Day Three - Monday Aug 17th

Our third day in Yosemite was also Tamara's birthday.  20 years old!  Nowhere better to celebrate the moment than with the family in the great outdoors.  This turned out to be one of my favorite days in the Park. The first event of the day was to go to a local bike rental shop and grab bikes for everyone.  They were the kind where peddling backwards is the break, so it took a little getting used to but the combination of Yosemite (very fun) with bike riding (also very fun) made for an awesome morning.  We were like a bicycle gang, all nine of us in a row.  We took them first to the base of half dome at what is usually mirror lake.  There still was a bit of water, but nothing "lake"-worthy.  A cool memory of the place was to see the sun rise just over half dome, with the angle between us and cliff such that we would walk forward to stay in the shade and see how quickly the sun covered the ground we had walked.

Sun coming up over half dome

Our next stop was in Yosemite village, where we grabbed some ice cream and enjoyed the late morning air.  We also went to a small museum.

Nick: Beard-less, not metallic, yet the resemblance is there.

After a delicious meal of crackers, cheese, pickles, veggies, fruit, and more, we spent a little relax time at the camp playing in the stream and catching our breath.  Our next activity was to ride over to the trail head that leads to Half Dome, Vernal and Nevada falls, and the John Muir trail.  There was a sign that revealed the lengths of the different paths.  Luckily, Vernal falls was our destination, and I think it was the closest one.  Some of the trails were forever long.  Like Bilbo said, "It's dangerous business, going out your door.  You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."  The trail was steep.  Andrew and I were good hiking buddies and reached the falls first.  I was amazed how far away you could stand and feel the spray from the falls.

We were rewarded for our steep, uphill climb

A perfect family if I ever saw one : )

By the time we had hopped around on all the rocks at the base of the waterfall, then ran down the mountain, our legs were made of jelly.  Oh I remember a funny story.  I think it was Nick that was ahead of Andrew and I on the last hill.  I decided to sprint down the last hill to try to pass him.  There was a little girl with her parents walking the same direction I was running that heard my loud footfalls and became very scared.  Who knows what she was thinking?  She screamed and started running too until her parents got her.  It was really funny.  Anyway, eventually we all made it off the mountain and made a exhausted but determined beeline for home, and correspondingly, food. 

It was Tamara's birthday, so of course we went out for dinner.  There is a nice pizza place in Yosemite Village we went to and, oh man we were so glad to feed our faces after a long day.  We joked that everything we did that day was to make the pizza taste better.  I think worked.

I have my key chain on my desk as I type this out.  On it is a pocket knife I bought that night after pizza.  We all had a budget to get whatever we wanted for souvenirs.  After we were satisfied with a bag of trinkets, we went back to camp and finished the night with a little chocolate cake adorned with lighted candles.

Yosemite, Jour Deux

I was on meal duty again for breakfast, day 2.  We made what my dad affectionately calls, "Mountain Man Hash."  It consists of half-cooking a package of bacon in a dutch oven, pulling the grease out with paper towels and throwing in hash browns with butter, and finishing it off with a dozen eggs.  My dad and I cooked it to perfection, evidenced by the hungry mob that emerged from the tents to devour our offering.  Having eaten our fill and cleaned up, we were all ready for our first full day in the park.

 

Basically, Matt and Ashley had to sleep the first night in a separate campsite.  In the morning, we needed to move them.  This, of course, was the obvious solution.  The blowup mattress is still inside.

There was a river that ran right by our campsite that was so beautiful and clear that I had to go try the water.  Despite all logical reason and a few laws of thermodynamics, the water was colder than the ice it came from.  Don't ask me how.  Not to be swayed from some puny, shallow, hypothermia-inducing water, I threw my swimsuit on and floated in the water with Nick and Andrew.  When my feet began petitioning my other organs to support a vote of no confidence towards my brain on account of incompetence, I decided it was probably time to get out.  Andrew and I also had a really good time skipping rocks on the river.

Our first organized event was a drive to Mariposa Grove to see the giant sequoias.  I think I have been to the grove three or four times from previous trips to Yosemite.  Personally, this is one of my favorite places to visit on the planet.  There is just something about these giants among God's creations that inspires the soul.

