Hartley Springs campground. Arrived in camp at 10:10 pm after lackadaisy attack. I am up and up in the Jeffrey Pines, not far from where Becky and Zeke and I camped at Deadman Summit.
Arriving at night, after dark: disconcerting. The campground is a warren of two-ruts, none seeming right, and I’m not even sure I’m in a formal site as opposed to some place they put a picnic table temporarily.
Heated water. Now drinking genmai cha. In shorts and t-shirt still: a cool breeze, not unpleasant. Becky would call it “freezing,” but not “fucking freezing.”
Road noise dissipating. Bed made under a blanket of stars and pine.
How long has it been since I’ve seen the Yosemite high country? 10 years? Too long.
Called Becky from Lee Vining, at the lake visitor center. It had just rained, and sagebrush smell hung in the air thick with violet-green swallows. A fire toward Bridgeport: smoke in the air for hours. I got to the lake’s south shore around 5, sat and decompressed — record time this time. Near-instantaneous. As with the visceral whomp of the great granite domes: like a sledge to the chest. I could not breathe fully. So beautiful. Sublime. And so close.
Kestrel on fence post along 120 east of 395 as I headed toward Nevada. Not all the way of course. Slanting light and music on the stereo, and me heading alone into the interior. If there were a heaven, it would consist of such a moment infinitely dilated.
So odd this short time for the landscape to sink in. It takes usually two, three days for the city skin to slough off, the armor to be shed. I suppose that makes sense. These past months have stripped me to sinew. The bear need not pull off my skin this time.
So quiet here, save the distant thrum of long-haul truckers on 395.
Violet-green and cliff swallows, California gulls, of course ravens. Ospreys are said to be nesting on the tufa offshore, but I saw none. Tomorrow, perhaps. Instead, I sat and watched the storms across the lake, lightning hitting Bodie and a sudden front thrilling the gulls, taking my hat. Two minutes in advance of the front, a barrage of small waves.
Home.
beautiful. thank you for that respite.
Here I am stuck in New York state, and you’re back there in my home territory camping out.
You bastard! This is like showing pornography to a man with no arms!