A Series of Misadventures

Common sense failed to convince OilMan and Harold that we weren't just being wimpy when we suggested that they abandon their plans for a hike, given the imminent rain,  the the fact that the sign at the bottom of the trail didn't match up with OilMan's memory of it from when we did it over a decade ago, and uncertainty over where it ended up.

Anne and I walked to the bottom of Yosemite Falls (see extra photo), where the men said they'd meet us in an hour, stopping to watch a 6 year old being belayed up a steep rock face by her father, and watched hoards of people, kids and dogs clamber over the wet, dangerously slippery rocks at the bottom of the falls...a true melting pot of tourists from every part of the globe. Snatches of Hindi, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, French, German English and a few I didn't recognize drifted toward us as we sat on a rock in the limited protection of the ever increasing rain. We waited for almost an hour, decided we were freezing and tired of waiting for the men to appear from the top of the lower falls on a trail that existed only in OilMan's mind, and took the shuttle back to the hotel…well, within a mile or two of the hotel,.

OilMan and Harold were waiting in the hotel bar for us, having driven through the insane traffic right behind our shuttle bus. Too bad they didn't see the shuttle driver turf us off the bus at Yosemite Village with instructions to "walk up the road".*

Bloodshed was prevented by the administration of dry clothes, generous amounts of wine, and OilMan and Harold's rare admission that we were right.

*Special note to Lady Findhorn. I regaled Anne with the tale of our misadventures at the Bay to Breakers, since the lack of ability to communicate or to find each other in the designated place seemed strangely familiar….