Current location:	south san francisco
Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	"Don't Fence Me In" - Bing Crosby With The Andrews Sisters
Entry tags:	camping, love, nick

Our Yosemite Experience
"As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of the flood, storm and avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and the wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can."

-John Muir

At a size of 1,200 square miles of pristine wilderness, there was much more within Yosemite than Nick and I could see or do in any single trip. Forests, meadows, lakes, waterfalls, ponds, granite cliffs, trails and roads, I honestly wanted to cover it all but had no idea of how dauntingly huge the park really was. I haven't been to Yosemite since I was a kid when I was chauffeured from activity to activity and given plenty of entertainment material in the backseat of my parent's van. Now, as the driver crossing hundreds of miles to get to and travel around within the park, I truly appreciate the enormity and grandeur of it. Because there can be no end to new and awe inspiring experiences there, Nick and I are determined to return. That said, I want to share a bit more about this past trip (other than being stupefied by Yosemite's size haha).



Packed and ready to go!


Along the 580


FINALLY inside the park.


Our camp site, freshly pitches. Love the all American chairs, yeah? 


HAHA funny face XD


Air matress, I know... we're pretty weaksauce >.<








Nick the Explorer! heehee


The meadows in Yosemite were breathtaking! I didn't have my phone w/ me when we were at Tuolumne Meadows, but here we were able to see one in the making, at "Siesta Lake," a dying pond.


I love this guy :D


The forest's edge


Meadow!



Me cooking dinner (why do i look so evil?! lol). We took along a stove, but for whatever reason it did not work. There was a grill on the fire pit, so yay meats on the open flame!


It was a pretty huge flank steak (a little over twice the size of my hand) and we slices it into 8 strips after two flips and cooked those on the "raw-er" sides a bit. The fire made the steak just a bit crispy on the outside but still super juicy and medium rare on the inside. <333 It smelled awesome!


The smell of meat attracted ninjas! Also, a bear! Sadly only the bear can be seen. Damn those ninjas...



While most of the time we were there the sun was brightly shining, late Sunday afternoon, in a matter of minutes, it went from being bright to pouring rain! We had to retreat to the tent. We listened the rain drops for a while till we both fell asleep. After we woke up, we had trail mix for dinner and listened to a This American Life podcast on my phone's speaker (which works surprisingly well!).

Weak coffee and runny eggs! Breakfast of champions. (we forgot to cover our wood when the rain broke out, so our fire was pretty low and smokey in the morning... but who the hell cared, we were freakin cold haha.


Warming ourselves, pitside.


Most of the time I was driving the amazing roads in Yosemite (so much fun if you love to drive!!), so we didn't get a lot of pictures (or rather any) of the Valley or the twilight view of half dome from Olmsted Point. I'm actually pretty upset, the camera got left by the door in our rush to leave, everything we have is off my phone. *sigh* I snapped this pic of Half Dome on our way down to the Valley. The previous night we were on the other side of it along the valley with the Dome looking just about as far away. Have I mentioned this park is huge??? Because we hadn't made any reservations, our camp was 55-65 miles away from the valley (where most people who visit Yosemite stay). I realized this was good once we got there. The camp sites there were really crowded, basically tents and tents within a few feet of each other... not exactly my idea of communing with nature. At our site we rarely saw another person. But at the same time we lost out on being near the fun bike trails and if we had a pet or kids, we'd wanna be down there because it is a lot more secure with a medical center and a grocery and outdoor supply store (also a lot less likely of anything eating our kid or dog). They actually had art classes on the weekdays! If I had brought my water colors I could have taken a Yosemite in Autumn painting class D: Well, you live and learn for next time. It would definitely be the place to go, if we were going with friends.


Nick drove when we left the park so I got to sit back and enjoy the view and snap pics.







As the elevation dropped, the view changed drastically. Well, minus Nick's head. :D




We passed through a few small towns on the 120. And yeah, my car is filthy :P



HAHA Cheesestop! I saw this on the way there and demanded we stop on the way back. XD Nikc was like, "omg u ...and cheese. *sigh* "


Baby cheese!



GOAT!


Me feeding a sheep.


Nick feeding the goats.


Aaaand then we arrived home. Haha, jk, this was just me boxing up stuff to give to Goodwill. Camping with family always helps me realize what we really need (less STUFF and more hugs <3).