Reality is fragile: From Central Valley to Napa Valley

My new tent, bought in North Carolina, finally set up for the first time in California.

Leaving Yosemite for the Central Valley, one downhill road in particular was so steep, I thought I might accidentally drive off a cliff. It dropped down nearly 3,000 feet in a mile and a half. I couldn’t brake any harder, and the van in front of me was going so slow (rightfully), I thought I might slide into it.

Once down closer to sea level, it was hot. I’d driven three hours west until I gained phone service again and got in touch with my mother’s friend, only to learn that she had a backache and said it wasn't a good day to meet. I changed plans to having no plan.

Mercury Retrograde was in its final hour, and, needless to say, I was feeling its wrath. Ever since I left the coast and headed through Bakersfield (the Hagerstown of California) toward the Sierra Nevadas, I’d felt off. Energetically. I was off the wave. And I didn’t know how to get back on. Nothing seemed to be clicking. And the angrier I got about it, the further off the wave I became.

I headed toward Sonoma Valley anyway, because I’d planned a stop after it, and, frankly, I didn’t know where I was going, so anywhere would do. A friend back home listened to me vent and did the additional kindness of looking up parks en route, where I could camp. He found one called Brannan Island State Recreation Area that sounded feasible, so I headed there. It was a little expensive (California) and not particularly beautiful (the swimming area left a lot to be desired) but was perfect for my needs.

I set up the big tent I’d bought in North Carolina for the first time that night. I'd had no reason to set it up prior to that, or even then. I’d been using a $20 Walmart tent that I’d bought in a pinch on the way to a camping trip a few years back, a backup tent. It was just so easy and fast to set up. And I kept arriving at campsites at dusk, wanting something fast.

I wasn’t real excited by the big new tent, turns out. After living in my tiny, cozy one for weeks, it felt too spacious, like moving from a studio apartment to a mansion. What do you do with all that extra room?

The next morning, there were lush green mountains to my left and sandy mountains to my right, as I drove north through Napa Valley—which really does look IRL as it does in all the movies: a little ritzy, a little too shiny for my taste but fascinating.

Everything was greener in Napa Valley.

The air smelled like grapes.

I stopped in a small town there but felt so out of place, I didn’t even get out of my car, just turned around and got right back on the highway.

So many vineyards, one after the next. I began to wonder if they’d ever end. Just when I thought they were over—more vineyards. I finally got it, why Napa is world-renowned as wine country. People drank wine in lawn chairs underneath the shade of a tree in one orchard. At a fancy brick vineyard building covered in ivy, people went in and out, carrying wine glasses.

I wasn’t there for the wine, just camping. I made a right on Zinfandel Lane and crossed Napa River, finding camping at Napa Valley State Park, if barely (only a couple sites available when I arrived). I made camp and made myself at home, and then I had a little bit of a freakout moment.

There have only been three instances on the road when I’ve had such a moment.

One came after a stressful few days at the ocean with family, when I officially set out west and had the flashing thought, “I’m really doing it now.” The first six weeks or so in Asheville and at Outer Banks was certainly an adjustment to living out of my car, but I was among friends and family and friends who feel like family. I was in familiar places—places I’d lived or visited numerous times over the years. To start heading west, that felt different. That was heading into the unknown alone, casting aside all familiarity. When I met a friend in North Carolina to road-trip together for a weekend before heading west, I was a mess. Thankfully, he’s a special soul who set me straight and eased my mind, and I left those Smoky Mountains feeling solid again.

The second freakout came after exploring the rolling hills of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and catapulting into Texas on I-30 through Texarkana. I’ve never been anywhere that felt so foreign and yet so distinctly American. I arrived on the Fourth of July. Feeling overwhelmed and having a borderline panic attack, I got a room at a Super 8 pretty quickly and shut myself away behind its walls, as if I could imagine myself being anywhere once inside the homogenized interior of a motel chain.

The third moment was unexpected. I was nestled in my tent at Napa Valley State Park and turned open an Edward Abbey book I’d picked up in Joshua Tree. I’d planned to give it to my friend Scott, who loves Ed Abbey and read passages to me one night at his house when my car broke down and I was waiting on AAA. I knew I’d end up dipping into it before passing it on to him, and as I was reading, I kept thinking of him. So I wrote a quick email, asking if he had the specific book I’d bought, telling him where I was camping, and signing it, “Miss you, love you, think of you often.”

