Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

It's been 5 weeks since we've done a Friday Night Halfway trip. The last one was to Jackson, California— and tonight we're in Jackson again! In fact it's not just Jackson we're staying in as our halfway point, but we're also headed tomorrow to the same all the way spot as 5 weeks ago. Tomorrow we'll drive up into the Carson Pass area of the Sierra Nevada mountains (which, BTW, are mostly in California, nephew) to hike to The Nipple again. Five weeks ago we only got partway there due to tough weather.

The drive out here was similar to last time. It's just 120 miles from home and it should have taken just over 2 hours to drive. Instead it took over 3 hours because of rush-hour traffic. Yeah, we knew we'd hit traffic snags leaving at 5pm. But I didn't sweat it because we were able to leave at 5pm. That's one of the nice things about working from home.... When we want to get out of town on a Friday night, we don't have to commute home from the office, then pack, then leave. We can throw together our bags during a short break (it doesn't take us more than about 10 minutes to pack for a simple overnight and a hiking day) and then leave when the workday's done.

This trip isn't exactly a do-over of 5 weeks ago. One thing that's different is we're staying in a different hotel. 😅  Tonight we're at a Holiday Inn Express instead of a Best Western. It's not that the BW was a bad hotel. I mean, okay, it did feel a bit slummy, but we've stayed in worse. But I would have stayed here again tonight— except that it was booked up!  And I wish that it wasn't, because when we arrived at the HIX just after 9pm it was in a blackout.

The front desk person explained that there was an accident nearby about 45 minutes earlier that knocked out power to about a quarter of this small town. Indeed we saw flashing lights of emergency vehicles a block down the road. We don't know when the power will be back on.

Thankfully the batteries on our devices are mostly charged. We have backup power banks, too. And since we've got our hiking gear, we've got dedicated flashlights as well. And at least the weather's neither oppressive nor chilly this evening, so we're fine without AC or heat.

Update, 10pm: The power came back on a few minutes ago. We'd been in the dark for about 40 minutes. Surprisingly it wasn't that bothersome. We just stretched out in the room with our electronics. The cell network was still working fine to provide us data.

Here it is Friday night, in the summer, and once again we're halfway to somewhere else. 🎵 Woah, we're halfway there! 🎵

In a 1:1 this afternoon with my boss we were discussing weekend plans, and he said he finds it inspiring how much Hawk and I travel on weekends. I explained to him this Friday Night Halfway travel technique I started using years ago. The idea is simple: Drive a few hours on Friday night and stay in a hotel in some nondescript location to get a head start on going somewhere, typically in the mountains, Saturday. Use the extra time to do a fun thing on Saturday and get all the way home Saturday night so Sunday is an open day at home for rest, chores, etc.

If it seems like I've blogged Friday Night Halfway a lot recently it's because we've done it a lot recently— 4 times this summer, starting with one in June, and now 3 times in 3 weeks. This evening's trip is just in time, too, as it was just this morning that I finished blogging about these recent trips. 😂

So, where are we tonight? We're in Auburn, one of our usual suspects for Friday Night Halfway. It's a town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada along I-80. We like it because it gives us a good jumping-off point for adventures up in the mountains.

Sometimes Auburn hotels get pricey, though, so maybe half the time we come through here we also stay down in the Central Valley, hanging our hats for the night in or around Sacramento instead. Tonight our usual haunt, the Holiday Inn, was expensive, but I found a good rate at a Best Western. We'll see what it's like staying at a lower-rung property... without elite status. 😱😂

The drive up to Auburn this evening was rough. I'm glad we were able to leave early. What would've been a 2.5 hour drive without traffic took closer to 4 hours of driving. Adding in stops for dinner and ice cream (yay!) we arrived at the hotel just before 9pm after leaving home at 4.

