. It's not a particularly appealing place: it's in the central valley, so it's hot as hell there, bone-dry in the summer, and from what I've seen of it, it's basically one big strip mall. But I remember Isabel and I came here in 2004, en route to Yosemite, and ate a bunch of ice cream. I think that's why I liked the place: I associate it with ice cream. So, as you might expect, I dutifully stopped, and had ice cream at the same place Isabel and I had come to a few years ago. It turns out that ice cream, without a girlfriend to accompany it, really isn't quite the same.
I made it to a place called Millerton Lake that afternoon, which was not nearly as high up as I'd hoped...so it was blazing - BLAZING! - hot there. Every day I was there it got up to about 105 degrees, and not a bit of cloud to be found. The lake water was cool, though, and I went for a little day hike around the lake the first day I was there. Since I seem to be the world's worst trail follower, I somehow managed to end up on a dirt track, then found myself climbing up and over about a mile of huge boulders above the lakeshore. I would have turned back, but climbing over the rocks was actually a fairly interesting challenge, and the granite gives you such good traction that you can jump and land on some pretty unlikely looking surfaces, even wearing a pack loaded up with water. I climbed up the steepest trail I've ever climbed before (seriously...this thing was at least a 60 degree angle), then hiked back. And holy crud, it was hot. A ranger actually stopped by my campsite after I got back to express her amazement that I'd made it out there and back in the ridiculous heat.
I ended up staying at Millerton Lake for a few days. In spite of the heat, it was very dry, so it was still pleasant in the shade. (Not like in Georgia, where the high humidity makes it unbearably nasty no matter where you are.) I actually spent much of the second day reviewing my old physics textbook, for want of something more entertaining to do, since the blistering heat made most outdoor activities unbearable. (I did go for a swim. That was nice, and the water was pleasantly cool.) And if you're a nerd, reading physics is actually kind of fun...
The third day, I departed Millerton and ended up heading up towards Yosemite. I was so close, it would have been a shame not to go there, even though I'd been there already a few years ago. I spent two days in Yosemite, hiking, sightseeing, and starting to feel thoroughly gross from spending so many consecutive nights outside. I walked from Yosemite Valley up to Glacier Point, which had two fantastic views...but only those two, which I saw over and over and over again. Still a very nice walk, though. Plus there was a fast food sort of restaurant at the top, where I fueled up on a sandwich, root beer, and a hot dog, then, fortified, practically skipped all the way back down the trail to the valley floor. The second day I went for another hike, more in the backcountry, then left the park and drove down to the coast. I got a motel in a town called Tracy, mostly because I really really wanted a shower, then went down to Sunset Beach the next day. I spent the day walking along the beach and exploring the hills near the coast...then, the next day, at long last, I drove up into San Francisco.
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