CA 14 Pt 2: Yosemite!

Glad we finally got to see Yosemite National Park! And on it's 150th birthday no less!

Had a nice stay at the Wawona Hotel (good find, Emily!).

Bit of a drive over from Oakland, though at least we had a nice break in Modesto with Dave and Diana. By the time we were about an hour from the hotel, though, Franklin started saying things like "That's a hike." And then "There's a spot! We can park there!" So, yeah, he was definitely ready to get out of the car...

Was he actually ready to hike? Well, yes and no:


We all cheered up considerably the next morning, though, when we came out of the tunnel and saw this:

At the aptly named Tunnel View. (Also pictured up top.) Beautiful.

Then it was on to Yosemite Valley:

Did the pleasant little Lower Yosemite Fall Trail. Not bad to look at either.



It's a big, busy valley, but luckily it has its own bus system, so we hopped on a shuttle and started up the Vernal Fall Trail:


Not much more than a mile, but here's our GPS record if you're curious: http://runkeeper.com/user/12439866/activity/397595266.

Of course since it was steep and there was a scary drop-off on one side, Franklin wanted to hike this one. We let him do about twenty yards—the twenty yards where there's a wall on the side:

And then we promptly stowed him in our fancy new, lightweight, easy-to-fold (yeah I like it, so what?) BobaAir carrier.





For better or worse, that didn't stop him from taking over the photography for a few minutes:



A budding talent? Such evocative images...

Next morning, we hopped back on a shuttle bus to go and see the big trees:



The Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. When Emily and I did our trip to the redwoods a few summers ago, we saw the tall Coastal Redwoods. Cool to also see a few of these giants now too.


Did a bit more hiking this time:




Water break:


And Franklin took a few more photos:


And then I took one:


And then it was his turn again:




Luckily Emily had her phone back in time to see this deer walk by:


Love these big trees:




What really blows my mind is this bit from the Wikipedia description: "The seed cones are 4–7 centimetres (1.6–2.8 in) long... each cone has 30–50 spirally arranged scales, with several seeds on each scale, giving an average of 230 seeds per cone."

In other words, there are over 200 potential giant sequoias in Franklin's hand in that picture! Wild!

Oh, you can't see his hand? Try the full size version, or take a look at this close-up:

Huzzah!

Well, that was our last full day. Did one more quick hike on the Bridal Veil Fall Trail, took one more look at Tunnel View, and ended the day with some delicious pizza on the way back to Oakland.

I think nearly all of them made the blog, but here's the link to all our photos just in case you want more: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjZWV5iB.

Cheers to a great vacation!