Tomorrow we'll drive up to the Grouse Lakes Basin, another common haunt. We visit that area for hiking generally at least once a year, sometimes twice. Why keep going back? So. Many. Lakes. It can still feel a bit repetitive, so we mix it up with different hiking routes. This time we're thinking of doing a peak climb we've never done before. We should be able to see lots of lakes from up there! And staying tonight in Auburn means we should have only an hour or so pleasant drive to the trail in the morning.

The Park Fire continues to burn in northern California, north of Chico and east of Red Bluff. As of Sunday evening it has burned 386,000 acres. That's over 600 square miles. It is now the 5th largest fire in modern California history.

Here's a map of the fire as of this evening from CalFire (click on image for link to source page):



The CalFire incident page for the Park Fire notes that there are over 5,700 personnel fighting this one fire. Firefighters are being pulled in from all over the state. When we were in Redding on Sunday afternoon, stopping for lunch while driving through, we chatted with a fire crew who'd just driven up from near where we live.

The size of the fire, at 386,000 acres as of this evening, hasn't grown much in the past 48 hours. Authorities say that's because the hot weather in the area that last through Friday broke on Saturday. With cooler temperatures and more humidity in the air, the fire has spread more slowly. This has also enabled crews to start containing it— though as of this evening it's still only 18% contained.

Miraculously there are no deaths reported from this fire. Thousands of people have had to evacuate homes, though. To their credit, and to the credit of authorities managing the situation, people were moved to safety quickly. I'm sure plenty of people in the areas impacted remember the tragedy of the 2018 fire that burned the town of Paradise. There, even a half day of "The fire can't possibly spread over here that fast!" meant that when evacuations orders did come, there was pandemonium and dozens of people died.

We started the day today in Redding, California, having driven here last night. On the drive up through the Central Valley we marveled at the smoke cloud rising miles high in the sky in the distance. It's from the Park Fire, which is burning near Chico. This morning there was another reminder of the fire still burning out of control:



This was the view out our window this morning. Surprisingly the air doesn't smell smoky. That means the smoke's not here yet; it's just forming a wall in the sky to the east of here. FWIW, if you turn around 180° the sky looks pretty normal. To the west there's blue sky, and you can see the mountains in the distance clearly.

The hotel was sold out last night. There are numerous fire crews staying here, not to mention people evacuating from east of here. I spoke to a woman over breakfast who spend most of the night driving back and forth to her house, grabbing as many things as she could stuff in her car each time as long as the police would let her in, and driving it to Redding to stash with friends.

BTW, the Park Fire has now grown to over 350,000 acres, making it one of the biggest fires in California state history.

Last night I booked a trip to go hiking in the mountains this weekend. Shortly after writing that blog this morning I checked my news feed and...



It's on fire.

Overnight the Park Fire near Chico, California exploded in size (Sacramento Bee article via Yahoo! News, 25 Jul 2024), growing from under 6,500 acres to over 45,000 acres by morning and 71,000 acres by midday. The fire was just 3% contained at last update in that article. That means it's burning out of control and growing in every direction simultaneously.

When smoke from a fire affected our day of hiking in the Sierras a few weeks ago I wrote that maybe we'll have to check not just the weather forecast but also the fire forecast before we travel. I wrote that as grim humor, not as a literal prediction! Alas my grim humor is the emerging grim reality. Summer in California is becoming fire season. Anywhere in the state may be burning or choking on smoke from a fire.

Fortunately the effects of the Park Fire are currently only indirect on where we planned to go hiking this weekend. Like the fire near Fresno a few weeks ago there will be dozens of miles and some pretty high mountains between it and us. But like then the smoke could be an issue. Already the smoke is definitely an issue in Redding, where we're stopping on our Friday Night Halfway. And it might be an issue up in the Shasta-Trinity mountains if the wind shifts strongly to the northwest (though that seems unlikely).

Incidentally this Park Fire is not far from Paradise, California, where the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people. (A note about naming fires: "Camp Fire" does not mean it was a campfire that got out of control. It was given that name because it started near a local road named Camp Creek Road.)

