Our campsite just outside Yosemite National Park in National Forest land.

The road up to where we parked the van was a little rough.  The road up to where we pitched the tent was wild.  I have to admit everyone has more fun on Scott’s off road (off the real road) campsite hunts when I put my headphones in and close my eyes.  He tried heading further down one of the roads last night.  I asked if that was really a good idea, as our van really doesn’t scream “off road vehicle”.  In the usual carefree Scott way he said, “What’s the big deal?  I can just backup if it doesn’t work out.”  True.  The backup through the tree branches was an adventure.  Maybe if we make the van four wheel drive with better suspension he would want to keep it after this trip…

Bass Lake

Scott got up early and took some pictures from where we were camped.  You can see Bass Lake from yesterday’s adventures from up on top where we were camped.  I stayed up past 11:30 reading Nelson Mandela’s A Long Walk to Freedom. My friend Meghan has recommended that I read the book for years. It was probably not a good night to stay up late since Scott wanted to get an early start in Yosemite, which Scott pronounces Yos-Mite instead of Yo-Sem-I-ty.  I finally have a large amount of sleeping time to get into the book, and it is incredible.

We headed to Bridalveil Creek campground to try to get a campsite at 8:30 am.  We luckily pulled up to site number 17 as the previous couple was hopping in their car to leave.  By the time we arrived at the Visitor’s Center around 11, all the Yosemite Campgrounds were full.  Before we left the Bridalveil campground Scott cooked up some porridge with a twist.

Bridalveil Falls. It is hard to see the water with the low volume and the sunshine early in the morning.  This was only a half mile hike and on a paved trail.

Bridalveil Falls

Brooke wanted to climb the rocks to get a closer view; however, there was a sign that stated many falls and fatalities occur each year due to climbing on the granite rocks polished by glaciers and thousands of visitors.

See how polished the rocks are?

I made Cody hang back with me while Scott and Brooke clamored on.  He wasn’t too happy with me, but he doesn’t have a very good record when it comes to rocks and balance.  The last morning in Sequoia Cody fell head first down their “clubhouse” rock after throwing some rocks into the creek.  Thankfully he only hurt his hands and butt.  That was another fall that I watched and couldn’t do anything about.  Well, I did get overprotective and told them to find something else to do after I checked to make sure Cody was in one piece.  With all the falls Cody has had I am super thankful he hasn’t had any major concerns and I am also starting to think he is partly made out of rubber.

Getting to the Valley Floor Visitor’s Center at Yosemite was like driving to Disney.  There were at least a dozen rangers directing traffic and helping the herds of people park.  You could either wait for a shuttle to the Visitor’s Center or walk ten minutes. Now a ten minute walk may not seem like much, but to a four year old on a 104 degree day in mostly hot hot sun, it was asking a bit much. We chose to walk on the way there.  On the way back we were going to take the shuttle, but after twenty minutes we never saw a shuttle and decided to walk. Thankfully the night time temperature in the valley is 65 degrees. On the picture on the right Cody was very excited about the glowing lava rising in this display due to the tectonic plates meeting at a convergent boundary and the subducted plate turning back into melted rock or lava.

Brooke was posing with a statue of John Muir

Brooke was posing with a statue of John Muir.  He first visited Yosemite Valley in 1868.  President Lincoln signed to protect the first land and animals in America in 1864, during the Civil War. In later years, Yosemite grew larger than what was originally protected.  Galen Clark was the biggest proponent to getting the area protected and he was in fact the first guardian of the area.  Yosemite area and Mariposa County have some large sequoia tress.  Some of the trees began growing when Cleopatra was in power.  In 1890 John Muir helped enlarge Yosemite Park.  Some great quotes from Yosemite:

“Save something wild, if only your imagination.” Bonnie Gisil

“Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.” John Muir

Always hungry Cody

Two minutes into our walk to the Visitor’s Center Cody asked, “What do you have to eat?”  Then while waiting for the ranger talk on bears Cody needed more to eat.  He ate through the entire ranger talk.  The ranger showed us pictures of bear attacks on cars.  Bears as small as 100 pounds can turn a car door into a crushed tin can if they smell food. Scientists suspect bears have a sense of smell 20 times greater than that of humans.  The ranger also showed us the skulls of grizzly bears and the black bears.  He pointed out that bears eat mostly insects and plants.  I asked what the exceptionally large teeth were for then.  He conceded that bears do eat an occasional rodent or mammal. Mmm Hmm.

The picture above and on the left is of the Stellar’s Jay, the kid’s favorite bird lately.  He happened to join us during the ranger talk.  Yosemite is unique in a few ways with their ranger badges.  The booklet was actually printed into the park newspaper and was only one page.  If you wanted the real booklet it cost $3 in the bookstore.  The badges at Yosemite were actually carved wood.

One bonus to having a super distracting van top is being able to find your vehicle in the Disneyland parking lot of Yosemite.

We drove an hour from the visitor’s center and threw the canoe out onto Tenaya Lake.  The lake was at 8,149 feet in elevation creating a much cooler climate than the Yosemite Valley floor.  It was actually a little chilly in the water and when you first got out of the water.  I put in a few minutes swimming laps. It was incredibly refreshing.

So…the picture up above and on the left is number 10,000 on this camera.  Well actually it is number 001 again.  We rolled the odometer over!  I’m sure you’re not surprised based on the crazy number of photos in today’s post.

Canoeing on Tenaya Lake

In the picture above Cody is trying to cover his face so he doesn’t get photographed.  Scott spotted some climbers on this rock on the right.

Cody was not brave enough to venture into the water.  He was happiest on the shore splashing and playing in the sand.

Brooke spent our time at the beach creating a castle with a moat.

Scott had a different idea about what to do at the beach.

Brooke was excited to finish her moat.

Brooke has a crinkled nose in the above picture on the left because she is refusing to put on her sunglasses to protect her eyes.  The picture on the right is of Brooke dancing away.

We had a two hour drive back to our campsite.  Scott told the kids to look out the windows when we passed meadows because it was dinner time for the deer and bears.  Cody asked very seriously, “We need to look out because they are going to come eat the food from the van?”

The picture is showing some fires we saw across the valley

Half Dome in the distance

Tunnel View – El Capitan was on the left and Half Dome was on the right.

The campsite was a little noisy last night, but then we knew that would happen going into the site.  Yosemite is not known for quiet campsites.  Everyone is packed in nice and close too. We were neighbors with the group campsite.  They were very kind, and having a lot of fun.  We made sure to put all of our food in bear boxes last night after the ranger talk on bears and Yosemite.  This is no easy task when you have as much as we do.  We had to ask a neighbor to borrow some space for our cooler.  Brooke was doing a great job of helping us remember all the spices and other odds and ends we almost forgot.