Day 38 > 44 - Distant Horizon

DATE: Thursday april 7th

TIME: 10:46pm PST

LOCATION: san franciso CA

I was going to split Los Angeles and Yosemite up, but I want to get caught up. So we are knocking them both out in one go. Lets do it.

So after playing around on the sand dunes of Death Valley, we set off towards Los Angeles. While leaving the valley we had to stop a few times to give our breaks a… well… break. Lots of heat there. Once we were out of the Valley we drove for a way then ended up in the hills just outside the city. It was all well and good until we randomly came across a massive fog bank. Truly a Vinalhaven style pea souper. We traveled through the fog for a good 15 min, completely unable to see the oncoming cars beyond 5 feet infront of us, or the hundred foot drop to our side. Really spooky stuff. We eventually made it underneath the fog bank which was a really cool experience. We were basically inside a huge cloud that was nestled into the mountains. The drive was mostly uneventful besides the break issues and fog and we arrived in Los Angeles, specifically Glendale. Our hotel ended up being the shooting location for some kind of production, but they wouldn’t tell me what. Which, fair. But had me curious. After checking in we took a much needed rest for the remainder of the evening.

Our first day in LA was pretty cool. This was Deniz’s third time in the city and I honestly wasn’t super interested in most of the tourist stuff, we we didn’t do much site seeing. Our first stop of the day was the Evike headquarters. For those who don’t know Evike, they are the largest airsoft shipper in the states. Los Angeles is to an extent the holy grail of airsoft stateside, which I will get more into later. The shop was MASSIVE. It was basically a huge warehouse with airsoft equipment hanging on the walls from roof to ceiling, There was gear everywhere. I probably could have spent an entire day just in this store, but my wallet would not have been happy with me. I got a small token to remember the time and we explored the grounds a bit. It was pretty surreal seeing this location which I had seen in countless videos. The number of packages that have left this building headed to my house was staggering. It was really cool to see it.

After Evike we had lunch at IHop, then went back to the hotel for a short spell. We both needed to do laundry so we tracked down a laundromat and spent a few hours there. This was actually the first time I did laundry on this trip, I ran out of clothes on almost the exact day I planned to. Go me! I should be all set for the rest of the trip now. Probably.

After laundry Deniz was pretty tired so he went back to the room. I on the other hand wanted to play some airsoft. As I mentioned above, there is a ton of airsoft in this area. Lots of fields. The two fields that are the best known are SC Village and Tac City. We had plans to go to SC the next day (Spoilers heh) so I went to Tac City on my own.

So when I play airsoft I fall into the category of a “Milsim” player. I play slowly, check my corners, use real world gunfighting tactics, etc. Tac City was not a field designed for my style of play. It is what is known as a “Speed Arena”. The other major faction, if you will, of airsofters are known as “Speedsofters”. As the name implies, they like to go fast. These players are much closer to what you would imagine paintball as. They run very fast, and essentially try to out maneuver the enemy. I think I was the only player at this field who wasn’t a speedsofter. The playstyle was pretty weird here since it was tailored to that style of play. The rounds only lasted roughly 60 seconds each, 1 life and you are out. Playing this was took some getting used to, but I got the hang of it after a few fast rounds. While there are advantages to the high speed playstyle, my slow and methodic playstyle still worked out decently well for most rounds. At the very least I didn’t get hit most of the time. The final round was a low light game where they turned most of the lights on the field off. Most players had pretty weak lights, I did not. I had a 2500 lumen O-light on my rifle. This thing is bright enough to burn paper within a couple minutes of prolonged exposure. My light lit up the entire field when it was on and sent some glances my way. Most speedsofters dump all of their airsoft cash into their guns performance and recording equipment. I have spread it around my whole kit. So I turned some heads on the field. All in all I had a really good time at Tac City. It was not my element, but I always enjoy playing with new players. As usual everyone on the field was super kind, the people working there even gave me free patches for myself and Deniz since we were from out of town. Really lovely people.

Our second day was also an airsoft day. This time, SC Village. This is probably the most well known field in the US, maybe even the world. Most of the well known clips have come out of this field, most online airsoft personalities play there. Its a really cool field. Ironically enough, despite it being an outdoor field with a pretty far average engagement distance (The distance you tend to be from players in fire fights) this field required the most protection. In additon to the 10ft minimum engagement distance, you needed full Eye, mouth and ear protection where most fields only hard require Eye and mouth is just strongly suggested. At home we play on a field with no minimum engagement with a higher FPS (Feet per second) limit AND no required mouth or ear protection. So imagine my surprise when I had to break out my full protection gear that I wear at home for a field which was by its very nature, much safer. I had my full helmet, goggles, metal lower face mask and shooting headphones on. Very fucking hot out in the California desert. Regardless, this field was pretty surreal. I have been watching videos on this field probably since middle school and it was surreal to actually be playing there. I had a blast. Everyone (except for one guy) was incredibly nice. That one guy wasn’t mean to me, but he started cursing out a 10 year old so clearly not a great role model. But what can you expect from a dude kitted out in Trump stickers, not to bring politics into it lol. It just kinda checked out. I stayed clear of him. All in all I had a really good time on the field. The local players were great to talk to, the fields and games felt mostly balanced. I had a blast. After the game we went back to the hotel and relaxed.

