Saga of a Road (Ondhu drive kathe)
Co-authored with Ashwin Holenarsipur
NOTE: THIS BLOG WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BY ASHWIN .... I KNEW, I CUDN'T DO A BETTER JOB OF IT; SO, I EXTENDED THE BLOG AND MADE SOME CHANGES.
THE BLOG IS BASED ON ASHWIN'S PERSPECTIVE AND THE "FRIEND" THAT HE REFERS TO, IS ME (RAGHU)
So, Here I was, Bored to death in Boston and desperately wanted to go to 'some place good'.
Since July 4th was a holiday here, Independence Day. My friend and I decided to take 2 days off, make it a long weekend and go to 'some place good'.
We decided on Yosemite National Park as that 'some place good', for 3 days. The plan was to Drive to Yose, Hike there (if time + age permitted), Nature Watching and such other activities. Basically, exhaust ourselves and enjoy every moment of it!
We had to book a hotel room for the 2 days which was about 30mi from Yose since all the campsites were booked months in advance! Well, Everything was in place, I was supposed to drive for the whole trip which was my first "unsupervised" drive in US.
We got a Pontiac G6 (with a V6 engine) from the rental. A sexy car with lots of comfort and a CD player that doesn't play MP3 CD's.
We decided against using ‘paper maps’ as an environment friendly gesture and partly because we had a GPS telling us where to go!
"Let’s go Hi-Tech maaan". You get the idea.
Day 1: The drive from LAX to Yose was uneventful - Freeways, Fast moving Cars and Desi Music. Yose was picture perfect with Gorgeous Sceneries, streams and water falls. We got lost in trying to find the source of a stream and ended up making a 5 mile hike.... unfortunately, when we finally understood our mistake and were tracing back our steps, we found the right path.Alas, we were out of steam by then. After lots of ooh aahing about the nature, we then went back to our hotel. We also gathered some information for our planned next day's hike from the valley's information center, the suggestion we got was the hike to 'Nevada Falls'.
Day 2: Drive to Yose, Hike for about 16km to the Nevada Fall. The trail we took was called as the ‘panorama trial’. The whole trial runs along the breathtaking Yose valley. The full view of the super cool Yose Valley from the Nevada falls was awesome.
We were on our way out of Yose to our hotel and here's where something really interesting happened!
We were moving along happily, talking bull-c*ap and making fun of our previous selves.
Then the GPS lady says, "Turn Right in 0.1 miles". Fine, I move on and then make a Turn.
We see a very Narrow road in front of us, just enough for us to squeeze through!
"What the Heck", I say.
"Move on, Maga", my friend says.
Now, the road was tarred for about 0.3 miles and then all we see is the rugged unpaved road in front of us. There was a sign, which said, "This Road is not maintained during winters, Proceed at your own Risk".
We say, "Who are they trying to scare? We have seen worse back home" *Insert 'you dumb a**es' kind of Laughter*.
We Vroooomed at 10mph leaving a cloud of dust behind us.
By then, it was around 8:30 in the evening and the light was fading fast.
According to the GPS, We were on a 'mountain road' and true to its name, it was a Mountain Road! It was crooked, narrow, loose soiled and very dusty. It was getting dark, we had no gas, no Mobile signal, No paved route, in the middle of a Forest, First time car rental. To top it all, we couldn't do a U turn in the road.
Screwed, I guess is the right word.
We had the GPS saying 10 more miles to go.
"Fine. Let’s see! Floor it Bro," says my Friend.
I follow the GPS Lady's route for a short distance and suddenly she says - "Lost Satellite Reception".
"Fcuk"ed. We moan!
Half way through the road, the sun set and there was no light, except the car headlights ... visibility was only a few feet ahead ... with thick trees pressing in from both the sides, we were scared that we would encounter some wild animal (elephant was the top most on our mind)
We felt totally lost! Moreover, unlike back in India there were absolutely no people in sight! After some marvelous choice of "words" towards the GPS lady and some towards the technology, we continued on the same route.
Still "Vroooming" at 10mph leaving a cloud of dust behind us!
After about 30mins of swearing and pale looking situations, which was like eternity, we spotted the highway! This was the happiest moment in our whole insipid lives or atleast that's how we felt at that moment!
(I think my friend's eyes were moist. It could have been dust too. I couldn’t tell. )
After all this, the GPS lady finally 'caught' a satellite and got back online. We were on our way!
But not before another "Turn Right in 0.2mi", we slowed down to check the route she was taking us to.
It had a "Forest Road" and another "Unpaved way" in it.
"Whoa, Maga, Silentagi Highwaynalle hogu" my friend says.
"Amen", I say.
We continue on the highway and finally we were there! Our destination! Enough adventure for the day!
The Route we took was - "Chowchilla Mountain Road", Near Yosemite towards Mariposa Town. If you ever go to Yosemite Park and want to try out something different, you know where to go! Sure, the road is dirty and narrow but the scenery is beautifully different.
One small suggestion, check your fuel tank!
Since we are 'adventurers' by nature, we took a similar road the next day too! No, not similar, the *same* route again! We had moved about 2 mi and then I see our fuel indicator showing close to 'empty'. But, their we were, already in the middle of the road and in each direction, the gas station was faaaaar away.
As we travelled on this rutted and scarred path, we saw signs stating "Deer Crossing Ahead!!! Go Slow" and we thought, "who are they kidding with!!!" after a few mins, we did spot a deer.... the deer ran across the road, i braked hard, my friend yelled "Sh*t" and their was a dull THUD!!! .......................... There was dust everywhere and as we saw the deer skidded across the road, fell hard, got up and ran away into the forest .... It happened so quick, that we were left with our mouths open.
I checked the front of the car, there was no blood and no dent .... we figured that, it was a light collision and the deer would survive .... we both prayed for the deer's health .... after that, we both kept our eyes WIDE open.
We Vroooomed at 10mph leaving a cloud of dust behind us.
Well, you people had enough of bad grammar for today. More later!