Road Trip!

At the end of July it was Road Trip weekend for Moms and their sons.  We got together with our neighbor Julie and her son and Drew's good friend Christopher for a road trip to Yosemite.  Dave was out of state on his own adventure - which I'll have him update with his own blog posting.

So we took the last Friday in July off work and kept the boys out of summer camp and hit the road early. 

We checked into our hotel and these mamas weren't about to waste anytime getting into the vacation mode!



That first day we spent swimming, drinking, eating and visiting Christopher's Grandpa.  It was kind of a low key day - we knew we were going to be doing some hard core hiking on Saturday in Yosemite.

After another 2 hour drive - we made it!





We were saddened to see all the devastation upon entering the park from last year's wildfires.  There were so many acres just charred black.

But once we reached Yosemite Valley the view was simply breathtaking!

We grabbed a quick picnic lunch and then headed into the Village Center so we could get a feel for where we needed/wanted to be and how to get there.  We started through the museum.  Here is Drew posing for the camera in a mock Miwok Indian home.

Drew the explorer  (I think the statue was Jack London, but I could be mistaken).

We decided our destination was going to be Vernal Falls.  A 3 mile hike that promised spectacular views and that it's one of Yosemite's most popular.  While I've been to Yosemite a couple of times, I admit I've never done any real hiking.  Just basic sightseeing and ice skating one time.  My other companions this trip were Yosemite virgins.

Here is Drew and I early in the hike.

Drew and Christopher pretending to fall off the side of the mountain.

About the halfway point there was a bridge.  We just enjoyed the scenery for a bit.

What you can't tell from photos is that it was hot.  And I mean HOT!  We were hiking in near 100-degree temperatures.  Despite the warnings to stay away from the water we were overheating and took a break in the stream.

The water was refreshingly freezing.  It's all snow runoff and coming from the waterfall that was our destination.  The park had good reason for not wanting anyone near the water - the current is very very strong and several people have died because they were carried away. 

So after about 20 minutes a Ranger kicked us out of our shady spot.  I will say she was very very nice about it.

Our foursome decided to split off for a bit and Drew and I forged ahead.  The second part of this hike is no joke!  Holy cow it's very steep and narrow.  Not to mention highly traveled.  Poor Drew wanted to just plow through, but I kept having to take "water breaks".

I used this "water break" to snap a few pictures of Drew as we got closer to the waterfall.  Mind you we are headed to the very top of this fall.

If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you'll see tons of people who have gone off the trail to get closer to this side of the water.  We even saw people jumping off cliffs (none of them were kicked out mind you).

Here's the steep, narrow, crowded terrain I was talking about.  It was about a half to three-quarters of a mile like this (I forget the exact distance nearly a month later).

And I thought the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse stairs were tough... this kicked my butt!  Even Drew admitted he was sore a few days later.

 And we made it!!

I can't say how proud I was of Drew for doing this hike.  It was no picnic!  Never once did he complain, whine or complain (about the hiking).  Heck, truth be told, I was impressed I made it.  I wanted to stay behind - the first half of the hike was a lot of uphill and I was exhausted!

At one point my cell phone chimed that I had a text (we'd lost reception pretty early on).  Julie and Christopher decided to make the trip to the top!

I can't tell you how amazing this hike was!  It really made me want to come back to Yosemite and spend like a week here - doing all sorts of hikes!  It's absolutely amazing to see - a must do for bucket lists.

 As we made our way back down the hill and back toward the shuttle that would take us to the village (my legs shaking with fatigue the entire way back down) we spotted a fire on a nearby hill.

Not thinking anything off it we proceeded back toward the shuttle and our car.

This crew was pooped!

 

Despite begging to have his picture taken during the hike, Drew was done with photos and walking.  This portion of the "hike" the distance from the shuttle to our car (maybe 200 yards) was too much for him.  He whined the entire way that he needed to be carried - I refused.  It was still about 94-degrees!

So we hopped in the car and enjoyed our last scenic views of this trip.

Only we happened upon a scene we didn't like so well.  That fire we spotted while coming down from the Falls... well it caused all sorts of problems for our commute to the hotel.

In fact we were at the 120 split inside the park when they closed the gates - two cars in front of us!  So we had to find our way via Highway 140 (which added more than an hour to our already 2 hour drive).

Which in hindsight probably wasn't a bad thing.  We saw so many emergency vehicles and rangers driving with lights and sirens.  But what was most interesting - as in, not something you see every day - a helicopter swooped down alongside us to get water from the "creek".

I put my phone out of the sun roof and got a picture of it of to the left side in the creek - if you look carefully you can see the propellers.

And here it is again through the sun roof with it's load of water to fight the flames.

In the end, this fire - which was dubbed the El Portal Fire  -  burned more than 4,700 acres over a about a week's time.  That's nothing compared to the Rim Fire devastation we saw coming into the park, which burned more than 257,000 acres!

So despite the long drive back to the hotel we survived - although I was ready to leave a few kids alongside the road....

On Sunday we drove home amid more "fun" from the backseat.  So much "fun" that these mamas had to stop for a "roadie".

Quite a memorable trip, to say the least.