When I hit send, I imagined him receiving it at his home along the Potomac River in Maryland. I imagined him cheering me on, free spirit that he is, “She’s doing it!” And then I thought of all the people back East who have been my cheerleaders, who I've somehow inspired, all the people who have told me they’re living vicariously through me, and suddenly it hit me, as if seeing myself from outside myself: it’s ME they’re talking about, me here in my tent in Napa Valley.

The “what am I doing out here?” thoughts immediately flooded in. I am the inspiration? Me?! I got laid off 10 months after I started what I thought was gonna be the next big era of my life; I have a chronic illness that flares up around mold, making signing a lease in the Mid-Atlantic akin to playing a game of Russian roulette; living in a tent was my best option.

It made me wonder about the people who are role models and inspirations to the masses, how it actually feels to be inside their bodies day to day.

It made me realize reality is fragile. My perspective can shift in the blink of an eye. One thought—from myself or another—has the ability to flip the switch and shift my perspective instantly and dramatically. I wish it weren’t this way. I suspect that enlightened beings do not experience this. But I am no buddha. Just a girl who’s trying something different for a little while.

Finally: Yosemite

Yosemite Falls

After hours of driving up and down mountains on two-lane highways, I started to see signs for Yosemite National Park. It was 105 degrees by noon. I kept driving in, getting closer to the center. Around 3, I came upon a huge hotel complex with multiple lodging buildings, and quickly pulled in, tires squealing, to see if there a room (possibly, miraculously, maybe) was available.

I think I was the only person in the long line without a reservation. I got that unpleased look from the woman behind the counter when I asked if there were any rooms available, “like for tonight.”

“I’ll have to talk to the manager,” she said.

She left. I prayed (literally). I already knew I’d pay pretty much anything at that point if it gave me the opportunity to see the park.

“There’s one room left.”

I handed her my credit card and license and signed papers as she clicked away at her computer and handed me a key. A key to the park! Staying there was the only thing that would’ve allowed me enough time to explore the park that day and the next—and possibly get to a campsite early enough the next morning to find a spot. Otherwise, it would’ve been three hours driving out and another three driving back in.

Unlocking my room for the night and stepping inside was one of the very rare luxurious moments of my entire time on the road. The room was so nice. So big. So clean. The bed was huge. Huge! And white! Crisp white sheets and a soft comforter that I quickly fell into, getting my dirty all over it. I could barely muster up enough strength to get out. But I did. I ate some nuts and seeds, left my bags there, and headed into Yosemite Valley, a mere two miles away.

And that’s when I realized Yosemite is essentially the Walt Disney World of nature. I was in a line of traffic for more than an hour before I found a place to park, and getting out of the park was just as grueling. But in between the traffic jams—and even during them—was pretty magical.

That first moment when I saw Yosemite Falls, my mouth fell open and stayed that way for several minutes, as if my body were matching its form. I pulled over on the side of the road and walked into a big meadow to take it in. I’d never seen anything like it and quickly realized that it was these waterfalls, falling off of cliff faces thousands of feet high and at nearly 90-degree angles, that make Yosemite Yosemite. They're what have drawn people here for thousands of years.

As the sky turned to dusk, I walked along the Merced River and waded in its waters, one of many waters I’ve stood in across America. They all feel different. I felt tiny underneath the all-powerful El Capitan. Its essence was unspeakable.

It was hard to escape tourists, and as the day drew darker, I got back in line to head out of the park. The traffic was long and slow, one lane, bumper to bumper, but eventually I reached my hotel room and got back in that bed. I kept trying to figure out how I could extend the hours in that room, how I could bend time in my favor. I stayed up as long as I could, writing for awhile, then having a long phone conversation with a friend from back home.

The next morning, I got up early. I was on a mission to find an empty campsite at one of the walk-in campgrounds. I figured my odds might be a little better since it was a Sunday, and I’d be getting there before the crowds (maybe). I made the drive up Big Oak Flat Road and then turned east onto Route 120, aka Tioga Road, through the high country of Yosemite.

The first walk-in campground, Tamarack Flat, was down such a long, bumpy, gravel road—steep and rocky and narrow, with cars driving in both directions—that after a few miles, I turned around, before I ever saw the campground. The next option, White Wolf, was not an option at all. The road to it was closed. The road to the third campground, Yosemite Creek, was also rough and so many miles from the main road, I dropped that idea altogether and headed for the fourth and final campground, Porcupine Flat, hoping I’d be lucky there and not have to turn around to head back to Yosemite Creek.

