~ Yosemite

Time for another road trip... this time to Yosemite. 

Jonathan had a medical conference there and we thought it sounded like fun. I was born near there in a tiny town called Twain Harte, and we'd always wanted to visit both places. Plus we kind of like one or two good road trips in the summertime.

When I was a little girl, whenever we drove to California we always stopped in southern Oregon at a little place called Rice Hill for ice cream. So... of course... we instituted that tradition in our family as well.

Tried the Black Bear Diner for dinner...

watched the moon rise over Mt. Shasta...

... and had to take a picture of this mysterious monument, which I later looked up. it's just a fancy tombstone for a rancher named Fancher near Yosmite. 

... and couldn't take photos fast enough of all the

BEAUTIFUL OLD BARNS we saw.

I love old barns.

Finally arrived at the Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp, CA (isn't THAT a lovely name?). Tenaya was hosting the conference and we thought it was a reasonable distance to the valley floor of Yosemite.

We were wrong.

At least the lodge was nice!

trying on hats in the gift shop

How ironic that our cabin was called the "Tamarack"!

Kizi loves her nests!

After we checked in, we thought we'd take a little drive and get the lay of the land, so to speak.

What we also got, was *carsick*.

I can now testify that children and adults who have never before been carsick can and will be driven to tears (and and quite possibly vomit) by the humbling, hour-long, 35 mph switchback turns from Fish Camp to the valley floor of Yosemite. Fish Camp is on the far southeastern edge of Yosemite-- it's not the "main" entrance. If you look at it on a map it really doesn't look that terrifying or much different from the main road into Yosemite. OH... but it is...

But the end result was SO worth it!

I am so in love with John Muir!!

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, 

places to play in and pray in, 

where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."

"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail."

"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."


"Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts."

We even saw a momma bear and her two cute cubs. 

(don't worry, these are zoomed... I'm not one of those crazy tourists who tries to pet bears...)

And we found the BEST swimming hole. We had parked to get a better view of the bears and to take a break from the nausea... and lucked out with THIS! We spent the rest of the afternoon here, went a tiny bit further and then braced ourselves for the nauseating, albeit spectacular, ride home.

it was a bit overcast, but warm enough for swimming.

The next morning the weather wasn't great, so instead of hanging out by the pool I let the kids watch cartoons. Now I realize that many of you will be appalled by this, but our kids have never really seen cartoons before. Sesame Street, yes, but we've never let them just turn on the TV on Saturday morning and watch whatever questionable crap is on there. So this particular morning when I found Tom & Jerry, I let them watch it. The best part was how HARD they all laughed! It was so funny just to watch them watching it! Jonathan missed it while he was at his morning conference session, so the first thing he did when we got home was to order a bunch of Loony Tunes DVDs!

Going for a hike in the lovely tie-dyed t-shirts I made (in Kizi's class).

The next day we attempted to brave the horrible road to return to the valley floor of Yosemite.

More nausea. More crying. Insane crowds.

We didn't make it very far before we finally said "screw it" and turned around. Instead we had a great time playing in the beautiful river. The kids' swimsuits were in the car, and ours weren't... but we made do just fine...

Part Two of our Quest for Nauseating Adventure!

We drove from Fish Camp to Twain Harte, the tiny Sierra Nevada town of my birth.

A couple of HOURS of roads like this led to...

the town I think is frozen in time... 

and this tiny, darling cabin below belonged to my Grandma and Grandpa Kelly for many, many years. The house across the street looks very different (thus, no photo), but it's where my mom and Bob (my mom's first husband= my biological father) lived when I was born. I have fond memories of summers at Grandma and Grandpa's cabin with my cousins...

... and then we headed back home. 

More frantically snapped photos of darling old homesteads and barns...