Yosemite Part 1

Ok I still haven't gotten a good night's sleep. I think it's a combination of being on West Coast time, wanting to hear from the mountain man, and general antsy feelings - wanting to be back hiking not stuck at a desk. But I figured I should at least start a little vacation talk, since it will take awhile!

Day 1 meant waking up at 3:30 am to get to the airport for our flight. When we tried to check in I didn't show up on the reservation. We could not get anyone's attention to fix the problem and both John and I got grumpy. Mostly due to lack of sleep I'm sure. Once it was resolved the whole trip to California was uneventful. But once there we had to wait in line forever to get our rental car. Then we got on the road.

It's about a 4 hour drive from San Fransisco to Yosemite, but we stopped for food, fire starting materials first. And we went to our campsite (25 miles from the park entrance) to set of camp before heading into the park.

Windmills not far outside San Fransisco.

Driving through the low mountains.

Man-made lake in the foothills.

Driving higher.

Meadow drive-by shot, actually inside the park.

When you first go through the entrance to Yosemite there's just a lot of wilderness. Then you go through a tunnel and suddenly you're hit with amazingness. I was awe-struck. I teared up a bit because of how beautiful it was and how happy I was being there experiencing it with John. Seeing the high cliffs and waterfalls with him for those first few moments was simply perfect. And we hadn't actually gotten to the famous Yosemite Valley yet.

*The pictures just don't do it justice but they'll do.

Once I had taken it all in we continued our drive to the Valley. I continued to be amazed by the abundance of waterfalls and the height of the rocks. Of course we weren't just sightseeing. We had to find John's rock climbing partner, Kevin. The problem with boys making arrangements is the plan was "meet at the pizza place sometime after 5." Well it was way after 5 because of all the delays in rental car pickup, stops on the drive, and us setting up camp - all things I would have anticipated when estimating a timeline. And no one had cell service. Well first we had to find this pizza place - and I must say I'm not to thrilled about all the stores that exist in the park. Anyway, Kevin wasn't there but we did miraculously find him close by. He'd actually just been on the patio as planned but ran inside for a coffee. So we picked up the guy and headed back to camp. Stopped at a different pizza place for dinner and went to bed. A day full of amazing sites but I'd been up since 3:30am EST and it was about 10/11 in CA. And there was much more to come!