Greetings family and friends. First, we must apologize for not having a new blog post in some time. We have been without access to the internet or electricity for more than 10 days now and my laptop battery was also dead and in need of a charge.
It’s Saturday, June 8th and a lot has happened since our last update. We’ve been to four more parks, including Yosemite, Lassen Volcanic, Redwoods, and Crater Lake. I don’t have time or the battery life to go into great details, lucky you, so I’ll try to condense the accounts of our park visits into manageable posts that cover the highlights.
As of today, we’ve been on the road living out of our car and sleeping in our tent for 39 days. We’ve racked up almost 7,000 miles on the car, and we’ve been to 17 of the 35 parks we plan on visiting. And yes, we are still happily married, having celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary this past Tuesday, June 4th. We spent the day in Redwoods National Park, a beautiful place to commemorate over four decades together. Can we really be that old?
When last we wrote, we were getting ready to leave Kings Canyon and head to Yosemite. We reached our campsite there in late afternoon on Wednesday, May 29th, and we were looking forward to four nights at the same place. Perhaps we would grow some roots. We were staying in southern Yosemite at the Wawona Campground in the park. It was spacious, with a nearby restroom with flush toilets but no showers. Overall, a solid “B” on our campground rating scale. To reach Yosemite Village, the heart of the park, we had about an hour’s drive, uphill both ways. No kidding.
As Yosemite is such a popular and busy park, we were up around 5:30 Thursday morning, hoping to beat the crowds. We did, thank God. By around 7:00 a.m., we were exiting the tunnel that leads into Yosemite Village and we were immediately awestruck by what the park calls the “Tunnel View.” In front of us was the unmistakable mountain El Capitan, distant majestic granite mountains and a beautiful waterfall cascading powerfully down a mountain face. If we had seen nothing else and turned around there, it would almost have been enough. Fortunately, we had 3 days to explore the park, so we happily continued onward.
We found a parking spot in the lodge area of Yosemite Village and proceeded to hike the Valley Loop Trail, an epic 12.5 mile tour of much of this portion of the park. This loop brought us to almost all of the major attractions in Yosemite Village, including Bridal Veil Falls, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, and the swingng bridge and river. At one point, the trail brought us to the base of El Capitan, one of the premier rock climbing locations in the world. We staged a few pictures of me pretending to “free solo” the mammoth piece of granite. It was awesome. Standing at the base of this giant rock mountain and looking up to the top, several thousand feet was an unbelievable site. And to think a climber did in fact climb this wall “free solo,” with no safety ropes or harnesses, only his hands and feet, is mind boggling. I didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude of such a feat until I actually stood there looking up and shaking my head. The face of the wall is also very slick to the touch. Better him than me, I thought. We could see two climbers with ropes about a third of the way up the mountain face.
It took us about 7 hours to complete the trail. Along the way we had to cross a flooded creek, reroute due to loggers clearing trees from the trail, lose and find a few hidden sections of the trail, and take many breaks to soak in the beauty all around us. It was such a wonderful day and experience. The weather was perfect, the scenery amazing, and we could easily see why Yosemite ranks at or near the top of National Park favorites.
Our second full day was spent near our camground in Wawona. We hiked the Mariposa Grove area of the park, which includes some very nice sequoia trees. We had to ride the Park Shuttle to the grove. On the way back from our hike a funny thing happened. It was standing room only and I was standing. A gentleman that looked to be older than me insisted that I take his seat! I politely declined, but the man stood up and told me to sit down. I told Beth and she and I laughed and laughed. We decided it must have been the gray in my beard or the bags under my eyes that made me look like I was about to collapse. I thanked the man, sat down, and enjoyed the rest of the ride.
Day 3 in the park was spent back in Yosemite Village. It was Saturday and the park was packed. We couldn’t find any place to park even though we were there before 7 am. After almost an hour, we finally found a spot at the Welcome Center and decided to use the Shuttle to get around. That was a good choice. Even with the shuttle, it still took almost an hour to get from one point to the next. We hiked through Curry Village and out to Mirror Lake. We were able to see Half Dome, the second most popular attraction in the park, and we hiked the grueling, steep 1.5 mile trek to Vernal Falls. As we approached the falls the mist covered us in clean cold water. What an experience. The last quarter mile or so requires climbing up stairs to reach the summit of the falls. The scene reminded us of The Lord of the Rings with Sam and Frodo going to Mordor.
When we finished our tour and got back to our car we were ready for our late lunch. I pulled out our supplies from my backpack to find that we had packed a mostly empty bottle of jelly and no peanut butter. So much for lunch. Beth did make herself a jelly sandwhich and I settled for raisins, cookies, and an orange.
We left the park mid-afternoon to return to the campground. Since I hadn’t had the chance to shower in a while, I did the best I could with a bucket and washcloth. Again, Beth and I broke out laughing as I began to sing the Beverly Hillbillies theme song. I felt like Jed Clampett with Beth playing the role of Granny. All we were missing was Jethro and Ellie Mae. We have been reduced to bathing most often out of a bucket and feel really good when we can find a campground with flush toilets.
We could fill a whole book with our experiences at Yosemite and maybe we will some day. We hope this somewhat abbreviated version gives you a flavor or our stay. Next park up – Lassen Volcanic.