Chapter 7
It's kind of ridiculous how close we lived to Yosemite. I mean, I'm going to state the obvious here, but it's gigantic; and the fact that we were less than a three hour drive always made me feel like I was somehow failing to live up to my full potential as a human being. It's hard to cling to any petty complaint - even an ambivalent relationship or unease about a future career - when it's framed against the park. There really is nothing like it, and seeing those massive granite walls rise up in the distance was, I hate to admit it, almost like a religious experience.
On the ride over, we talked about so many different things, the latest developments at his work, how I planned to manage grad school and my various jobs, and at no point did we lapse into the awkward silences that
