Before Thanksgiving, we got to Deirdre, Jeff and the kids in L.A. Mid-december, we flew back to Boston to celebrate Christmas and New Year at home with Niamh&Steve, Jack&Meg, and Lisa, Shannon and their two. Eva just turned three and Lukie turned one while we were away, so that needed celebrating as well as Christmas. Then mid-January we returned to L.A. In L.A. we participated in Destination Imagination, helping with the organizing of practice sessions and tournaments. Lots of fun involving minor travel to San Luis Capistrano and Pasadena. In between Opa Henk went on a few business trips. The last one covered most of March, and before he went we put the RV in the RV park's storage lot. This saved enough money for me to fly back and forth to Boston again, so I could be there for Niamh's "work" baby shower, Meg's latest play, and a few visits with Lisa and the little ones. Before I left L.A. and after I got back there were a few days for me to stay over at the Dixons, and I enjoyed Riley's 8th and Elliot's 5th birthdays with them.
Was it last Wednesday that Opa got back from the Philippines? I think so. It blurs in my memory... On Thursday we had a leisurely breakfast in Santa Monica, picked up the RV in Santa Clarita, and drove North via Rte 5 and rte 99 to Fresno. We had to be there for the State Finals of Destination Imagination, in a huuuuuuge middle school & high school campus in Fresno/Clovis. Around 4:30 we arrived at a small-ish and very simple RV park, but no matter, we were only going to sleep there anyway. Friday morning we had the Prius serviced in town first thing in the morning, and then took it on a short day trip into Yosemite. We had to be back by 4:30 PM at the school to help set up for the competition.
Up we went through the foothills; a lovely landscape with lots of oaks. A few steep fields with orange poppies even. Then we got to the gate into the Yosemite N.P. quite suddenly. It's $20 to get in, we noticed, and thought, should we bother? It's a lot of money for a few hours. But the ranger convinced us we could at least see Yosemite Valley, so we paid up, got the map and followed the road up and up. We curved for a while around wooded mountain sides after wooded mountain sides with tall pines, very tall spruces, and very, very tall sequoyas. (*Note to self: look up the difference between sequoyas (Yosemite) and redwoods (San Francisco)*. Stopped at a turn-out for pictures of a waterfall across the valley that we were just entering, then through a short tunnel, then stopped at the turn-out right after the tunnel.
The beginning of Yosemite Valley.
It's only a few miles. I thought you had to hunt up and down through the National Park to see all those beautiful things, but no, they're all right there, one after the other. Straight across, a waterfall. Across and to the right, El Capitano, a huge vertical rock face. All the pictures I've ever seen of it don't do it justice... Ahead, straight up the narrow valley, the half dome in super perspective. The narrow valley itself, a deep crack in the ground between steep rocks on both sides, the beginnings of the Merced River tumbling over giant rocks that have crashed down from the rock walls, small and large brooks falling over the top edges left and right. A little up the road, another turn-out at Bridal Veil Falls on the right, which shoots out over a high rock edge between even higher rock edges and feathers sideways in the wind. Around the curve more steep rocks across, the Three Brothers, with supposedly a hiking trail - yeah, right, like you can hike up? Near the upper end of the valley, where it widens quite a bit, a closer view of the half dome ahead to the right, the river's flood plain on the left. Straight across, Upper Yosemite Falls and Lower Yosemite Falls, with, supposedly, a hiking trail to the upper falls - looking even more unlikely than the previous one. Also a sign that in 1998 or thereabouts, the flood water was this high - 11' above the road. We looked around us and could't imagine how much water that must have been...We didn't visit the village, just turned around to the road at the opposite side of the valley and drove back down. We had a much closer view of the river, passed the trailheads, went by the base of the Brothers and El Capitano, looked a little worried at the giant pieces of El Capitano in the river, and then left through the gap at the lower end of the Yosemite Valley. Back in normal wooded mountainside territory. *Blink*.
We're still in disbelief over so much beauty in such a short amount of space and time. Got lots of pictures to prove to ourselves that we were there though ;) One of the best $20 we ever spent!
We came back down a different route, following the Merced around lots of the curvy wooded mountainsides with steep mountain meadows, covered in California poppies in flaming orange in the afternoon sun. More pics. I'll try to add some tomorrow.
Yesterday we officiated at a section of the competition, had tons of fun, made new friends and all that good stuff, afterwards ate too much of the wrong kind of food much too late, and rolled into our RV bed at 11. Which brings us to this morning, the first morning of the official return trip.
Got up at 7-ish, got to church for Palm Sunday service at 8, breakfast and coffee at 9:30, packed up and left Fresno at what, 10:30? 11:00?, drove down rte 99. And just where it meets rte 5 is Bakersfield. Bakersfield has the Bakersfield RV Resort, where they give you fresh baked cookies when you check in, and the man in the golf cart drives ahead of you to your site, which is next to the playground, the heated pool and the hot tub. Deirdre and the kids arrived about a half hour after we did. We're going to have a mini-vacation with the six of us over the next four days. So far we visited Target for food and more towels, and spent a lovely hour or so in the pool and hot tub. The three little monkeys just fell asleep on the various sleeping possibilities of the RV. Maybe we'll swim some more tomorrow before we head out direction Barstow.
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