Yosemite National Park

Now that Brian is graduated some excitement has returned to our lives. The weekend after graduation we left for Yosemite with my parents. I was excited to get away from my busy work life and Brian was just excited to not have his face stuck in a book for once and actually have a chance to enjoy the outdoors. We left early Saturday morning expecting our drive to CA to be anywhere between 8 - 10 hours. Well after a few unexpected delays, and a few snow covered mountain passes being closed we made it to our destination 18 hours later. Yup that's right... 18 hours in the car. Blah. We did find a few ways to entertain ourselves along the way. As we drove into CA we were stopped at the border and forced to either surrender our apples and oranges or eat them. So we pulled off to the side and ate all the fruit we could stand. Next to the car just happened to be this sign. I think it explains itself. Maybe we shouldn't have eaten all that fruit.;)

Next we found some long, straight and bumpy roads. And if any of you know my dad you know that he couldn't resist going fast over them. That 10 min stretch of road was more exciting than all of the rides in Disneyland combined. I would know, I was there 4 weeks ago. I think the best part was listening to my mom as my dad sped of over each bump. Here you can listen for yourself.

Our long day of traveling was definitely an adventure. Though we saw some beautiful country and were with good company... I don't ever want to make that trip again. After sleeping in on Sunday and catching a few hours of church we went into the park to get a feel for what it was like and made a little planning for what we wanted to do during the week. Well Monday came and it was about 45 degrees and raining. And of course that rain turned to snow. So instead of trying to brave some hikes we headed up to Wawona were you can find Giant Sequoia Trees. And they were quite giant. Here is the bottom of a huge sequoia that fell down hundreds of years ago. Those roots were amazing.

Each tree we came upon seemed to amaze us more than the last. We were in awe at how tall they were able to grow.

This sequoia was carved out back in the early 1900's and cars used to drive through it.

This is a picture of my parents down the road a ways. That whole place was beautiful.

Can you believe how tall these trees are? It still blows my mind.

This sequoia was called the Cloths Pin. I can see why. This one was not carved out, it eroded away like this naturally.

And yes, we were freezing.

My dad is really good at looking like tourist!! :)

As we were heading back to the car the sun decided to come out. The freshly fallen snow on the trees had no chance against the sun rays. At first we thought that is had started raining again but we soon found out that the snow was just melting off the trees. I captured a really neat video of it but later found out that I can't rotate my videos when I take them turned on the side. So bare with me as you watch this video. It is sideways.

As we drove back to our lodge we can upon a place called the Tunnel View. Right after you go through a tunnel you come out to see this view. It was absolutely beautiful.

This is a little rock tunnel you go through right after you enter the park. Some how buses fit through here.

We took the short hike up to Bridalveil Falls and we were soaked everywhere our ponchos didn't cover.

But it was beautiful!

This is a shot of Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls.

This is just Lower Yosemite falls from up close.

My parents, Brian and I all took a hike to a lake called Mirror Lake. My parents stopped at the lake while Brian and I kept going on a hike that goes on the mountain behind Half Dome. This is a shot of the back side of Half Dome. If you look close it kind of looks like the profile of a face with the mouth open.

It was a nice, secluded hike and I enjoyed the time I was able to spend alone with Brian. I'm not sure I could ever get tired of his company. That's probably a good thing saying we are married.

On our way back out we passed Mirror Lake again. It was beautiful in the afternoon lighting.

The next day we decided to take the hike to Vernal and Nevada Falls. I was a little worried because it looked hard but it ended up being a good time. I think this fall was called Illilouette Falls. We saw it on our way to Vernal Falls.

And this was our little friend who was not one bit shy. He was cute.

This is a the top of Vernal Falls right before we hit Misty Trail. And yes it was misty, our ponchos came in handy here.

Vernal Falls

This shot is from the top of Vernal Falls looking down. It was neat how close we could get to the actual falls.

After Vernal Falls we trudged on and made it to Nevada Falls.

And the top of Nevada Falls!

We made it to the top around 2:45 pm. It was then that we realized that we were going to meet my parents at the bottom of the hike at 4 pm. I'm not sure on exactly how long it took up to get to the top of Nevada Falls (I'm kind of a slow hiker) but it was somewhere around 3 or 4 hours. So we had about 1 hour to make it back down to the bottom. So we booked it, running half of the way there. It wasn't till then that I realized that it is easier to run down hills than walk. Weird. We ended up making it all the way down in 1 hr and 15 min. That's pretty good time!

All in all it was a great trip. Our ride home didn't take nearly as long as our ride there thankfully. Everyone should visit Yosemite National Park! :)