Back to the story of our vacation. On Sunday, we had our picnic in a meadow near El Capitan & Yosemite Falls, then we walked to the base of the Falls. Well, we attempted to anyway. You'd think that we'd have learned by now that when one child has to go to the bathroom, we should go ahead & take them all as a preventative measure. We wasted WAY too much time walking back & forth to the bathroom that day! Well, it was a good excuse for the parent staying with the other kids to take a lot of pictures. We came home with over 950 pictures. Gotta love digital! It was a good thing Mike took his laptop, so he could upload some of the pictures partway through the trip, and delete them from the memory card too. I have such a smartie-pants husband! (and he's cute too, but I won't talk about that too much)
The kids weren't so thrilled with our time at the base of Yosemite Falls. There's been so much snow in the high Sierras this year (one report I read said that it was 179% of normal) that the snowmelt is huge, and all the waterfalls are flowing like crazy. The mist was billowing up from the base of Lower Yosemite Falls, and creating a wind of its own, which blew the misty air all over the base viewing area. Rachel in particular was NOT thrilled about that! (I thought it was really cool standing on the bridge & being soaked, but then again, that's how I am!)
Because of the dampness, the mosquitoes were particularly vicious here. I learned the hard way that I shouldn't have bought a new type of insect repellent without trying it out before our trip! I was practically eaten alive, and very cranky about swatting away all the mosquitoes. I vowed then & there that I didn't care how bad DEET is for you, I was going to the Costco in Fresno & buying some no-messing-around bug spray before we went on to the next leg of our trip!
After slogging back to the van, we headed over to Yosemite Village for some pizza at Degnan's Loft, which I had read about on an informative website called Yosemite Fun (click here for link). The pizza was very good. I decided to be "nice mom" and allow the kids to have caffeinated beverages with dinner (they've never had caffeine before). Bad move. We spent the next few hours proving the diuretic effect of caffeine, with carting Joanna off to the bathroom every 10 minutes (I'm not exaggerating!). Not sure why it affected her that way, and not the other kids. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel in El Portal, to get ready for our "early morning" departure the next day. Yeah right. Anyway, the drive between Yosemite Valley & El Portal is lovely, winding along in the Merced River Canyon. The river is so high that the roar of the water was never far from our ears. Unfortunately, all the rain & snow contributed to the instability of the soil, and in May there was a landslide about 7 miles downriver from our hotel. It flowed over the road & into the river, and is still so unstable that removing the debris to re-open the road isn't an option. Want to see the landslide? Click here. So for now the road is closed between the hotel & the outside world, leaving us to have to drive into Yosemite Valley & then south on a terribly winding road to head for our family reunion in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks.
We rolled out of the hotel parking lot around 9:30 Monday morning. It was interesting to watch the thermometer rise as we headed out of the Sierras & into the Central Valley. Thanks to fellow Sonlighter Liz Ann (thank you Liz!), we had wonderful directions to the nearest Costco & all the other retail establishments in the area. It was great to be somewhere familiar again, have some of that great Costco pizza, and escape the heat--it was 102 in Fresno, yikes! My sister called me while we were trying to decide which cake to get for my cousin's birthday that day, and it turns out that they were nearing Fresno on their way from San Jose, so they met up with us there! What was even better was that they took the older 2 kids with them in their car the rest of the way to Sequoia--and the baby & J slept the rest of the way, so Mike & I had some blissful time "alone". What a blessing!
The drive was interesting: rising out of the fields of "California's Bread Basket", the Central Valley; to the oak-covered hillsides of the foothills, up into the piney Southern Sierra and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. We were all staying in cabins in the Grant Grove Village, courtesy of my generous Gramma, who "sponsors" these family reunions every 2-3 years. Nearly everyone was able to make it this year, so there were 22 of us at last count. That's my gramma, her brother, her 4 children & their spouses, their children + their spouses & children. Phew!
Off to bed again. More later!