Update: this afternoon I saw news that authorities have arrested a man on suspicion of arson in deliberately starting the Park Fire! Example coverage: KCRA News Sacramento article, San Francisco Chronicle article. Witnesses say the suspect pushed a burning vehicle into a gully. So maybe it wasn't his intention to start a massive forest fire destroying numerous homes and requiring thousands of people to evacuate the area, but that's been the result so far of his deliberate actions.

Update 2: As of midday Friday, the fire has grown to 178,000 acres and is now rated as 0% contained.

Update 3: As of Friday evening, the fire has burned 239,000 acres. That's 373 square miles. 1,600 firefighters are working on it... and it's still 0% contained.

Update 4: As of Sunday morning, the fire has grown to over 350,000 acres. Cooler weather on Saturday slowed its spread and enabled firefighters to establish some containment lines, otherwise it could be even worse. Miraculously there are no deaths reported from this huge fire. Thousands of people have had to evacuate. To their credit and authorities' credit, people got moved to safety quickly. I'm sure plenty of people living in the area remember what happened in Paradise in 2018 when a half day of "wait and see" delays before evacuation orders came caused pandemonium and dozens of deaths.

Update 5: Tuesday check-in.

What comes after Friday Night Halfway? Well, Saturday Morning the Rest of the Way, of course! After we drove to Chowchilla on Friday night we finished up the drive to our true destination Saturday morning. The first of our true destinations, that is. Angel Falls.



This is just the first of many waterfalls at Angel Falls, a view we enjoyed seemingly just steps after starting the hike. More to come soon!

Getting to Angel Falls was easy this morning by virtual of having done our "Friday Night Halfway" thing. We intended to get up early, perhaps even at 6:30am, but set an alarm for 7 instead and then swatted the snooze button until almost 8. But that was okay because we didn't have hours to drive. We rolled from the hotel at 8:30am after pooh-pooing the crummy breakfast offered there.

We arrived in the town of Oakhurst about 75 minutes later. It was 48 miles of driving through the Central Valley at the Sierra foothills, plus a stop for gas in Coarsegold, where gas was ridiculously cheap (by California levels).

I mentioned last night that Chowchilla is small (by California levels) at 19,000 population. Oakhurst is even smaller, at about 13,000. But Oakhurst is a gateway town. Gateway towns are kind of like gateway drugs, except they're generally good for your health, not destructive. They're gateways to outdoor adventure!

In Oakhurst we stopped for breakfast at Jack in the Box. ...Yeah, it's low-brow, but Jack in Oakhurst is kind of a ritual for us. We also visited a knickknack shop in town but didn't buy anything because it was all junk. (Eating crummy food and shopping crummy junk stores are typical gateway-town activities, BTW.) After that we made the easy 15 minute drive up past Bass Lake to the trailhead for Angel Falls. We started the hike at 11am.

I wrote in my previous blog about driving to Fresno on Friday night. It was more, though, than just "Leave home, drive 168 miles, 'You Have Arrived at Destination.'" The drive involves a number of legs of travel and points of interest that are so usual to me nowadays I often pass by them without even thinking. But what are they? Here are Five Things:

Last night we drove to Folsom, California, halfway to Bassi Falls. Yes, that's the same as we did 6 weeks ago. We're doing it again! Why? Because six weeks ago we had to bail out early when Hawk got hurt. Plus, Bassi Falls is beautiful. It doesn't hurt to see it twice. And we'll finish the rest of the trip, with a few other hikes, we intended to do 6 weeks ago.

How much the same is it? Well, we started from the same place (we live there, duh), we're going to the same trailhead to start the day Saturday, and Friday night we stayed at the same hotel— almost. Instead of the Residence Inn we're at the Courtyard. They're both Marriotts and they're literally next to each other in the parking lot.



The drive out to Folsom Friday night wasn't bad. Driving 142 miles took us 3:15 including a stop for dinner of about 45 minutes. Oh, and speaking of the same trip as 6 weeks ago... we ate dinner at the same restaurant as last time. 😂 Though this time we left home 10-15 minutes later and made better time driving. We lost only 15-20 minutes to traffic. Thus we arrived 15 minutes earlier than last time.

