Yosemite National Park

I will attempt to remember Yosemite National Park:

Yosemite was the highest tourist destination of the whole trip. Knowing that, I think we would have rather had spent our days there during the week but sometimes you can't plan it out perfectly and we ended up staying there over a weekend. It actually ended up being ok, we were able to get a nice camping spot, and enjoy the scenery.

Our first stop was Glacier Point. It was right up the road from our campsite and I highly recommend it as the first thing you do when you enter Yosemite. You can pretty much see the entire Yosemite valley from this vantage point and it comes in handy knowing where everything is when you want to go in for closer views.

On our way up to Glacier Point, the first thing we noticed was Half-Dome. For some reason Kelli didn't think it was Half-Dome and after a little debating about it, we placed a bet on it. If it was half dome she would owe me a back rub, if it wasn't half dome then I would give her one. I have to admit, I wasn't entirely sure if it was half dome because my only knowledge of it was pictures, which were most often from one viewpoint. When you see it from a different side it looks completely different. But, as we soon discovered, it certainly was half dome. What is not so certain was whether I actually received that back rub...

It was about a 45 minute drive from our campsite to the valley floor. Driving along the valley floor can be very dangerous it seems. You, along with every other driver, isn't looking at the road at all because you can't help but look up at the immense landscape rising above you on both sides. El Capitan on your left, and half dome up in the distance on your right, and waterfalls here and there. It truly is beautiful.

The shuttle system is really confusing. Haha, we got on the first bus we saw, and it proceeded to take us about 100 yards before the next stop, where everyone had to get off the bus because that was its last stop on the route... So we got off thinking, "what do we do now?"

The sights we went to see were the Nevada Falls and the Lower Yosemite Falls. It takes a long time to get anywhere, and the trails can be very long and hard. Even with 3 days at the park we were not able to get as much done as I would have hoped but after doing a trail or two, you simply just don't have the energy to keep going.

One of the neatest things though, was the star-gazing night. If this is going on when you're there, it is a must-see. It's held at Glacier Point, and its where a bunch of amateur astronomers bring their huge telescopes to check out the celestial sights. The thing is, you don't even need a telescope to be amazed at the night sky over Yosemite. Because you are far away from any cities and high up in thinner air, the viewing is great. You can see the Milkway Galaxy spread out before you with such detail. And then, when the astronomers start lining up their telescopes you get to check out all kinds of clusters, galaxies way out there, with all kinds of different set-ups. It's crazy to think how big the universe really is. Another neat thing was one of the astronomers had a strong laser that could actually point up in the sky at stars. I don't know exactly how it worked but it was amazing. When one of the tourists took a picture (with flash) the place went nuts! haha, the astronomers were all yelling "woah, woah woah!" and we overheard one of the lady astronomers declaring, "People don't realize that you have a natural night vision ...." haha, it was so funny.

Another funny incident was when we wanted so badly to have a campfire that night but no fire wood anywhere to start it with, except for a huge log that was left there. Crazy Kelli knew we could get it to light, and so did I but I was worried it might get too big for us to handle. But, how could I say no to Kelli?

My only regret, and its not a complete regret, is that I wish that I would have been able to hike to the top of half-dome. It is a 17 mile trail, very strenuous, and it would take some training to be able to do. It takes about 2 days to do the complete trail. I think someday I would like to be able to do that.