Went to Fresno to get our fix of civilisation. Enough of orange groves and vast vineyards stretching to the horizon. Enough of snowy mountains and windy roads. For a few hours anyway!
It’s not good for our health, but we love McDonald’s. Who can complain about $1 chicken burgers and free wi-fi? Especially the latter. We spent a good hour on the internet, looking up free camping areas in Kings Canyon NP, checking our emails and Facebook, bank balances, etc.
Found a Best Buys, electronics shop – best purchase ever – a DC/AC converter! As my colleague in the Year 9 office reminded me several times last term – Will is a keeper! He had the brilliant idea of getting one of these doovalackies so that we can charge the iPod, camera, phone or laptop while driving. Absolute genius. So now we can watch the rest of Teachers without worrying about charging the laptop battery somewhere the next day! As an aside, the battery life on the MacBook Pro is astounding – around ten hours when fully charged, but it uses power more quickly for movies. To me this is amazing, considering my last school laptop, brand new though it was, could only hold one hour of charge and even then, only on a good day.
We also had another visit to Walmart for a doona, colander and some other necessary supplies. The most interesting Walmart clientele that I had seen so far were frequenting this particular store. We left with a trolley of goodies, including 30 tortillas for around $5. Awesome. I think we pay about that much for eight or ten at home. And we found a ‘comforter’ which took the place of a ‘doona’ and some ‘Q-tips’ to top up our supply of ‘cotton buds.’
Other interesting equivalents that one must get used to over here:
Faucet = tap
Candy = lollies or chocolate
Store = shop
Soda/pop = soft or fizzy drink
Screws = shoes (might just be a San Fran thing – Will was complimented on his ‘screws’ when we were in a Merrell shop. Of course he was wearing Merrells – he didn’t bring anything else!)
Cab = taxi
Cooler = esky
Cart = shopping trolley
Some very religious radio stations too. And because we don’t have a digital tuner, we’re a bit limited in what I can tune it to. So we had to buy a cassette tape MP3 player converter (just like in my old Laser – I should’ve kept the one that Al gave me seven years ago!). Real music – yay!
Once we got to Kings Canyon National Park and ‘checked in’ with our park pass, it was time to find a camp spot. The ranger was hilarious and once he’d checked our pass, he told Will that he had a parking fine. Will must have looked horrified, cos the ranger laughed and laughed. Bet he gets heaps of people like that! Or maybe it was just because we’re Aussies?!
We camped just down the road at Azalea, next to some Dutch people who shared their fire and s’mores (first ones we had – yum! Though my Hershey’s chocolate didn’t melt properly. Might need to practise making them!) with us and even gave us their leftover firewood. How nice is that! We even learnt a trick for converting Fahrenheit temperatures (Imperial measurements may be the bane of my existence!) to Celsius – e.g. a lifesaver for yours truly.
So 32 F is zero at Celsius and is freezing point. And that’s all I can usually remember, but get this:
61 F = 16 C
82 F = 28 C
104 F = 40 C (just ignore the 1)
How cool is that?! Now I might actually understand the weather when they show it on TV or display it in the National Parks.
Azalea cost us $10 campground with flushing toilets, so we couldn’t complain. Better than $21 for a drop toilet 20 miles outside of Yosemite. Another chilly night in Betsey – there was snow all over the ground again! Loving the new comforter – it’s warmer than it looks!
No comments:
Post a Comment