I did luck out. Porcupine Flat Campground had a few spots. The dirt road was rough in spots but flat and not terrorizing. I found my spot next to the tiny Porcupine Creek, paid for it in a dropbox, and set up camp, which included going through my entire car and every bag I had with me to put all food items and basically anything that resembles food has a scent that could be taken as being edible (lotion, cough drops, herbal balms and oils—basically half my car) into the bear locker at my site. Then I was free to explore Yosemite.

I hopped back on Tioga Road and stopped at several sites along the way. First, a mountain stream. I washed the clothes I was wearing there, wrung them out, and laid them out on a big, hot rock to dry while I played in the water. I kept heading east to the glassy Tenaya Lake, which I also promptly got in (very cold), then hiked around Tuolumne Meadows, a high meadow at over 8,000 feet elevation. I walked through its grassy fields and climbed up mountains made of stone.

Hiking Tuolumne Meadows

As dusk approached, I headed back for my campground, where the campers were the most respectful of campers in perhaps all of America. It was as if someone flipped a switch when the clock struck "10 p.m. quiet hour," and suddenly all the car doors and conversations promptly ceased. It was dead silent. I could only hear the creek behind my site and the distant sound of cars and trucks on the road, although even that gave way to silence through the night.

It was pitch black, too. I held my hand in front of my face, just to see if I could see anything (nothing). With it being that dark and that quiet, I felt no urge to fight it, and so I crawled into my tent, into my sleeping bag, zipped my body and laced my head inside its warm cocoon, and drifted off to sleep, too.

Yosemite was beautiful. It is beautiful. It also reminded me of an amalgam of several places I’ve been before, including places right in Maryland and Pennsylvania, where I grew up—aside from those waterfalls over massive cliffs. It served as a reminder that most hyped-up things aren’t worth the hype.

I usually find places just as beautiful, if not more beautiful, off the beaten path. In Yosemite, with limited time, I didn’t have that luxury. If I’d had more time to explore, it probably would have nourished me even more deeply with some good nature. As it were, I only had those two nights, two days. I wanted to keep that long-coveted campsite and stay in Yosemite all week to learn its secrets, after all the time it took me to finally get there, but I’d told a woman, a high school friend of my mother’s, that I’d meet her on Monday. And without any phone reception in all of Yosemite and the surrounding Sierra Nevadas, I couldn’t tell her otherwise, couldn’t postpone. So the next morning, I loaded everything from the bear locker back into my car, took down camp, and headed east again for Sonoma.

I thought I’d be camping in the Sierra Nevadas all week, but instead I’m in some motel in the ghetto

The sequoias were actually pretty amazing. My jaw dropped and stayed dropped for quite some time.

Men and kids, drunk and drugged, rode bikes through the streets like zombies high on death. Cops sat at the Walmart, making arrests. There were more arrests at a liquor store. When I returned to my room at a Motel 6 on the same block, a security guard stood on the balcony, watching the parking lot and street. The next morning, I went to a coffee shop, where a dude was nodding out at a table beside me.

Everyone looked ravaged by the world. No one really looked happy. No one looked healthy. So this is the other side of California. This is Fresno.

The irony was that for a solid month, I had been rushing around, leaving places that I’d fallen in love with, telling myself and everyone else, “I wish I could stay longer, but I’m gonna need at least a week to explore the Sierra Nevadas—preferably two!”

I wish I could’ve gone back in time to spend more of it with all those people and places I loved so much.

The irony is that when I was at one of the biggest wilderness areas in the country, there was no where to camp. I guess it was peak tourist season or something. Oops.

When I arrived on Thursday, leaving the Pacific Coast and driving through Bakersfield, I headed straight for Sequoia National Park. At least, I thought I was headed there. GPS took me down some random road that never did link me to the park. I didn’t see any sequoia trees. There weren’t many cars either, just the occasional truck during some five hours of winding up and down mountain roads. And the occasional cow in the road, who would stare at me with a look that seemed to say, “You look lost.”

“I am. Thanks for pointing that out.”

Eventually, after climbing more than 5,000 feet, I turned around. There clearly was no camping, just more mountains and ranches and fields stretching out to infinity. I drove back down and out, which took hours, arriving back at sea level, where it was 100 degrees again, and stopping at the first town, Porterville, to get a bed for the night.

