Yoooooosemite

Tom's parents were here last week. We had such a great time with them. Our big adventure for the week was 4 days in Yosemite. Now, we are NOT campers by any means. Vacations for us usually end in a place with an ocean. :-) We found a great camp site, Yosemite Pines, with these really nice cabins. The campground had a pool, a playground, a petting zoo with alpacas and was pet friendly. We were about 30 minutes away from the park. The cabins slept 6 so we had a good amount of room. I'm just glad it wasn't a Yurt. :-) It was nice to have a bathroom and shower in the cabin. There was a little kitchen and 1 bedroom and a loft. Tom and I slept in the loft with the kiddos. Ty was in the Pack 'N Play and Jack was tucked nicely into the corner on a mound of blankets and stuffed animals. The ceiling was only about 4ft high but it was cool. We had a deck and a charcoal grill and were right next to the pool. If I'm going to camp, this is definitely the way to do it! :-) "roughin' it"...not quite.

The Cabin.

Living room.

The Loft.


Tom's parents, the kids and I drove up Monday morning. It's about a 4 hour drive from Monterey. We went through lots of little farm towns. It was a neat drive until we got about 20 minutes away. We're in the mountains people and with mountains come narrow winding roads with NO guardrails! I was in the back seat with the kids while Sandy was driving. The long road up the mountain was a little hard to take. Rounding every curve made me feel like the car was going over the edge. It wasn't Sandy's driving but when you're in the back seat and there's no rails....holy crap!!! Anyway....we made it and Tom was able to join us that night. After his finals were finished he made the drive with the dogs, who both got car sick, not such a great ride for Tom.

On Tuesday we made our way through the Yosemite Valley and up to Glacier Point. It was breath taking! We saw water falls, Half Dome, Bridalveil, tons of forest (green and burned). It was A LOT of driving in the car. I wasn't really sure what to expect once we got in to the park. I thought there would be trails where we'd be hiking to see everything but it was more of a drive and get out and look and drive again kind of park. There were a lot of hiking trails of course but things were so spread out it took us an hour drive to get to the next site. It was really amazing to see these things though. My highlight was Glacier Point. You're at about 7000 feet and can see the whole valley and Half Dome, it was incredible. Jack's highlight was the waterfall at Bridalveil. He got very upset when we told him he wasn't able to climb up the waterfall. For some reason he was determined that he could. Hahahahah.

On Wednesday the plan was to drive to the Giant Sequoias. The plan was changed once we figured out it was a 3.5 hour drive to the sequoias from where we were and the park was repaving roads and delays were to be expected. Since we spent about 6 hours in the car the day before Tom and I thought we'd just walk around Groveland (the town we stayed in) hang out at the cabin and the pool and give the kids a break from the car seats. Tom and Sandy took one of the cars and went back through the Valley. After grilling out that night we had some roasted marshmallows, yumm! The next morning we packed up and started the drive home.

The drive didn't start off the best....Jack was the one who got car sick this time. I guess breakfast and watching Elmo's world while driving down the winding mountain road did not mix well. Poor kid had no idea what just happened to him.

It was a great trip overall. Even though we didn't see any mountain lions or bears (I'm OK with that). We had a blast and the park was beautiful!

Thanks Boobie and Oprah! :-)


The Tractor/Back Hoe at the campsite.

Feeding the Alpacas

On the bucket.

At the pool.

At the bottom of Bridalveil Falls.

Looking at Half Dome and the Valley from Glacier Point.

Bridalveil Falls that Jack wanted to climb.

Bridalveil falls, El Capitain (the big pointy rock...not Tom) and family.

Bridalveil.