Yosemite... more details....

It is hard to put into words the beauty of Yosemite. From the moment we arrived on Friday, we have been in awe. The granite peaks, the rushing waterfalls, the lush forests-- all speak to the majesty of God's creation.

Bridalveil Fall

Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls (taken from Merced River)

We had a nice spot in the Upper Pines campground-- very shady with a small creek behind it. As I said in the previous post, we had limited cell service but no internet access until we went to the lobby of the historic Ahwahnee hotel. Here’s a picture of Michael in their lobby using their free wi-fi (which is a nice perk when you are paying $400 per night to stay there!)

Being at Yosemite reminded us of being at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge (except for, you know, the 8,000 foot granite peaks!)—which I guess says a lot for the folks who work in ‘theme-ing’ at Disney! I will say that there is nothing like being at the ‘real thing’, though!

On Saturday, Michael and I and the girls took a rafting trip down the Merced River. It was a pretty gentle trip (so it was good for their first experience) but that water was COLD! I don’t know the exact temperature but it felt like about 1 or 2 degrees above freezing!! We were able to enjoy lots of beautiful scenery as we floated through Yosemite Valley. The weather has been fabulous—sunny, in the low 80’s during the day and the 40’s at night—from what I hear, we picked a fabulous time to leave Georgia!! If it is any consolation to those of you at home who are suffering through the heat wave— we hear it has been over 100 degrees in Vegas so we’ll be sweating right along with you tomorrow (and we’ll be sure to report if ‘dry heat’ is any better than ‘humid heat’—my guess is NO!)

The girls completed enough activities to earn their second “Junior Ranger” badge (and a patch) at Yosemite. We took a walk with Ranger Sarah and she demonstrated how the mountains were formed using an Oreo cookie! They (and mommy) also learned about a “Fen” (which I think is basically a California term for a marsh) and that mama bears have their cubs while they are still hibernating (not a bad way to have a baby, I think!!). We have really enjoyed the Junior Ranger program as well as getting their National Park ‘passports’ stamped at each stop.

As much as we enjoyed our visit to Yosemite, we opted to leave a few hours earlier than planned (Sunday late afternoon instead of the wee hours of Monday morning). We have almost 500 miles to drive to our next stop (Las Vegas) and we only average about 50 miles per hour in the RV. So what would take us less than 8 hours in a car, could take 11 or 12 in the RV—not to mention, the first 50 miles out of the park are winding, curvy mountain roads so the average speed is more like 30 mph! Our new destination for this evening is Bakersfield, CA. We have been consulting with the Mezzles about our options of places to stay as this is their hometown (Update: while I've been typing, we've had a gracious offer from John's parents to park the RV at their home which I think we are going to accept.) We will probably be on the road early in the morning because we’d like to get to Vegas in time to see a few of the sites.