Picture
Hiking the trails at Yosemite made me think that this is a nature-lovers Disneyland. There are so many trails leading to various natural wonders, you could easily spend a week in the park and not get bored.  The trouble for me was I wasn't sure what to do with myself when the sun went down around 5pm.  And the cold sets in.  

Now I hate the idea of running out of food, so I carry enough food for a week if need be, but unsure what else to do I decided to go out for dinner.  The closest plave to eat to my campsite was the Yosemite Lodge cafeteria.  Now if my logic was working, I should have known the cafeteria would not be the best place to meet other people....  The other patrons were either families, older couples or young school groups.  And of course a couple creepy men.  There are always creepy men.  Scraggly hair and leering eyes aside, I am sure they are nice people.  

Picture
At least if I did not meet other people - I could have a cup of tea and read my book?  No!  There was a persistent draft that made the idea of hanging out here longer than necessary completely unappealing. So after a yummy lentil soup and cornbread muffin (I love cornbread!!!), I bundled up and headed back to camp.  Is 6pm too early to get into bed?  I think not!

It was too cold to leave any part of my body outside of my sleeping bag, so I grabbed my ipod with my audiobooks on it, cinched my sleeping bag up around my head (then covered that with another blanket), and disappeared into my cocoon.   

I have just realized I haven’t said anything about how wonderful this place is – I don’t want you to get the idea that Yosemite is a place to be avoided in winter – not true!  The hikes are marvelous, and in the sunshine (and it does) you heat up nicely.  For a lot of the hiking, I only had my leggings and a long-sleeved baselayer on (my ski pants and jacket were shoved into my way too small for the job camelback).  And the views are spectacular – everywhere you look, you just cannot believe this is real.  Just lovely J


Picture
On one of my walks (this one out to Mirror Lake), I came across a John Muir quote.  John Muir is refered to as the "Father of National Parks" (according to Wikipedia, but sounds about right).  He fought for the preservation of Western forests.  Another interesting way his work has been describied is "saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism." Anyway he is a pretty cool dude - here is the link if you want to read a bit more about him.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir  




Leave a Reply.