Our final day in LA was the most site seeing we did. We drove around for a while then went to downtown LA and specifically, Little Tokyo. Little Tokyo is a couple block area in LA with a ton of Japanese stores, restaurant and street food. Deniz was very excited to go here for the food, and we got some fun gifts for good old Jeremy at one of the Anime shops. I explored the area surrounding Little Tokyo a bit also which was cool. This was mostly a Deniz stop so I don’t have a ton to say about it, but it was pretty cool. I saw a dude pushing a cat around in a stroller. How can you go wrong? After Little Tokyo we killed some time at the hotel then went to dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. This place, as you might expect, specialized in spaghetti. I had plain pasta with marinara, some delicious garlic bread and this strange hazelnut Neapolitan ice cream. It had a name, but I don’t remember unfortunately. It was really good though. The Spaghetti Factory was the highlight of that day for me cause I miss pasta haha.

That marks the end of Los Angeles. We headed out at our normal time, around 11pm and started driving to Yosemite. We had a few stops along the way for food, and stopped on the way in to take sunset pictures. We got into Yosemite after dark. The area of the park we were staying in had no cell service and no free wifi which kinda sucked. When I walked up to the front desk I was informed that my mom had called ahead and that I should tell her I was alive. Deniz and I agreed that was “Classic Susan” haha. I got the wifi, Deniz decided not to, and we went to sleep.

We only had one full day in Yosemite. Which was a damn shame, but you always have to leave a reason to come back. We had a 30min drive into the park itself which was absolutely beautiful. Even the areas which weren’t technically the park were gorgeous. We stopped a few times along the way for pictures. Once we made it into Yosemite Village we had a hard time figuring out where to park, some of the roads were listed on waze as accessible but were staff only. So we drove around for a while trying to figure out where to go. Our first stop, as usual, was the visitor’s center. We had lunch there at a restaurant in the village then got our stamps. The visitor’s center wasn’t letting people in so they had this cool setup for ordering your items and they were brought out to you. Good touch! After we got out stuff we drove over to our main trail of the day, Lower Yosemite Falls.

Ok, this was probably the most magical experience of the trip so far. The walk in was lovely, following a small river coming off the falls. Tons of huge trees around you, with the occasional view of the falls beyond. After a roughly 15 min walk you come to a bridge right above the river with an amazing view of the falls. As soon as I saw the waterfall, I knew I needed to get closer. Deniz and I traversed off trail all the way to the base of the falls. There was so much mist coming off the waterfall it soaked us to the bone. The surrounding trees dripped water like raindrops, it was amazing. I can’t even describe how beautiful and powerful it was to be at the base of something so ancient and huge. It was my favorite experience of the trip so far. I don’t think I have had a larger smile on my face this whole month. We took a ton of pictures both there and on the return trip to the car. All should be below, make sure to take a look.

After the waterfall we briefly went back to the store to pick up more goodies. I found a batch of bumper stickers for every national park. I had been collecting this exact set and had missed a few along the way so I was excited to see that. I started placing them in order on the Thule box up top on the car. The car already is looking just as I wanted it to, covered in stickers. Im really happy with the progress we have made so far.

After visiting the store we tried to drive up to Glacier Point. Its a location at the top of one of the mountains, overlooking the falls, Halfdone, and Yosemite Village. We got almost all the way up, but the upper road to the vista was closed. That kinda sucked. We continued down the road and came across a small village of cottages just hanging out on the top of the mountains. There were lodges, condos, the whole works. I definitely want to invest in a summer home in this village some day. It was magical. On our way back down the mountain we stopped and watched the sunset on Yosemite Valley. I took a time-lapse which is unfortunately too big to post here and Deniz sketched the valley. All in all, an unforgettable day. We even managed to find an open restaurant before getting back to the hotel.

After Yosemite we headed towards San Francisco, which is where I am right now. All caught up! We are here for two days, today was our city exploration day which I will talk about next time, and tomorrow we are taking a day trip to FINALLY visit the Muir Redwoods. We shall see if Yosemite can keep its seat as my favorite place on earth.

Thats all for now everybody, stay safe out there!

Signing off

-H