Upon waking, Katrina brought me up to date on the previous night's happenings. Little things keep her awake while I sleep, at least if she lets me sleep. She said that during night the Frenchies left after a prolonged period of getting ready. Clubbing? If so, where? Skinny dipping? Why get ready? Whatever. They returned at around 3AM,again waking Kat. Of course, I slept through all this very well.
We kept an eye on them while we prepared breakfast, ate breakfast, and packed up. The first one that stirred was the girl. She had been sleeping in the car with one of the boys. The other boy, in the tent, we never saw that morning. We had told them the night before to leave before 8:00 to avoid the ranger. That wasn't going to happen.
We were all loaded and about to drop the gear selector into drive when we noticed the Park Ranger making the morning rounds. We tried to leave, but she waved us down before we started rolling. We had been hoping to avoid this. After some pleasantries she asked us about the tent in our camping area, so we told her what had happened the night before. It didn't seem at all unusual to the Ranger. I saw her making her way toward the Frenchies in the mirror as we pulled away. Oh well, we warned them.
Oddly, the ranger at the gate seemed to know about the Frenchies, as his questioning was awfully leading. He seemed as unsurprised as the ranger we spoke to before. He thanked us for being so accommodating and waved us on. In the end I had to respect the Frenchis for visiting one of the most popular tourist sites in the US (Yosemite) without reservations or, presumably, much knowledge of the cracks in the bureaucracy that they could take advantage of. Even if they had to pay a camping fee, they were effectively visiting Yosemite without planning or reservations.
On the way out of the park we stopped at the Wawona Visitor's center to get the children's Jr Ranger books checked out and complete the last step so the children could earn their patches for Yosemite. We got video. The kids got a nice ranger.
It was hard, but we left Yosemite. San Francisco was a long way away, or, at least, it felt that way after being so sedentary over the past week. Anyway, our first stop after leaving Yosemite was a McDonald's in Oakhurst California for brunch. It was busy and we were lucky to find parking enough for our van/trailer in an
adjacent lot. I thought we were parked, but I had to stop the family from getting out. I noticed a guy behind me having trouble parking his truck with boat in tow, so I pulled a little closer to the car ahead of me. Normally I wouldn't mention a visit to a McDonald's, but this one was good. So....good. Especially after a week of all out camping fare.
Not long after the Mikkey D's break we had to stop for an emergency potty break for Elise. While I was waiting I noticed an interesting tree. It had the look of a deciduous tree in winter. No leaves. But leaving aside the fact that it was mid summer and the tree had no leaves, the more interesting thing about the tree were the pine cones stringed like a crown across the tips of the top branches. I don't know
what else to call them. I have never seen pine cones on a deciduous tree before. Of course, I leave open the fact that the tree could be some kind of pine I am unfamiliar with, or a deciduous tree with something that looks like pine cones.
With the foothills of the Siera Nevadas behind us we were cruising across mildly undulating farmland. It was getting hot and the A/C had been on for a while when I noticed a roughness in the ride. I may not have noticed it if the windows had been down. I first thought the road was the cause. It appeared fine, though. It was when I checked the mirrors that I saw the passenger tire on the camper wobbling. My first thought was that it looked like the nuts had come loose. I figured we could scavenge one, but no more than two from the other wheel and limp to the next town. We stopped.
The problem wasn't the nuts. The tire was still properly inflated, but the side wall looked like it had gotten hot. The tire was no longer straight. I was ready for this, though. I jacked up the trailer with the van jack and removed the spare from the bottom of the camper. Once I got the grossly deformed tire 
off I attempted to put on the spare. No dice! The lug holes didn't match. I guess I should have tried installing the spare before leaving home. Oh well, a tire hunt was on. The dilemma was that we had to leave the camper behind. That couldn't be helped. We unhooked the camper and locked the tongue.
I was soaked in my own sweat by the time I got back in the van and consulted the GPS on tires. We found a tire place two towns over (less than 8 miles) in Merced California. Once there we saw the place was geared toward farm tractor and trailer upkeep. They had our tire in stock and it was nicer than the other one we picked up in the Abilene TX. Discount Tire. Best of all it 
was about 30% cheaper. They were good folks. On the way back to the camper we stopped at an automotive junk yard in search of a Jeep mini spare that we could use for the camper. Unfortunately they didn't have any, so may tire gods be with us.
While I was putting the repaired tire back on the camper Katrina noticed that a cop had been by and left an orange sticker on the camper. They are quick with the stickers. He was nice enough to sick it to the taillight with the edges flapping. I wished I could have thanked him for not sticking it to the paint.
Cruisin' again we made our way south of Merced to 152 west. Soon we were
driving past the San Luis Reservoir. The lake was very low. I don't know if it was a seasonal thing or not, but it could have used perhaps 30 feet of water. According to our map 152 was a scenic drive...it 
was. Unfortunately stopping for photos wasn't easy, as 152 was an intrastate highway that could have passed as an interstate highway in many places. If I were to 
describe the area in one word, it would have been golden.
Once we hit 101 we headed north through San Jose, and Palo Alto toward San Francisco. The San Francisco Bay was visible off and on to our right. To our 
left was a fog bank spilling its way through valleys and seemed to be gaining in strength as the sun was setting. By the time we were in San Francisco we were sometimes under the fog. Luckily we were never in it.
We were following the 101 signs closely so we were surprised to find ourselves suddenly off the highway and in city traffic. We made a U-turn and got back on 101 south then doubled back yet again and retraced our previous miles on 101 north in an attempt not to get lost again. The signs again lead us off the highway and through the city. I didn't want to be so intimate with San Francisco's random roads while pulling a camper. We consulted both the map and the GPS and found that 101 wound through the city on the way to the Golden Gate. OK
Within more than a few minutes we were looking at Alcatraz and the Golden Gate. The tops of the bridge were lost in the fog. The light was dimming and the pictures were blurring so we switched to movie taking as we crossed the Golden Gate. The sun was able to shine on Alcatraz and it was reflecting the golden setting sun we could not see ourselves. Kat wanted to walk it the next day. Me too.Not long after crossing the Golden Gate we left 101 to ride north on Hwy 1. Pretty soon we were winding though neighborhoods with houses we often couldn't see. It was getting late and dark and unfortunately the road was a bit more curvaceous than expected. It seemed we were heading in a generally northerly direction 60% of the time. 30% of the time the front of the car was pointed in a southerly direction. Yea, that's only 90%, the last 10% the last 10% of mis direction is reserved for the hills. After 30 minutes of this we were looking for a way back to 101 north.
Sometime after midnight we were back on Hwy 1 looking for our campground. Driving Hwy 1 at night is spooky. To our right was total blackness. Often curves would allow our headlights to splash a little light into the darkness to our right only to illuminate nothing. Blackness. Spooky. I drove with half an eye on the GPS which gave a heads up on the curves and black areas it colored blue. The Pacific was out there somewhere.
We had gotten reservations for 2 nights six months prior due to the 4th of July weekend. Unfortunately, we were no longer sure of the name of the campground. The similarity of names didn't help matters. We drove a 20 mile section of Hwy 1 a couple of times before we settled on one promising entrance. We descended a steep hill and entered the campground. One site was empty. We took it.
And slept.
out
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