With the forecast being for rain everywhere we might possibly travel on Tuesday, we decided to make this our big driving day, much to Mason's shigrin. We headed south out of Richardson, bound for California 20, via towns like Piercy, Legget and Willits. Being still a bit sick, I let Audrey take over driving for me at Calpella, just north of Ukiah as we joined CA-20 east. I slept, with Mason, through much of the scenery suck as the south end of Mendocino National Forest, Clear Lake, and the north end of the Napa Valley. Joining with Interstate 5 south towards Sacramento was pretty boring. The next big thing wasn't some glorious natural stand of depleted Redwoods. It wasn't some crystalline lake filled with rare migratory birds nesting on its banks. It was In-And-Out, the best burger joint in the states.
We continued on through Sacramento after our mecca-like journey for lunch, we headed south, through Stockton and Manceta, onto CA-120 towards and into what would be one of the most, if not completely terrifying, at least, most memorable sections of our entire family vacation. Perhaps even more terrifying and memorable than the birth of Mason. Maybe.
We stopped for supplies in Oakdale before heading into the final, near barren lands before Yosemite. Rolling through agricultural fields, the road winds on and on towards Sonora before dipping south east and into the park. With a right turn, we were on our way, and it wasn't but a few minutes before we hit California's second curviest road, what we will call The Road into the Sky, a road that rivals Highway 1 for dangerous precipices, challenges Lumbard Street for curves, and the sheer pits of Dante's seven layers of hell for eminent fear factor (note: author has only driven this road in a fully loaded RV, so results may vary). Regardless of all this, or in spite of all this, we forged ahead into the highlands that border the park. Small towns of 50 or so people (Big Oak Flat, Groveland, Buck Meadows) this time of year (more like 500-2500 in the coming months, I assume) greeted us with empty streets as the day fell into evening.
One thing I have thus far forgotten to mention - on purpose, dear reader, on purpose - is the amount of rain that we encountered. Thus far our trip had warranted nothing but perfect Northern California spring traveling weather. For an area that is supposed to be inundated with rain this time of year, we were counting ourselves very lucky to have three continuous days of unadulterated sunshine. The northern redwoods were beautifully backlit, the Golden Coast shimmered, the Avenue of the Giants cast dramatic shadows. As soon as we hit Sacramento, however, with its bustling highways and not-so-subtle re-introduction into civilization, we were drenched.
This continued throughout the day on into Oakdale, where a break in the storm blew overhead as we resupplied, but quickly diminished as we headed out. As we neared the Road Into the Sky (see video for my reasoning) the torrential down pour picked up. As we climbed up over the first ascent, the temperature dropped to about 40F. As we passed 3000 feet, it dropped to 37F. When we passed 3500, just beyond Buck Meadows, it quickly dropped to 31F and the torrential downpour went through a quick transition from torrential downpour to slushy mix to torrential snow storm. As we passed 4000 feet, tire tracks became harder and harder to notice, traffic passing us came by with more and more snow on their roofs. When we topped out at 6500 feet, we knew we had gone too far to stop or turn around and had only one choice left: make it down to the valley floor.
One thing that we thought strange as we puttered along at 20MPH down, up, and over the road was the continuous tire trails on our side of the road and the barely visible marks on the opposite side of the road, despite us seeing cars pass us on their way out. We soon figured out what was happening, there was one SUV (without chains, but I am fairly certain this model has 4WD) followed by two smaller vehicles (neither with chains or 4WD) traveling at 5MPH. That is my guess. It could have been 4MPH, or even 3MPH, but it is hard to gauge when the speedometer doesn't actually move from its resting point.
This continued for the better part of 30 minutes until a 4WD Toyota pickup flew up behind us and then just as quickly blew past all of us, passing in a whited out lane. Another car, a Subaru Outback followed suit about 10 minutes later. Finally, on a long stretch, nerves nearly shattered from this automotive moron riding his brakes (it was a he, we checked - our bets were "out-of-state driver" or "driver of significant age") all the way down the pass, we saw a chance to pass and made it easily. You could hear the sighs of the other two drivers thinking, "alright, it is our turn to pass this guy". We joked that he would still be driving down the next morning. I half expect to pass him on our way out tonight or tomorrow.
After we passed him, we ran through two tunnels, and then the snow turned back to rain and we coasted the rest of the way to the valley floor. In the intense rain and fog and darkness, I still had no idea what I was driving through. That awareness wouldn't come for another 12 hours.
As we pulled into Upper Pines campgrounds at the eastern edge of the valley, our nerves began to repair themselves.
