Scott went for a bike ride up to Glacier Point this morning.  He rode 19 miles. He happened to catch some hang gliders up at Glacier Point.

Cody decided to ride our duffel bag with our pillows, pajamas, and fans like it was a horse.

We headed back to the valley floor from our campsite up at Bridalveil Creek to ride  around Yosemite.  This is the first time on this trip that we have taken down the bikes to ride as a family.  The second picture above is of the lower Yosemite Falls. Yosemite Falls drops 2,425 feet. The third picture with Cody riding his bike shows Half Dome in the right hand portion of the picture.  Half Dome reaches an elevation of 8,842 feet.  Yosemite was carved by the Merced River and glaciers.

We had to stop ten minutes into our ride so Cody could eat a snack.  Scott rode on and got a better picture of the falls.

We stopped at the Native American museum next to the Valley Floor Visitor’s Center.  The kids played some music and we heard a gentleman play a variety of flutes in all shapes and sizes.  He could have easily lulled us all to sleep with his soothing sounds.  The kids were more motivated to get back to the van because we enticed them with a dip in the Merced River.

We watched all sorts of crazy people jump off of the bridge that very clearly stated no jumping.  The river was no deeper than hip height in most places.

We are taking Highway 120 towards Madesto.  I haven’t written about this yet, but for some reason I have had terrible motion sickness on this trip.  The twisty and windy roads up and down the mountains are of great delight to Scott and leave me feeling rather green most of the time.  There is no rhyme or reason to the motion sickness.  Some days it does not bother me at all and other days I just want the world to stop spinning.  This afternoon – the ride on the tilt-a-whirl can’t end soon enough.

We stopped in Modesto to get some more milk, ice, and gas.  California is big into having two prices for gas: one if you pay with cash and another if you pay with credit.  We headed to Durham Ferry State Recreation Area in an attempt to camp. It turns out that they turned that recreation area into a school.  I was on the phone with my brother and he was following us along on the map on the Internet trying to help us find the campground.  The last I spoke with him he said, “You just passed it.”  We passed a school, so we were confused, and then we lost phone service.  We stopped at a random home to ask for help. He said that they turned the recreation area into a school. Scott said that sounded odd, but asked  for another campground.  So we headed another twelve minutes down the road to Caswell State Park to set up the tent.  Not surprisingly on a Saturday night that campground was full.  Then we headed to Lake Del Valle campground.  That was an hour drive.  They were full.  We ate dinner there anyway. At this point it was eight at night. The kids have a new easy camp favorite Knorr Noodles with canned chicken.  We had received free bags of ice with our gas fill up.  So Brooke was angling to make ice cream. Scott did make ice cream with the kids.  It tasted very similar to McDonald’s soft serve. We were eventually broomed out of that campground, as they were full.  We were ready to be done with chasing a campsite and head to a hotel.

Brooke let out a deep sigh, “We are going to head to a hotel when it is nice out?  I want to camp.”  She is definitely Scott’s child!  So Scott headed towards a campground that the park rangers had suggested, Carnagie Vehicular Park.  Vehicular Park?  It was a gigantic off road trail riding campground.  We arrived at 10 pm.  I had the kids put their PJs on before we left the last campground, so we just had to slide them into their spots in the tent when we arrived.  The good news?  Lots of camp spaces.  The bad news? Lots of off road vehicle noise.  Two boys came whirling through singing at about midnight. I had just fallen asleep sometime after 11.  The kids slept through it all.  There is always something to be thankful for.

Einstein’s definition of insanity, “Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”  So how do we remedy this full campground situation while in California on the super busy coast?  We haven’t figured that out yet.  You have to make reservations 48 hours in advance.  24 hours is pushing it for us.  We tried listing out our major goals for the two weeks we have left, but Scott’s list is rather long and so are the roads we have yet to travel.