I felt defeated, but I was determined to use that motel wifi and find campsites not just for the next night but for the next week. Except that when I got online, I saw that they were all booked. Like, for weeks. For the whole summer. Everything. All the national parks—Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon—and all the public and private camping in surrounding towns. Basically the entire mountain range.

The next day, I headed for the mountains again in search of the real Sequoia National Park. And I found it. There were signs everywhere, a string of cars and RVs heading in. I was just one of many in a long line, stopping at the turnouts to take photos, being a tourist although I couldn't relate to it. Only one campground had vacancies, a ranger told me at the entrance gate. It was 45 miles down the road, i.e., a few hours. So I drove. You couldn’t call ahead; you had to show up and hope for the best. I stopped a couple times to take in the beauty of the sequoias and mountain streams, and then I arrived, and it was full. And the walk-in campgrounds were booked, too. I asked two rangers what they suggested. They suggested I make reservations in advance next time. It’s like I'd found the Walt Disney World of nature.

A friend had suggested I do what he did while in Yosemite: park on the side of the road and walk into the woods with a sleeping bag. I don’t have an issue with the legality of it, but I promised myself a couple months ago that I wouldn’t camp anywhere where I wasn’t within screaming distance of another human being, and I made that promise for a reason. I'm too sober (literally) at this point in my life to sleep alone in the middle of hundreds of acres of wilderness. Not to mention, I don’t think I’d get any sleep. There are bears. Mountain lions. Wolves. Possibly some murderers. Who knows. I have faith in the Universe, but I’m not crazy.

Suffice it to say, basically it was a repeat of the day prior but with some real sequoias thrown in. If there’s no camping, there’s nothing to do but turn around. So I made my way back west again, out of the Sierra Nevadas (there are no roads that take you out east) and toward phone service and the nearest town, the setting sun blinding me and making my elevation headache throb even harder. It was over 100 degrees again. I was tumbling down into misery me. I could feel it.

The nearest town was Fresno. I looked for the nearest motel on my phone and landed in a Motel 6 again. But this one was, as I’d explained earlier, sketchy.

I felt defeated. And angry. It was the first time since my travels had started that I felt really let down, and the second time that I felt as if I’d been thrown off the wave. I was starting to think, “fuck a Yosemite.” Was it really worth all this? Killing my car, my body, my brain, only to be exhausted and ill with elevation and sleeping in some shitty motel? I would've been perfectly fine lounging at LA's beaches for another week.

I woke early to the sounds and vibrations of people walking on the balcony and flushing toilets on all sides (except for mine; mine didn’t flush). I took an aspirin and fell back asleep until 10, dreaming of three birds who’d gotten trapped inside my motel room, and I didn’t know how to free them. It seemed symbolic.

I’d like to say that I was determined to see Yosemite and hike amazing trails and find a pristine camping spot that day, but I was still in that mode where my car and my body felt totally worn down by this leg of the journey. I felt depleted of vital nutrients. You know how sometimes you just feel like that? Like you’re missing something important? Perhaps you can get it from the sun and fresh air and your feet in cold mountain streams, those things that replenish you. But at the time, I felt my life force quite weakened.

I wondered, too, how much of my weakened spirit was related to sleeping in motels for two nights in a row. When I sleep outside, I always wake up refreshed, in tune with the natural world, a part of it again. I feel that connection even more so when I wake up at dawn, as if the earth cleansed and grounded my energy field in a way that a motel, even a nice motel, never could, with its wifi and energy bodies moving all around, in and out, each unknowingly carrying their own baggage.

So I was not so headstrong about setting out into the mountains for a third day. In fact, I stayed in bed longer partly because I was procrastinating all of it: the long drives in 105-degree heat, the crowds of people, the sudden rises in elevation that my body doesn’t acclimate to very well (headaches, dizzy, nauseous).

I was starting to think, why bother? If I’m listening to and following my heart, my new credo, my heart is saying, Turn back! Forget your plans and what you think you “should” do! Go toward the path that feels warm and full of life and nurturing! (My intuition often speaks in exclamation points. My apologies.)

I just felt that it was something I had to do. It’s Yosemite. And I’m right fucking here. For the record, that reasoning is never actually solid. It feels solid, but only solid in the sense of the illusion of something being solid, i.e., “I’m gonna break down all barriers and obstacles to get what I want.” Not solid in the sense of being in any kind of divine flow of things and letting a path light up and unfold as I go, moving with the current.

I decided to go anyway.