Day # 26 - Yosemite

Half way. We are planning on a 52-day trip so today is the half way point.

After an interesting drive up up up and into the high desert yesterday, everyone was tired this morning. It had been our plan to get up reasonably early and make the 20-mile drive from our campground into Yosemite National Park. Today we were going to spend our time in Yosemite Village. Missy set the alarm for 7:00. I don’t remember who turned the alarm off, but it was 8:10 when Abby stirred (unusually late for her) and woke us up. I cooked up hearty breakfast while my wife packed a picnic lunch and got the monkeys out of the PJ’s and into shorts and tee shirts. It is supposed to be another hot day and when I cooked up our food outside (It is too hard to cook and get all 3 kids dressed inside the camper at the same time) it was already well over 80 degrees.

For those unfamiliar with Yosemite, I can give you my quick observations. Yosemite is basically laid out in a big oval shape about 40 miles long by 30 miles wide. It is located high in the Sierra Nevada mountains which is called the “high desert”. It is basically mountains all around a valley that was gouged out of the mostly granite rock by a glacier. “El Capitan” and “Half Dome” are the most popular and visible examples of how the valley was formed. Yosemite Falls is the 3rd highest waterfall in the world and the highest in the USA at a little over 2400 feet drop. It is also the location of 6 of the last 12 known groves of Giant Sequoias trees. Most of us have seen the picture of the Sequoia that has the tunnel that you can walk through. That tree, as well as the largest tree known to exist in the world (Old Grizzly), is located in the Mariposa Grove inside Yosemite. All of that you can get from a guide book. Here is what you cannot get from a book. Yosemite is very hot and as a result, is a wonderland for people who love outdoor activities and sports. Rafting, biking, hiking, climbing, fishing, kayaking, and trail walking are all very big here. But the park has some serious shortcomings due mostly to the terrain. Since you have to travel over granite mountains to get into and out of the park there are only two main roads and only 3 entrances to the park. And most people will descend on 2 relatively small areas for most of the activities, either the Mariposa Grove to the south to see the trees or Yosemite village in the middle to see the waterfalls and the rock formations. So unlike Yellowstone that is larger and has “attractions” spread all over the park, Yosemite tends to funnel everyone into 2 small areas.

To combat this, the park has an elaborate system of tour busses that they STRONGLY encourage you to use. They are free (well you paid 20 bucks to get into the park, but there is no additional fee for the busses) and they run often. But having to carry all of our “kid crap” on and off a bunch of busses is a total drag. If it were just Missy and I, or our kids were all teenagers and could be responsible for carrying their own stuff, this would be fine. But with a 2, 5 and 8-year old we still have to carry diaper bags and bottles of water and snacks and changes of clothes for the boy and…you get the idea. So for that reason (and also because I know my truck will be bigger than 99% of the other vehicles in the park) I chose to fight the traffic.

Today we went to Yosemite Valley. We started the day by waiting patiently in the parking lot for Bridelveil falls. Bridelveil is not the largest waterfall in the valley, but it pumps a lot of water and as a result looks and sounds very impressive. And it was very neat. But we just came from Oregon. If waterfalls is your thing, you can see bigger falls and get closer to them (with a lot less people milling around) in the Columbia Gorge. Multnomah in particular is taller and you get to be much closer. Now the fact that Bridelveil is in a valley carved by a glacier with huge scarred rock formations all around can definitely only be seem in Yosemite. Still…as far as waterfalls goes I would give it a solid “C” grade.

Next we went over to the visitor’s center. You pass the viewing platform for El Capitan on the way through the valley floor to the visitor’s center. However, the park service was doing a “managed burn” of some of the undergrowth and the smoke was obscuring much of the view of El Capitan. We pulled over and looked but couldn’t see much above half way up so we moved on. The visitor’s center is clustered in Yosemite village which is also where the lodge, general store and ranger station are all located. Since you cannot park close to any of them we used one of the shuttle busses to go to the visitor’s center. It had a very interesting display of how the valley was formed and how it became a state park. There were the usual displays about how the miners looking for gold and copper butchered the local Indians in the late 1800, but also a lot of info about how John Muir and others lobbied Congress to make Yosemite a national park. I hadn’t known that it was Abraham Lincoln who had granted the land around Yosemite to California, thus created the first state park and he did it during the middle of the Civil War (when he didn’t know for sure if the government of the United States would be around after the war). In 1906, California gave the land back to the Federal Government so it could become a national park.

Next we saw the 20 minute movie called “The Spirit of Yosemite”. Well actually Sarah, Abby and I saw the movie. Missy and AJ saw about half before he just got too loud and my wife offered to take him outside. It was a very well done movie and we liked it.

By now we were all getting pretty hungry so we took the bus back to the parking lot and got our cooler out of the truck. I asked a park ranger where a good spot to eat a picnic was and he directed me to a small area right where some of the rafters come off the river with a great view of Half Dome. It was a really nice spot for lunch even if the squirrels there are a little too brave and had to be “shooed” away a couple of times.
After lunch we decided to walk over to the general store. It is the closest building to the parking lot so we didn’t use the bus. It is a very nice store with lots of souvenirs as well as a pretty good grocery for the people camping or staying inside the park. Sarah and Abby both gigged me for a Yosemite snow globe and AJ carried around a small stuffed wolf that he made barking and licking sounds with and announced to anyone who would listen “dis AJ’s puppy”. Missy has gotten smart and started carrying around the leftover quarters from our laundry-mat trips to use in the “smashed penny” machines. So after all of that, everyone was pretty tired and we decided to call it a day.
We needed some ice, bottled water and pop so we drove past the campground a little and went to the local market here in Groveland. It was better than I expected. They had a lot of locally grown fruits and veggies and the prices were not as bad as some of the small town grocerys I have seen on this trip. We got our supplies and also a nice loaf of La Brea brand sourdough bread for dinner.

We got back to the campground about 6:00 and I grilled some tilapia for Missy and I while Missy made some rice for us and something for the kids that I didn’t pay any attention to. AJ had taken a good nap in the car on the ride out of the park and back to the campground so he was in good spirits, but Abby had stayed awake. So she was in her full “I am going to be defiant even if it kills me” routine. It wasn’t long after dinner before I had just grounded her to her bed for the rest of the night. I admit that the defiant routine she does gets under my skin.

Since no one had gotten a bath the night before since we had travelled all day and arrived late…everyone got a bath and then it was time for bed. Missy and I watched a little TV once the kids were down (since we are at a private campground for the first time in over a week, we have cable TV again) and posted on the blog a little then hit the hay ourselves.