So anyway, I went to Yosemite and LA. Here is my story:
On Friday morning, I took the BART to the airport to meet my brother. Nearly every vacation I've been on in the past 4 years has involved glomming onto a business trip that my brother was taking. He arranges to fly in a few days early, we go do something outdoorsy, then I crash in his hotel room somewhere while he attends a conference.
When I got to the airport my brother was already at the rental car counter. He'd filled out most of the paperwork for the SUV we were renting, and was standing there holding up the line waiting for me to get there. His actions would have landed him squarely on the Hate Blog if they didn't benefit me directly.
We hopped in and drove to Yosemite. Depending on which weather forecast you read, both of which were linked off the Yosemite website, the temperature was either going to range from 20 to 40 or from 30 to 60. So that didn't make it so easy to pack- light sweater or Dura-Therma-Thinsa-Micro-Styro-Core undershirt? It ended up being more like 20 to 40, and very sunny. Perfect.
On Saturday morning we attempted to go snowboarding. First we inquired about snow chains for the car, as I knew they're sometimes required. The desk people at Curry Village said that as long as you have four-wheel drive and snow/mud tires, you don't need to put them on the car on the stretch of road we'd be driving. Two-wheel drive cars would have to put them on the car. You just had to carry them with you.
We weren't quite sure who had to carry chains with them if they didn't have to go on the car, and that turned out to be a crucial piece on information. When we arrived at the turn-off to Badger Pass, where the ski area is in Yosemite, the park ranger stops everyone to check tires.
Ranger: Does this vehicle have four wheel drive?
Doug English: Yes
Ranger: Does it have snow and mud tires?
Doug English: Yes
Ranger: Are you carrying tire chains in the vehicle?
Doug English: Umm, no?
Ranger: Oh. Gee. I'm sorry, I can't let you through without them.
We immediately got the impression that we were supposed to lie- they don't expect you to actually have tire chains, you're just technically required to carry them. Oops.
Thus began a several-hour journey in search of tire chains. We stopped at three different garages in three different towns. Eventually we were able to rent some. The rental cost was $30- the cost of the chains new anywhere else. But if you actually used the tire chains on the car, you'd have to buy them for $60, essentially losing your deposit. What a scam! But we had no choice.
So we drove back to the Badger Pass turn-off. Naturally a new ranger is now on duty.
New Ranger: Does this vehicle have four wheel drive?
Doug English: Yes
New Ranger: Does it have snow and mud tires?
Doug English: Yes
New Ranger: And as I'm sure you're carrying tire chains in the vehicle you may continue.
So all of that was for nothing. By the time we finally arrived at the little ski area, it was only an hour until the half-day lift ticket price kicked in, so we ate lunch and hung out.
Finally we rented our boards and hit the slopes. This was only my second time snowboarding, so we started with the bunny slope and went down that four or five times. Then I was warmed up and ready to go. For the next three hours we boarded the shit out of that mountain. We hit every intermediate-level trail there (except for the one we couldn't find), getting faster and better with every run. It turns out I'm a natural, and was kicking some ski slope ass.
In the last hour, most everyone else (who didn't run around looking for tire chains and had probably been there all day) left, so we'd hit the bottom of the slope, ski right up to the lift, and get on without waiting. The day was great and the weather was nice enough that I didn't wear a hat most of the time. But by the end we were going up and down the slopes so fast that I was over it before our time ran out. Still, when there is no lift line you just can't quit early, so we kept going until they shut it down and threw us off the mountain.
Here is the view on the way back:
Back in Yosemite Valley, we ate dinner then it was time for the nightly challenge: seeing how long my brother could stay awake. As he's on east coast time and usually gets up at something like 6AM there anyway, he crawls into bed by 8PM and is trying to go to sleep. Then I go, "No way, motherfucker!" and try to keep him awake so that he won't be waking me up at 5AM because he's fully rested. As this happens every night on every vacation, it's kind of like a little game except it's not any fun for me. He made it to 9PM.
On Sunday we hiked up Vernal Falls. The Mist Trail that runs up next to the falls is closed in the winter, but the John Muir Trail that goes a longer way around is open. It was so sunny out that we were hiking in only long-sleeved shirts. As we started out, we'd hear what sounded like a gun shot and look to see a trail of snow and ice streaming down the sides of the mountains around the valley. The John Muir Trail runs along one mountain that was prone to these avalanches. We'd turn a corner and come across a pile of grapefruit-sized balls of clear ice blocking the path where an avalanche had finished up. So we'd run through these areas as fast as we could to avoid being knocked off the mountain. That would suck.
