Next morning, 19 May, after breakfast we said goodbye to Murali and his parents and started the journey to Yosemite park. It was raining – a rare thing during this time of the year.
The hills along the wayside were shining in yellow color – the grass was dried out. We passed along huge farmland – long kilometres of trees, all artificially irrigated: almonds, olives, apples, strawberries in plastic packing… The extensive farming seemed to quench every possible profit from out of the soil.
Slowly the Sierra Nevada was approaching. The road was climbing up. We passed through forests and hills with skeletons of trees left over from forest fires. At noon time we made a stop in Mariposa, an old gold mining town, for lunch. It was cold and raining and the ladies did some pullover shopping.
In the early afternoon we reached the place of our stay for the next two nights at the Yosemite View Lodge at the Merced River near the El Portal entrance to the Yosemite National Park. The weather had cleared up and so we did our first tour into the park. The steep cliff of El Capitan, a tall granite monolith, was partly veiled by clouds. The awe-inspiring Bridalveil Fall seemed to gush down from heaven. We stood for a while in its spray. The meadows along the Merced River seemed to be a magic playground for elves and gnomes.
Early next morning, after prayer and breakfast, we started our second tour to the park. Although the park rangers warned of snow on the higher roads (the roads were free), we set out to Wawona and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias.
Free shuttle busses were transporting the visitors inside the sequoia forest area. It was breath-taking to walk along the huge trees which are upto 3000 years old and have withstood the vicissitudes of time – cold winters, hot summers, forest fires – and the times of woodcutters before the area was transformed into a park. The majestic trees radiated a sacred ambiance; deer and gray squirrels moved through the fresh green still partly covered with snow and a radiant sun shone from a blue sky.
Next morning, however, it was again gray and raining, and so we decided to make a short visit to the Visitor Centre and the nearby Yosemite Falls and then start the long journey northwards to Mount Shasta.
There were dramatic cloud formations over the Sacramento River valley and it was getting already dark when we picked up Chuck’s car from Redding airport. When we approached the Mount Shasta area the mountain was deeply veiled with clouds. At it was already night when we arrived at the home of Chuck at Shastina.