You'll note driving 142 miles last night, with 202 shown as the total distance in the map above, is more than halfway. Yeah, that's because "Woooooah, we're halfway there!" is lyrical and "Wooooah we're 70.3% rounded up of the way there!" is not.

But back to things that are the same, or not. Last night after checking in we considered going to the same ice cream shop as last time. It was good! But this time I didn't quite feel like having ice cream; I wanted a beer or cocktail instead. Well, right next door to the Courtyard is a BevMo! It's, like, 50 feet from the hotel's side entrance. I grabbed a couple large cans of Negra Modelo (one for Friday night, one for Saturday) and took them back to the room to relax.

Final difference: we're getting an earlier leave on things this morning. We rolled from the hotel just after 7:30am and are now eating breakfast nearby— at the same restaurant (Del Taco) as last time! I hope that leaves us enough time to enjoy lots of outdoors stuff today. Of course, we'll have to avoid injuries while at it!

On our drive to Barstow yesterday we took some detours across the Central Valley to avoid traffic slowdown. Our initial route plan was to drive I-5 from near Los Banos to Buttonwillow, then cross over to Bakersfield. Then I-5 crapped up, and real-time traffic apps recommended we drive 152 east from Los Banos to 99 then south. But then 99 crapped up, too. The maps suggested we drive a variety of county and local roads to avoid the jams. We're pretty bored with the two usual routes, so we figured, Sure, let's do it.

The roads took us through little bits of the Central Valley we've never seen before. For example, we finally saw the town of Firebaugh. We've only ever seen it by its name on road signs in the middle of nowhere. As in, "Firebaugh, 20 miles deeper into nowhere -->."

We also saw lots of hawks on the roadside. They were perched on telephone posts, power line pylons, lamp posts, etc.

We also saw lots of bird boxes. Most farms have them on near the edge of their orchards. Some of the mystery was revealed when we saw a big sign advertising Barn Owl enclosures. We passed a shop that builds & sells them. It was near Firebaugh. And right past that we saw another owl box... with a huge red-tail hawk sitting atop it.

Yeah, that's not going to attract owls. Think, a combination of "It's a trap!" and a riff on the signs you see for new housing/apartments... "If you lived here, you'd be dead already."

I finished my trek of I would fly 500 miles and I would drive 500 more on Sunday. We left the hotel in Bakersfield at 9am. It's 251 miles from there to my house. We split the drive with a stop for recharging and lunch at an oasis near Firebaugh on I-5.

The car got better mileage on Sunday. Partly that's due to less sweltering temperatures; they ranged between about 80-93° (27-35 C) in the Central Valley during our late-morning drive through there. And partly it's because we didn't drive as fast. Yes, I-5 is a long, straight road... but it's also crowded compared to I-15 and US-58 yesterday. With slow trucks and cars all over the places there isn't as much room to open the throttle.

At the charging stop I solidified my awareness of an emergent pattern among EV owners and their behavior at charging stations. It's a dichotomy that splits mostly along the lines of EV newcomers vs. EV grizzled veterans— which you can tell based on whether they're driving an EV that looks, say, at least 2 years old vs. one that looks relatively new.

• For EV newcomers, recharging is a social event. When they hook up the charger they look around and are eager to chat with others about their vehicles and experiences. They're also conscientious about using the chargers. They pull into the spaces straight, and monitor their charge to pull out of the slot when they're done— so the next person can start charging.


• The grizzled vets are the opposite of that. They pull in quickly and carelessly, often parking diagonally across two spaces. They connect the cables without acknowledging their neighbors. They leave their cars well past the time it takes to complete a charge, continuing to block multiple spaces that others could be using. You can't ask them to move because they're nowhere to be seen— for hours.

Every charging station we visited this weekend— and we visited four of them— had both types of people. And it aligned 100% with driving a new car vs. a slightly older one.