One of America’s Best

Scott and I visited Yosemite 14 years ago during our trip which shaped all trips.  Therefore, it wasn’t a must see for this vacation.  And when Scott and I were first plotting out this trip, we kind of waivered as to whether we wanted to include it or not.  But, we decided that since Yosemite is one of the quintessential parks and since we were were were going to be SO CLOSE, we owed it to the kids to show them Yosemite. 

 

And I am glad we did.

 

We entered from the south, so they saw a lot of trees on a windy road and them BAM, their first glimpse of Yosemite was from Glacier Point.

 

 

It was a pretty spectacular location to take their first look. Here they got to see see it all, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Nevada Falls, Vernal Falls… 

 

 

   

 

My oldest son though this wall looked perfect box jump size and encouraged me to give it a try. 

 

 

 

And we took time out for this heart stopping pic.  (While Scott was taking this picture, I saw a teenage girl and her dad walk by and notice and then ask her dad to take the same picture).

 

 

Then we went through the tunnel, and introduced them to El Capitan.

 

 

Then we saw Bridalveil falls.  Scott’s aunt told us that when she was here 6 weeks ago, the water at Bridalveil was gushing.  It wasn’t exactly gushing this day, but it was fun to see.  And we did see a rainbow in it.

 

 

We saw this pretty blue bird (and many more like it during our stay in the park). 

 

 

Seeing the sunset reflect on the granite faces above us, was truly beautiful.

 

 

We ended the day with pizza at Half Dome Village.  Then we found our campsite and set up in the dark (as usual).  As we approached our full campground, it looked like we were going to be packed in with a not so nice campsite.  I was kind of disappointed b/c I have really appreciated our national park campsites.  Turns out, our sight was on the back of the loop, and it it was right beside a big rock (and all our kids shouted hooray) (only they whispered b/c it was after dark) and right along a stream.  We pitched the tent two feet from the stream and fell asleep to the sound of water running.  It was such a nice camp sight and we were so thrilled to be there for two nights.