Black Bear Diner

We arrived at our first official stop of Hanford (near Sequoia) a bit shy of 9 PM. The extra 70 mile detour didn't really help our desired dinner plans since we were still 1 hour behind schedule. After freshening up at our hotel room, we drove around and found a nearby restaurant called Black Bear Diner. The menus were neat... in the form of local daily newspapers. One headline read, "Man Falls Off Half Dome and Dies." Humm. A nice new waitress, Stephanie, helped us get our growling stomachs filled. Mrs. Fozzie had a rack of ribs and Mr. Fozzie had chicken fried steak. The portions were sized for horses. It was really just too much food.

Goodbye L.A. (or NOT!)

After packing all morning today, we left Mr. Fozzie's home at 1:45 PM. Our "Goodbye L.A." hype, motivation, and ritual-like chanting was quickly pissed on as we reached Castaic (on the 5 fwy, shortly after Magic Mountain). We had prepared for just about everything. The last thing on our list was a Southern California mountain BRUSH FIRE!! We were forced to skip our amusement park stop and continue as far as we could to beat traffic and time. But by Elizabeth Lake we were completely stopped right before Gorman. We were literally PARKED on the freeway for 2.5 hours. The heat didn't really help our mood... nor the engine. Our "brand new" rental car from Alamo began to-- yes, overheat! But opening the hood of the car slightly and blasting on the air vents helped cool down the engine while we continued to trickle down toward our soon-to-come detour route of 138. After nine-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall repetitions, we were off. The detour would cost us an additional 70 miles. Half Dome, here we come!... I think.