11/6: The map is misleading when it comes to the last stretch of the 49 before it reaches the turnoff toward Yosemite. On the map, the road looks pretty straight and easy. But as the geographer I’m supposed to be, I should have known not to trust the map so fully. I’ve had entire courses about how mapmakers simplify and modify and categorize in order to make the maps more readable. Rarely are maps an exact representation of reality. That is what happened when Hanna and I were driving the last stretch before reaching Yosemite.
After leaving Calaveras Big Trees Park, the road started off ass pretty comfortable and really beautiful, with the mountains coloured in shining gold in the sunset. We drove past deep blue lakes and tiny mountain villages.
But then the road started climbing up the mountains, became narrower and narrower and curvier and curvier. And at the same time, the sun dissappeared behind the mountains. I was the one driving and kept my eyes concentrated on the reflex lines in the middle of the roads – but Hanna, who could see the mountain slope dissappear into the darkneess below us, sat whimpering slightly and holding on to her seat.
But god, did I love our Toyota Camry right about then. We met cars that were struggling with screaming motors up the mountain slope. Our Camry seemed to barely have to work.
The drive felt like it took hours and at one point we were seriously afraid that we would have to sleep in the car by the road, because it never seemed to stop winding up and down the slopes.
Well, in the end it all turned out fine. We reached crossroads and turned off the 49 towards Yosemite, and ten minutes before last check-in time we reached our hostel. We were safe.
That certainly was a slightly too adventurous journey to be enjoyable. But I made it, with some extra self-confidence in my own driving as a result.
Katja Malmborg 