The view at the top was probably more beautiful than in the summer. See:
That afternoon, we had to move our sleeping arrangements. Curry Village is only open on weekends, so we had to switch to a more expensive room at Yosemite Lodge. I'd never stayed there before because it looked like junky condos and too many people, but it turns out that it's pretty great over there. There are stores and restaurants and museums to wander through, and our room had a back yard with a view of Yosemite Falls. It felt more like a ski resort town (in a good way) than a crowded touristy zone. I'd always thought Curry Village was the way to go, but now I'm changing my mind.
Anyway, the next morning we left to Yosemite, returned our rented tire chains (unused), and drove to Los Angeles.
My brother's conference was centered at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Ray, just south of Santa Monica and Venice. Marina del Ray is super fucking fancy. It's basically a yachting community with only condominium high rise buildings and yacht clubs along the water. Parking at the Ritz was $30 a night, but as all the property around was private there was almost nowhere else to park for a mile in any direction. Nowhere except the "beach" parking lot directly across the street (there is no beach), which was completely empty and only cost $3 to park for up to 48 hours. So that saved me a hundred bucks by the end of the trip.
That night I was interviewed on live TV. It was on the Q Television network on their "On Q Live!" prime-time talk show. Not that many people get Q TV, as it's only available on RCN and COX cable. They don't even get it in LA where the studio is.
Anyway the segment was about 6 minutes long- they asked a few questions then we reenacted talking your way into a nightclub when you're not on the guest list. Later I saw a DVD of the show and it was one of those 'hearing yourself on the answering machine' situations. I sound like that? I look like that? I act like that?
I was surprised that I wasn't humiliated at the sight of myself (perhaps I have some self-esteem issues), so that's good. A week after the show aired, the network ran out of money, stopped production, and began showing reruns instead of original programming. Instead of believing I was the cause of the downfall of the Q Television network, I choose to look on the bright side- the more reruns they show, the more of me the world will get to enjoy.
Later that night and still in TV makeup, I went to visit my old pal Mo and her husband JR. They live in Eagle Rock, which is a part of LA with which I am utterly unfamiliar. We went out to eat at someplace called Ernie's Taco Shack, which is kind of like an old-world an Italian-style restaurant that serves Mexican food.
There, Mo and I reminisced about how many times in our raver pasts we'd uttered the phrase, "That would be a great place to throw a rave!" It might be anyplace- an office building, a miniature golf course, a government building (how subversive!), a hair salon. The whole world was a playground for partying to electronic music and hugging on the dancefloor. Ahh, the memories...
The next day I went to the Getty Center. I love that place. I think if I lived in LA I'd bring a laptop and try to work there. I wonder if they have wireless access.
Then I had to drive the rental car to the Thrifty counter at the LA airport to do a small transaction, which was a 5 minute errand that took more than 2 hours and until I get the bill settled, has cost me $150 extra dollars. Let's not get into it.
That night I hung out with fellow writer Michael Svoboda and we went to Beige. That is, as he explained, a gay media industry weekly bar party held in a restaurant. I saw pretty 20-something boys hanging out with 50-something women with lots of plastic surgery and I'd wonder, "Is that his mother or is she just a fag hag with money?" I saw people buying bottles of champagne for their parties of 10 people. I saw lots of networking. It was very interesting from a sociology standpoint.
On Wednesday, I drove to Santa Monica to check out the Ashes and Show exhibit of photographs by Gregory Colbert. The exhibit takes place in a temporary structure assembled from shipping containers stacked up several stories high. Throughout the exhibit they play a mysterious, ethereal, exotic soundtrack (kind of like the music that played during the I'm-killing-myself part of Dead Poet's Society. How do I remember that when I haven't seen the movie in 15 years?). At the ends of the long aisles, movies played which are basically "the making of" the photography- it shows the people and animals posing together, moving back and forth to get just the right shot.
And it totally ruined it for me. These photographs are amazing on their own- check out the website- and despite how they look, they're all real; not collages. Yes, that's a kid swimming beneath an elephant. Yes, that's a little girl surrounded by hyenas. The photographs each have this very zen, peaceful feel to them, as if the artist just happened to stumble upon a naked girl sitting next to a cheetah in a tree and took a picture of it. They're magical.
But then you see these supposedly-pretty motion pictures (think: Janet Jacket's Herb Ritts "Love Will Never Do Without You" video) and it's all the people swaying back and forth in front of an elephant so that eventually everything will line up to the perfect shot. The videos don't detract from the artistry of the photos, but for me they suck out all the magic. Combine that with the soundtrack and the museum the size of a football stadium built to show only about 50 photographs, and it all seems excessive and melodramatic.
Enough about that. That night my brother and I returned to Santa Monica and walked around and ate dinner, and that was the end of the vacation. I had to drive back to SF alone. I figured that I'd probably get into an accident or fall asleep at the wheel, but surprisingly I got home without incident. The end.