Thurs. May 6, 2013 - training day

The Internet is not as strong as we remembered, but the town of Valley Springs is only 3 miles away so we drove in this morning to Starbucks to work until our 10:00 meeting with Jim,

the day volunteer and park host who was assigned to train us in the day use registration kiosk.

We got an overview of our main task which will start tomorrow at 1:00.

Once that was done, we drove back in for lunch before going to the local coffee shop for the afternoon. Bad news, though, the Jeep's radiator spilled out onto the pavement when we stopped. We called AAA and got a tow to Sonora. (the best option for repairs and a rental car) which was a long hour drive. Mother Lode Motors, a Jeep/Chrysler dealership and service shop confirmed we need a new radiator and promised to finish it tomorrow. They had a Hertz office next door in the same parking lot, so we had no trouble getting a car for the ride back to New Hogan. It was hot- not 100, but hot- so we stayed in Sonora to finish the work day there in air conditioning and then stopped for dinner at Europa sports bar to  see the first half of game 1 of the NBA finals.

 

 

 

Back at camp we laid out our air mattress and sleeping bags to sleep under the stars on the patio cement pad. It is cool and beautiful out here as we watched the sun set and the stars come out. Very nice!