First entry, 1961

I had lived in Oak Harbor from 1954-57, moved to Hawaii, living there from 1957-late 1958, when we moved to Long Beach, CA.  I bought my ten-speed Schwinn Continental in the summer of 1960 and had probably ridden it close to 1,000 miles by the following summer, when I told my parents I wanted to take advantage of transport back to Oak Harbor and ride home.  They readily agreed (believe it or not - I'm sometimes not sure I do) and I got a ride north from Long Beach to Lee Vining, California with my father's sister, Mildred, and her husband Chuck, who had spent a few days visting us in Long Beach, and were heading home to Sparks, Nevada.  From Lee Vining,  I would cross Yosemite via Tioga Pas and link  up with my maternal grandparents, camping in Yosemite Valley with their trailer, and ride with them north to Oak Harbor.  By some miracle, after 50 years and more moves than I can recall, my manuscript journal of the trip, except for several pages between the following entry and my departure from Oak Harbor, written in blue ballpoint of 4x6-inch sheets of complimentary Union Pacific Railroad stationery, survives:

     Saturday (last one in June, 1961): Desert very hot.  Had lunch in Lone Pine.  Mildred, Chuck offered to take me to Lee Vining.  "Not out of out way."  Started up pass, found that it was better carying pack on back... I am now camped in a... meadow at the base of the real upgrade, six miles from Lee Vining.  I waded through a quarter mile of knee-deep grass and I set up camp on the bank of a small river.  It is a rod across and waist deep with a sandy and gravelly bottom.  It is not rapid here and I am hidden from the road by bushes.  I'm not in the park yet; I'm in Inyo National Forest.  It is quite warm and light now at 8:30.  Trout are breaking and I have lighted a smudge to drive away occasional gnats and mosquitoes.  Tomorrow I will get over the pass one way or another and blissfuly consume my extra day.  A trout fisherman just came up.  A man can share his solitude.  What more could there be in life?"

I in fact made it over 11,000-plus-foot Tioga Pass, accepting a ride in a pick-up the last half of the way, and arrived in Tuolumne Meadows by late afternoon.  I locked my bike to a post, lashed my sleeping bag to the top of that pack, and hiked a couple of miles down the Tuolumne River and made camp.  Before long a small group of 20-something hikers came along, stopped to chat and invited me to go with them to their rented cabin a little way up a branch stream.  Did so, got fed and was given a bunk for the night.  The next day I finished my ride across the park, reaching Yosemite Valley in the afternoon and locating my grandparents' camp. The following day, or possibly the next, we continued on our way to Washington, my bike in the trailer and me in the back seat of the Chevy.

Next post:  June 20, 2011
                  July 3, 1961