As we drove and walked through Yosemite National Park, I tried to decide what words I would use to sum up the park and what my impressions of it are. That's very difficult to do when you have a limited vocabulary! I guess if I had to use one word, it would be "huge". Not "vast" like Big Bend, because in Big Bend there are no trees to block the "vastness". Here, there are trees, huge ones, and huge rocks, and views, huge views, everywhere you look. There really aren't words that convey the feeling I got. There was a feeling of excitement of course, of feeling insignificant, but also the feeling that there have been so many people here exploring this wilderness, and I couldn't wait to be one of them, and how great it is that this place is being preserved so that we can all enjoy it.
The RV Park we are staying in is about an hour and a half from the visitors center. On the way in, that was no problem, I was captivated by the views anyway. On the way home, at 8 pm though, it got old since I was so tired. Plus we then had to stop to go food shopping and eat dinner. It was one long day.
There were two hikes we were particularly interested in doing, but we decided to do the shortest of the two on our first day. We hiked the Mist Trail (appropriately named) up past Vernal Falls to Nevada Falls, then back down Muir Trail, for a total of about 7 miles and 1900 ft elevation gain. Luckily the views were spectacular and the photo opportunities many, since we had to stop frequently to catch our breath along the way. The plus side to the fact that we can't hike Half Dome, due to snow, is that the waterfalls-and there are lots of them- are positively gushing with water. As we were hiking, whether we could see a waterfall or not, we could always hear one. It was never quiet in the forest. There were also lots of people, but not to the point where it felt overcrowded.
All in all it was a great, but tiring, first day in Yosemite. This morning I am doing laundry, how fun. This afternoon we are leaving this park for 2 nights, and meeting Kevin, Suzy, Kirk and Karen at a Federal campground to spend the weekend. We'll come back to this campground on Sunday.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Yosemite National Park
We have cancelled our reservation for inside Yosemite National Park. It snowed there again a few days ago, which means the cables for Half Dome will probably not be up before we leave the area, and we won't be able to hike it. I am really disappointed, but we'll just have to try again next year. We'll still be here for a week, and do a lot of hiking, but not Half Dome.
Travel, and then Fresno CA
What followed Needles was a few days of travel and "chillin". We got up really early in the morning, and hit the road, in order to avoid the wind. We spent one night in Bakersfield CA, which is pretty close to Fresno, but made our traveling day a little shorter and easier. There was no hiking we were interested in doing, so when we arrived in Bakersfield, we washed the Everest- which we haven't done in a long time. It wasn't too bad, but it felt good to get all the months of accumulated dust off.
We rewarded ourselves with a swim in the pool afterwards and had a quiet afternoon. Well, except for the birds. When we arrived at our site, there was a bird (a Killdeer) making quite a racket, scolding us for being there, it seemed. Soon enough, Paul saw the nest, complete with eggs, under our picnic table. The mommy Killdeer was trying to warn us off. Once that didn't work, she/he would run away from the nest and act injured, to attract our attention away from the eggs. She/he (there were both mommy and daddy bird around) did this repeatedly all afternoon, everytime we came out of the trailer or approached the picnic table. Once we were at a safe distance, she would sit back down on the nest. It was really cool to see the parental protective instinct at work, yet a little sad since she didn't believe me when I told her we wouldn't harm her babies. She just kept yelling at us and acting injured whenever she saw us. We tried to stay away as much as possible so she would have more time on the nest, and we for sure couldn't let the cat out.
Once in Fresno, we met up with Suzy and Kevin and headed up the road about an hour, to have dinner with Nancy and Bill. Bill and Kevin are fraternity brothers of Paul's, and they remain good friends. We always have a blast with the group from CA. Nancy and Bill own a farm, and sure do know how to feed people! They built a "party barn" in their yard so that they can host square dancing, parties and whatever else they want. We had an awesome dinner with them. We won't see them again this trip since their son is getting married in two weeks, and the wedding is at the farm.
Yesterday we met Suzy and Kevin at Kirk and Karen's (another fraternity brother and great friend) house for breakfast, and started the day with Mimosas. Once we had completely stuffed ourselves we headed over to our trailer to show off our home. We made plans to head back to Kirk's for dinner, and got all the ingredients to make ice cream for dessert. A very nice Memorial Day was had by all.
On and off all day we tried to make some new plans and finalize some existing plans, but having fun kept getting in the way. We are all camping together next weekend at a Federal campground in the nearby Sierra National Forest, so we are trying to finalize who is bringing what. We are all also interested in meeting in Yellowstone next summer, so we are trying to figure out if there is a time frame that we can all make it there, so that once reservations open up, we can make them.
Today Paul and I are working on some small projects, and doing some shopping, before meeting everyone at Kevin and Suzy's for dinner.
We rewarded ourselves with a swim in the pool afterwards and had a quiet afternoon. Well, except for the birds. When we arrived at our site, there was a bird (a Killdeer) making quite a racket, scolding us for being there, it seemed. Soon enough, Paul saw the nest, complete with eggs, under our picnic table. The mommy Killdeer was trying to warn us off. Once that didn't work, she/he would run away from the nest and act injured, to attract our attention away from the eggs. She/he (there were both mommy and daddy bird around) did this repeatedly all afternoon, everytime we came out of the trailer or approached the picnic table. Once we were at a safe distance, she would sit back down on the nest. It was really cool to see the parental protective instinct at work, yet a little sad since she didn't believe me when I told her we wouldn't harm her babies. She just kept yelling at us and acting injured whenever she saw us. We tried to stay away as much as possible so she would have more time on the nest, and we for sure couldn't let the cat out.
Once in Fresno, we met up with Suzy and Kevin and headed up the road about an hour, to have dinner with Nancy and Bill. Bill and Kevin are fraternity brothers of Paul's, and they remain good friends. We always have a blast with the group from CA. Nancy and Bill own a farm, and sure do know how to feed people! They built a "party barn" in their yard so that they can host square dancing, parties and whatever else they want. We had an awesome dinner with them. We won't see them again this trip since their son is getting married in two weeks, and the wedding is at the farm.
On and off all day we tried to make some new plans and finalize some existing plans, but having fun kept getting in the way. We are all camping together next weekend at a Federal campground in the nearby Sierra National Forest, so we are trying to finalize who is bringing what. We are all also interested in meeting in Yellowstone next summer, so we are trying to figure out if there is a time frame that we can all make it there, so that once reservations open up, we can make them.
Today Paul and I are working on some small projects, and doing some shopping, before meeting everyone at Kevin and Suzy's for dinner.
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