Yosemite

If you haven't noticed, we went all over the place this summer...with more adventures to come on the blog!  Now I want to figure out how many miles we traveled this summer.  Looking back on all these pictures, I'm reminded how much I love to travel with my family.  I love road trips.  Sometimes the drive can get hairy with kids, but overall it's still fun and we'll be doing them again!  I kind of want to drive to Alaska now with my sister...

First stop after we visited Lee's brother in Nevada was Yosemite!  Lee came camping here several times as a kid, as has wanted to come for a long time.  We finally made it! We arrived in the afternoon and parked close to the trailhead to hike to the lower falls.  It was a really easy, short hike.  There is quite a drought going on as the water was hardly coming down.  Usually this is a big, robust fall of water.  Where Haley is standing below is the bottom of the river, which is normally full of water.  We couldn't have a fire while camping either because it was so hot and dry.








After the falls, we decided to hike to Bridalveil Fall.  We hopped on a bus to take us to the trailhead.  Yosemite had tons of visitors which means bad traffic.  It was so crazy.  We told the bus driver where we wanted to go, but it wasn't quite the right place that we were thinking of.  Plus we wanted to go to an overlook, Glacier Point.  And I didn't want to get to the campsite really late.  Finally we decided to abandon hiking to Bridalveil.  The traffic was at a stand still, so we decided to walk back where we had parked.  I'm glad we walked the mile back because we beat any cars trying to go to that same area.  Yes, it was that busy!






We made it back by our vehicle.  Lee ran to the Chevy to get his wallet for ice cream while the kids and I filled up on water and took a restroom break. Sadly, the ice cream shop closed about 5 minutes before that!  Rats....


I thought this "free calls" sign was funny! Specifically the extension to call if you need a credit card.  Seriously?!  While in the middle of a National Park? 


We had a nice drive up to Glacier point.  Thankfully the traffic back-ups were mainly by Yosemite Falls.  There was a fun rock to climb up for some sweet pictures. 




























So beautiful.  Lee was excited to finally be back.  We want to go there again, though we're not sure where.  There are so many places we want to visit before Clark goes on his mission.  Oh, one of the bathrooms at Glacier Point was NASTY!  So gross.  Sure it smelled bad, whatever.  But pools of urine on the floor?  And clear on the opposite side of the toilet?  EWW!  Lee's bathroom was much better. 






We enjoyed our brief day at Yosemite.  Definitely not long enough.  The campsites fill up fast in Yosemite and I didn't snag one soon enough.  Our campsite was about 2 hours away.  I planned it so that it would be on the way to our next destination, which worked out for the next day.  We arrived about 8:30 at the campsite and set up camp.  We bought one of those instant-tents for the last Father & Sons campout.  It sets up in about 3-5 minutes.  Super fast.  It's like a giant port-a-crib, but a tent!  We used it quite a bit this last summer, and it was sure handy since we were setting up camp and taking down each night/morning.  I think only once this summer did we sleep somewhere for two consecutive nights.  Every other campsite was just one night.  And it doesn't take up a lot of room in the vehicle either-another plus! Anyway, while Lee set up I heated up some canned soup (our camping meals were quite elegant! Haha).  Some of the kids woke up and ate, but a couple just slept the whole night.  It was nice that fires weren't allowed because we just wanted to go to bed. 

It will be fun to go back again to Yosemite.  Lee might even take some of the kids up half-dome.