Yosemite

El Capitan: the scale does not translate in photographs

The rental car, a Hyundai Tucson, was delivered to the hotel. I drove the whole way. The valley opens up in a way that no amount of prior photographs prepares you for. El Capitan is simply large in a way that other things are not. We spent the afternoon there, walked the valley floor, and swam in the Merced River under the El Capitan Bridge. Cold water, granite walls, nobody else doing exactly this. One of the best moments of the trip.

We drove back in the early evening. Somewhere on the highway I told Sharang I was falling asleep at the wheel. He was already asleep. He told me to pull over and nap. I pulled into a rest stop, set an alarm, and we both slept in the car for thirty minutes. Wendy's on the way back for lunch. We returned the car and tried to take the subway to the airport. San Francisco's transit does not accept contactless payment the way New York does, which felt like an oversight from about ten years ago. We booked a cab and made the flight with time to spare.

The flight had a long layover at JFK. Long enough to go into the city. We took the AirTrain, got to Central Park, lay on the grass for a while in the way you can only do in that park, then had Ichiran Ramen, and went back to the airport. Delhi next, where someone lifted my suitcase by mistake at baggage claim, same make as theirs, same look. Mine had a ribbon tied to the handle. The authorities tracked the person down and called them back. Sharang flew Delhi to Mumbai to Coimbatore. I flew Delhi to Bangalore directly. That was the end of it.