Are you?
Listen closely, it's there.
"...And I would walk 500 miles, oh I would walk 500 more, just to be the man who'd walk a thousand miles and fall down at your do-oh-oor!"
Okay, I didn't walk 1000 miles on this trip, not even close. But somehow it felt like it. And for two days in a row we did 20 plus miles a day. I'm still unsure hw we did it. Perhaps it was the smell of the hot showers drifting from the Yosemite Valley Floor some 48 miles away, and the wear and tear the trail had already exacted on our aching bodies.
Perhaps it was a healthy fear of bears, of which, we's heard, there were plenty, both near Thousand Island Lake ("And I would walk past 1000 island Lake, just to get past all the beh-air-airs!...") and in Lyle Canyon, an eight mile stretch that led to a much more civilized part of Yosemite Valley.
Or perhaps it was the memory of Lyle, a neighborhood bully growing up who drove a Ninja Motorcycle and liked to hand out wedgies as rewards for scoring touchdowns in front of his house.
I don't know.
What I do know is that we hiked an insane distance, that led us through some pretty varied terrain, including the highest point on the entire trail (Donahue Pass...where I think there was still snow) to make it to Tuolomne Meadows in the heart of Yosemite.
I was driven by the thought of one thing: Coca Cola. You see, Red's Meadow and Vermillion Valley were sponsored by Pepsi. So where I was in a civilised area with all of the pleasures of the free world at my finger tips, I couldn't get my hands (or lips) around a Coca Cola Classic! And the further I travelled the more I wanted one. This then became the flame to my moth!
Tuolomne Meadows was so high class that you had to have a reservation to be a guest at the restaurant. But there was no way in hell that we were going to eat camp food again, not after having come as far as we had. So we told the materdi that we would wait for a table no matter how long it took.
We were grime, as grime can be, and received funny looks from all of the people who entered the restaurant, sipping on Stella Artois Beer and dressed in fancy sweaters that came from Neiman Marcus. The type of people who deserved to get eaten by the bears we had so nimbly avoided earlier that day.
The sun went down and we continued to wait. But a few brave souls asked us what we were up to and we were happy to share our tale.
Finally, we were told that our table was ready. The restaurant had large tables and seating was a shared arrangement. That is to say that four or five parties would be seated at one table and you were forced to get to know your neighbors, and to be social.
It was fun, and the crusty backpackers had many a tale to share with these folkes.
I only wish my beard was longer so I could make John Muir proud! And when the waiter asked me what I would like to drink, what do you think I asked for?
That's right.
Can't beat the real thing!
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