Text and images Copyright © 2001 Stephen Garriga. All rights reserved.
In all of Y2K I only managed one shore dive from the rocks behind the Cemetery in Gloucester, MA. I had been planning a dive trip to Fiji, but shooting started and I changed my mind (I'm a coward, I know).
I managed to spend a good chunk of my vacation funds on trips to Canada (a 4th of July week trip to Niagara and Toronto), the UK & Ireland (a few days in Grimsby, a long weekend in Dublin) and California (3 days in San Francisco, 3 in and around San Jose). I got to see my family, some friends and a few interesting sites (The C.N. Tower and Niagara Falls in Canada; Dublin and Newgrange in Ireland; Monterey Aquarium and Alcatraz in San Francisco spring to mind), but I didn't really have a serious vacation.
2001 was going to be different. I was going to plan. I would have a week diving along the Californian coast.
It didn't happen.
I picked a week, and started to arrange accommodation, dives etc., but I just didn't want to spend a week alone driving from dive site to dive site. There was just too much road time, and none of my diving buddies were free.
In the end I convinced a non-diving, British, friend (Ed) to join me for a road-trip. We would drive from San Jose to Death Valley and spend a couple of days there before heading to Yosemite for a couple of days. The trip back to San Jose would only take half a day, so we were all set.
Well, closed mountain roads and Rand-McNally's 'Trip Maker' threw us a few curves, but we had a great time. Our hire car suffered a good deal more than I think should be expected of it, being handed over to me with delivery mileage only, and shipping protection still attached, we returned it COVERED in desert dust inside and out. (Sorry whoever had to clean it.)
I can't do Death Valley or Yosemite justice in words. I think either site alone justifies the existence of the National Parks Service. I hope my pictures convey some of what I saw. Let's just say that when I called in to work to check my messages and found I was being laid-off, I was in the right state of mind to deal with it in a relaxed manner.