Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Day 9: "Sequoia"


"It'll take about an hour and a half".... "Excuse ME!?"

States: California
Miles: 495.7
Weather: Hot


$$$
Gas: 81.78
Gas Cap: 8.71
Ice: 3.36

Total: 93.85

Signatures: +5
38/100

Again, we awoke late today, no surprise there. We left Maurissa’s sister’s apartment and went to her other sister’s house for breakfast. It was very tasty. We left around 9 & headed towards Hollywood to get a picture of the sign. We got lost for a bit but found our way. L.A. traffic is really fun to drive in. We snapped some pics of the sign and were en route to Sequoia National Forest, you know, the trees that are HUGE!

Though we didn’t drive through any trees, we drove through the forest on a steep curvy road. We then navigated our way to Yosemite. I made the reservations a long time ago, so naturally, I didn’t remember the name of the campground that we were staying at. Now came the ordeal of finding where we were staying. After a few calls, we found our campsite (they spelled my last name wrong, so they couldn’t find it).We made our way to one of the many entrances, and the ranger greeted us and told us where to go: “Just make a left here, and follow the sign for 120 West. It should take you an hour and a half.” Come again?

It was already around ten, and we still had a while to go. Dang. We lost service a while back, so we just shut off our phones. Now, this is a little out of timeline, but I fell asleep for a bit and Mj was a bit delirious. He was lightheaded and acting like he was on drugs. I made some PB & J in the car, and they were quite large. Once we got to our site, we pretty much went straight to bed.

This next section is my thing: car stuff. So here’s a little info. We are driving my car: a 1995 Toyota 4Runner with a V6. It had 109k miles on it before I accidentally blew a hole in the engine block, rendering it useless, and me carless. So I put in a recently rebuilt engine with about 30k on it. I finished it April 26th, and now two months later, I’ve put over 9000 miles on it and counting. The truck has been extremely reliable. We’re not burning or leaking any oil. Our only problem was a hole in the headers (it was there when I bought them), but easily fixed by pennies and dimes. The pennies usually burn up from the heat of the exhaust after a few months. A word of advice to those who plan on travelling: always check your oil and tire pressure at every stop. As you go up in elevation, your tire pressure increases and they may become overinflated. It’s vice-versa on the way down. That’s all I have to say really, so goodbye.

Phil




1 comment:

  1. Okay,what happened to the gas cap? And when you said you fell asleep and MJ was acting like MJ (jk) I assume Matt was driving?! Can't wait to see all the pics! Love you all!

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