Yosemite 2011 part 1

Last week we took off to spend a few days in Yosemite. We had worked it out so that the Barches and the Tahlbows would be there at the same time as us. And A[u]nt Chisnap flew down from WA to come with us. So a multicolored day-long caravan of heavily-packed Odysseys descended upon Yosemite despite the doom-saying of the weathermen [more on that very soon].

So, about the weather. We knew it was going to be quite cold, so we came prepared [preparing is what Mommy does second-best]:





And it was pretty fun getting all bundled up in the tent. Littlest [Bud] was so wrapped up in warm stuff that he achieved spherical proportions. Both girls were drowning in a sea of sleeping bags. A couple things that we didn't prepare sufficiently for:

1. Rain. Hard, 33-degree rain all night long without ceasing.
2. Our rickety 10-year-old "circus tent" has--surprise!--no rain fly. We've slept in it dozens of times and somehow neglected to notice this. Whoops!



So here's the order of events on our first night at Wawona:

1. Hastily set up tent in the dark and rain. It held itself up about as well as Harold Camping's prophesies do.

2. Notice that pools of rain were accumulating on the roof of the tent.

3. Steal the tarp from under A[u]nt Chisnap's tent. It actually significantly increased the structural integrity of the circus tent.

4. Go to sleep.

5. Wake up periodically. Mommy: move further uphill as the feet get progressively wetter. Daddy: tell Littler to go back to sleep.

6. Daddy wakes up to tell Littler to go back to sleep and discovers that he is wet all over. He also discovers that there is about 10 gallons of water accumulated on the roof of the tent UNDER the tarp.

7. Daddy traces the drip from the roof-top reservoir and finds that it lands on Littler's head. Perhaps relatedly, she is soaked from head to toe but is actually asleep.

8. Daddy goes outside to heroically avoid having to deal with Littler drain the roof of the tent. He ends up wandering around taking pictures in the pre-dawn light:



By the time we all got up, we discovered 5 sleeping bags that were absolutely drenched and 2 that were plenty wet. So naturally we ate breakfast and drove off to go have fun and deal with all that wet stuff later. As it turns out, we didn't return for 52 hours [finally wussing out and getting a hotel], prompting the park ranger to inspect our tent for decomposing bodies. On the bright side, we got a nice early start to the day!

Our first stop in the valley was Swinging Bridge. It is a terrific spot for the kids to just run around with great views of the Three Brothers.




Little and Littler paused for about 0.023 seconds to pretend that they aren't engaged in a life-long ultraviolent blood feud to the death:


Little, as always, is prone to fits of radical joy:










Next we took the little walk to Bridalveil Fall--presumably because we didn't feel like we were soaked enough yet. And more drenched we did get [check out Mommy's jammies that she wore everywhere--stylin!]:


We also hiked and explored for a couple hours around Lower Yosemite Fall, which was damp. Also: awesome. We stood on the spot of one of Daddy's most awesomest heroes--John Muir--had built a cabin.


We searched endlessly for herps but found nothing--not even a slender salamander! Little is a great little herp flipper.


The to a warm, dry hotel room for the night. Daddy's mountain-man self-identity took some major buckshot but secretly inside he was ready to be dry. The girls just pretty much rolled with it.

Part 2 coming up...