No picnic benches, but that's not a problem!  We ate lunch right by the car.  I popped a capri sun drink pouch on the concrete and it made a huge blast of sound like a gunshot.  Not so wise, perhaps, but it was really fun!

Ya, they're big!

Hope this picture gives some perspective.  Hard to capture pure majesty with puny megapixels.  This picture contains the lower 1% or so of the tree called the Grizzly Giant.  And I don't exagerate...

A fallen Sequoia betrays its lower regions to the world.

After hiking the outer loop in the Mariposa Grove, which apexes at the Grizzly Giant and passes many interesting sites in about 2 miles of walking, we hopped back in the car to make our way to Glacier Point, a popular lookout point that provides view of many of the famous sites Yosemite has to offer. 

Half Dome is on the left.  Vernal and Nevada falls can be seen in the lower right.  On a previous trip, I hiked to the top of half dome with my Dad and a couple other scouts.

 

Here is a closer shot of the two waterfalls.  The lower is Vernal, where we will hike on Monday.

It has been a long day of fun already, and we are all tired and hungry.  We hurry down the mountain to our campsite to cook dinner.  The highlight of the night was going out to a nearby meadow to look at the stars.  Dad gave us a tour of the constellations.  We saw a satellite or two, a bright shooting star.  Nick's green lazer pointer helped in pointing out the stars in the constellations.

Family Vacation Time!

Day 1

Every year, my family likes to get together and go on a vacation. Last summer, we went to the island paradise called Hawaii. This year, we decided to pile in the car and drive for a day up California to the mountain paradise called Yosemite National Park. We've been to Yosemite before, but it has been a long time, and a return had become overdue. The intrinsic beauty of the park justifies, nay, commands return visits. The mountains called, and we answered!

After much planning and anticipation, the day before departure arrived. This is the day where you get all your gear packed up and fill the car with gas and make sure the pets have a sitter to keep them alive.

Now, that is what you are supposed to be doing, but my siblings and I were having too much fun to stop and pack. Finally, Dad had to lay down the law, and we were obedient. I think all Dads have a tone of voice that they reserve for times when they must command complete cooperation. I don't blame him, he was to drive and we were anticipating a 4 o'clock departure.

We rolled out of the driveway a little before 6 am. A light bluish Honda Odyssey with a trailer laden with food, camp chairs, an eight-man tent, a couple bikes, charcoal, propane, flashlights, cards, binoculars, batteries, and every other needful thing.

The drive up was pretty standard, really (say it like Dr. Evil). We ate at Subway, drove on the freeway. One mile led to another, and we eventually found ourselves in front of a ranger welcoming us to the campsite. A little drama when he discovered that our campsite was rented out to another family under the assumption that we were not going to keep our appointment. We had given them due notification; they screwed up. Luckily, they made it good, and everything worked out fine.

Just call me spongebob squarepants! I'm flippin' some krabby patties for the family, but unlike my porous friend, I appear to be less than excited at the prospect. Actually, I was hungry and stoked to be cooking on a propane stove in the mountains. The camera just failed to capture that inner joy. Perhaps I was still recovering from the drive...

We spent the rest of the evening exploring our surroundings and playing games.

Dad has binoculars mounted to a tripod.

Here's the view from our campsite. Awesome!

Entry the First

As it turns out, blogging has been around 10 years, and I am behind the curve! I am a computer science student, so when I introduce myself I usually get a response along the lines of, "oh, so you can help me fix my computer." Not only does my field of study provide no guarantee of my ability to fix a computer, it also is not an absolute indicator that I follow the bleeding edge of technology. With this in mind, no laughing if my blog is rudimentary! You have been warned...

I intend to use this space as a public journal, a repository of pictures and prose detailing my happenings. It would be nice to have something to look back at to remember good times and at the same time make said information available to any that might be interested. Should that number be zero, I will yet feel justified in my pursuit. What was it Neal Maxwell said? Basically, "some of the greatest sermons are preached from the pulpit of memory, to an audience of one." This will be my extended memory, and I promise I'll keep the sermonizing to a minimum, but I hope that I will be able to write as freely as possible.

That is all.