An American Tale day 3 - Please Don't feed the bears

Until recently, my knowledge of the word Yosemite was limited to cartoons

I now think of THAT drive, in THAT car

I drive deep into the park, through valleys of rock and Giant Redwoods.  

I pass Park Rangers and bears.

Wait, Bear, was that a bear?  That was bear.  Oh my god I saw a bear.

My mistake, it was a bush.

The reason I was so convinced was the fact that there are signs about bears everywhere. Don't feed them, don't approach them, oh and if one approaches you, you've gotta be really loud and wave your arms around...thanks for that.

I stop in a picnic spot to eat my 7-11 purchased lunch (burrito, Cheetos, and Dr Pepper...when in Rome).  There are more bear signs, but not one that warns you that the local squirrels have NO fear!

As beautiful as it is around here, I have long old drive to the coast this afternoon, so I start my descent to ground level. Trees merge into bushes, bushes to weeds, weeds to sand...and we're back on the open road passing Oakdale (Apparently Cowboy capital of the world, more like like trailer trash capital of the world...I don't stop.)

After a few hours I finally see it.  The Pacific.  I stop over in Santa Cruz, a very strange resort that is a mix of very rich, and very poor.  (Part of the check-in process at the motel was warning which roads I should probably avoid walking down.)
So like a good little tourist, I head to the posh end of town, to Rosie O'connells, an Irish bar where I was the most Irish thing in it (Sorry I know, not very authentic, but there was a man playing guitar, I couldn't resist my muso roots.)
Day 4 arrives...along with the clouds, booooo!

Today's soundtrack was brought to you by Metallica, Deftones, and Audioslave