Day 20: Unexpected Surprises

Today is a short mileage day, 7miles into North Fork and another 10 to our intended campground.  We are staying with my friend Alan's parents at their Fish Camp cabin tomorrow night so we don't have far to go today.  Fish Camp is exactly on our route and makes a convenient stopover to take a rest day and stay out of Yosemite until after the holiday weekend.

The plan was to get on the road early this morning and get to North Fork before it got really hot.  As usual, the day started with a climb out of the river valley and that is always better before it is hot.

We got to town and found Slim's Koffee Shak. Coffee, wifi and tasty veggie sandwiches, it would be home for the next few hours.

Slim's was the happening spot in town

I spent some time chatting with some motorcycle tourists who are also headed to Washington.  However, they expect to be there three days from now.  It is interesting to see how folks attitudes have changed as we get further into our trip.  It seems as though under 400 miles you are a bit of a weirdo on a bike.  Somewhere after 600 miles people start to think what you are doing sounds pretty cool.  Now that we are past 800 miles, people are impressed and want to ask a bunch of questions.  

We spent quite a bit of time at the shak so we missed the life size chess game going on down the street a bit. Randy showed up after we had been there a while and he left early and caught the chess game.

I Tried again to contact our Fish Camp hosts for tomorrow night. My phone service continues to be absent on this trip.  I Managed to get through on Randy's phone to leave a message.

We spent time making a shopping list for Sarah's brother.  He will be meeting us in Yosemite on Tuesday and hopefully will have purchased groceries for the days we will be there and just beyond.

Looking over the climb out of Yosemite, we decided that it would be good to break it up a bit as we did at Sequoia.  That means Friday will be a short mileage climbing day instead of a full rest day and Saturday will hopefully be a lightweight climbing day to meet Sarah's brother (hauling most of our gear) at a campground further up the mountain.

Randy returned to the Koffee Shak as we were leaving to make a hotel arrangement for tomorrow night.  He is also avoiding the park on the holiday weekend.

Slim's called him back

Without two way communication with Alan's parents (Fish Camp hosts), it is unclear what the grocery situation will be for the next few days so we stock up before leaving North Fork.  

My ridiculous diet restrictions are starting to be a bit harder to meet as we get further along on just small town markets. It has been quite a while since we have seen a major grocery store.  A lot of bean and tortilla dinners have been had and are sure to be in the future.

We meet Randy on the way out of town and ride together for the last ten miles.  One if the few times we have actually ridden together over the last few days.

We made it to Bass Lake and started around toward our campground.  It was obvious that the landscape had changed.  Suddenly there were cars and boats everywhere and loads if people lining the lakeshore.  We stopped at a small resort store before the campgrounds and it felt like something out of a John Candy movie.  With the crowd, I was glad we had chosen the campground furthest away.

Busy Bass Lake

When we arrived at our campground, we hit a bit of a snag.  We were past the time if day for first come first serve sites and everything was by reservation.  The camp host told us that we could head to the forest service office down the road (about two miles) to try to make a reservation or see if there was a cancellation.  We explained that traveling by loaded bike limited our options to look for other locations 20 miles down the road.  He agreed to call the office for us (by radio since the phone service still blows) only to learn that there were no vacancies at any if the campgrounds on the lake.  Not a good thing.

It was then that we met Michelle, the campground supervisor.  She invited us to be her guests at her site and made us feel very welcome.  She offered the use of the hot water in her shower for cleaning and plenty of space for our tents.

Mitchell's, hero of the day and super nice lady!

Randy invited her to dinner at a roadside restaurant a few hundred yards down the road as a thank you.  We all went along and enjoyed swapping stories.  It turned out that Michelle had been having what she described as one of her toughest days on the job with several issues that had come up at once.  That she would take the time to be so nice and hospitable to us on a day like that was really great.  She may have been having a rough day but she made ours terrific.

Thanks Michelle!

Michelle and a band if travelers

4th generation in the same family