Yosemite June 2010 Day 1 Mariposa Grove

Our first family adventure of the summer of 2010 began on June 21st when we drove down to Bass Lake to meet up with my mom who was staying at one of her timeshare condos. Some other family members had been there the previous couple days, but they had left before we got there (I guess they heard we were coming--smart people).

As soon as we rendezvous-ed (I took three and a half years of French, but have no recollection whatsoever of how to conjugate verbs in the past tense. Rendezvous-amos?--sorry Ms. Hires) with my mom, we made the trip to one of the truly best and happiest places on earth--Yosemite. This was our second trip to Yosemite, the first being the previous year 2009, on my birthday, September 5 (I'll wait while you update your calendar).

Welcome back. Our destination was Mariposa Grove, which is close to the south entrance of the park. To be honest, I wasn't very enthusiastic about looking at a bunch of trees. You're probably having a hard time believing that, thinking back to this previous blog post and all of its pictures, not to mention the other 174 pictures from which I spared you, but it's true. In fact, I spent a good part of the trip saying, with feigned enthusiasm, things like "Hey guys, come look at this. It's a tree," and, "Oh my goodness, check this out. It's a tree!"

I believe we're looking at Fallen Monarch

Despite my sarcastic comments, I did make a positive contribution to the hike: I gave us trail names. (Well, I didn't necessarily come up with all the names, but I came up with the idea and thus feel I can take credit for the names). Lennon was Cougar (after the fearsome cat, not the equally fearsome, and sometimes alluring--to men other than me of course--female), Abby was Digicam (guess what she was doing during the hike), Meghan named herself "Long-Trail" because she felt like the trail was going on forever--5 minutes after we started. Rachel was "Hiker" (I didn't make that one up). I cannot recall my trail name. Trail names always make hiking better. (Just ask my favorite contemporary magazine writer, Steve Friedman. By the way, check the date on this hilarious story, it was published after our trip. So I can still take credit for deciding to give the family trail names. I wasn't influenced by him. Although it's quite possible that he was influenced by me.)

A bachelor and Bachelor and Three Graces

Grizzly Giant

Long Trail inside a tall tree

Mariposa Grove museum--closed when we got there.The cool lady in the baseball hat is my mommy.

As we were walking back from the museum, we took a smaller trail--it's always best to go back a different way than the way you came when possible, more adventurous--we saw a weasel trotting up the trail with a mouse or something resembling a mouse in its mouth. It walked right up to about 3 feet in front of us, then hopped off the trail passed around us, jumped back on the trail,and just kept on going. It was AWESOME, one of my favorite animal sightings ever. Here's the sad part: The picture below is the closest we came to documenting the sighting.

There was a weasel here a second before we took this blurry picture

We had some bad luck with our camera on this trip. A lot of our pictures turned out blurry, including a picture of Rachel and I posing in front of the two trees growing together called Faithful Couple, as well as some pictures of a really cool woodpecker. Dang it! (I apologize for my language.)

Faithful Couple

Photo courtesy of Gayle Green  (and her reliable camera)

Our wildlife sighting didn't end after we left park boundaries. On the way back to the condo, we spotted an unusual sight, did a u-turn and documented this:

Some random peacock on some random person's property

As excited as I was about going to Yosemite, the kids were equally excited about going swimming in the pool at the condo. They would have been super happy just staying at the pool for the few days that we were there. So on the hike we heard a lot of comments such as "how much longer till we get to go swimming?" and "I wish we were swimming." It was starting to get late as we were heading back and I was afraid that we wouldn't make it to the condo before the pool was closed, so when we got there with only about 15 minutes before Adult Swim, I pulled up next to the pool, and Rachel and the kids headed over there while I went back to the condo to fetch the towels. As I was watching them walk away I realized I had just dropped the kids off at the pool--literally! I chuckled to myself and went to get the towels.

So Cal pt 4 Disneyland

Disneyland was the reason we made the trip to SoCal in the first place. Rachel, my sister Kelly, and my mom had all participated in the "Give a Day, Get a Day" program where you did some sort of service project (they made quilts) and you got a free pass for Disneyland. So on July 8th we made our way to the allegedly "happiest place on earth." 

One day in Disneyland isn't enough to do everything (even I will concede that point, although 2 days is plenty for me), but I think we did a pretty good job packing it all in.

Here are the highlights:

One of Meghan's favorite things about Disneyland is the Winnie the Pooh ride, and her kind-hearted aunt Kelly took her there while the rest of us were waiting in line for Splash Mountain.

Meghan and Jace and a churro

Pooh and Tigger! Jackpot! or should I say Honeypot?--heh heh heh

The biggest highlight for me had to be basking in the presence of and learning wisdom from some Theme park Masters. Let me set the stage: Anyone who knows me knows I am cheap. Anyone who knows anything about Disneyland knows it is a financial black hole that sucks money out of people's pockets and into some other dimension. You should be able to recognize the conflict. How do we come to resolution, you may ask? It's simple. Disneyland sucks away most of my money, but to keep a little spare change, I carry a backpack with snacks and drinks with me. And I thought that I was pretty smart for figuring out this way to keep at least a small percentage of my money away from the grubby paws of Mickey and his empire, but while waiting in line for Splash Mountain, I was a witness to true genius. Pay attention to the following group of photos, or as the cliche goes, observe and be instructed:

Note the cheese and crackers that Abby is holding. This is typical of Green family trip snackage. Now, allow your eyes to travel to the space above Abby's head. Notice the girl in the green shirt and the guy in the white shirt further back and to the left. Now look at the same photo cropped and enlarged:

In case you can't tell, those real men [and women] of genius (the girl in the white shirt and the guy whose face you can just make out above Rachel's head are in on it too) pulled out a huge roast beef sandwich from one of their backpacks and divided it up amongst themselves. Seriously, when I saw that, I felt as if I had been in the presence of enlightened beings. My Austin snack assortment was nothing in comparison. The whole experience opened up my eyes to the possibilities. . . And then . . .  I saw the apex of self reliant snacking when one of the guy's reached in his backpack and pulled out a full size bottle of French's Mustard. See photo below.

If I drank Budweiser (which I don't), I would raise my glass in salute to Mr. I carry a fully stocked deli in my back - pack.
The trip continued:

It's A Small World was a ride we missed on our first Disneyland trip.

See my button? We all got one for being part of the Give one, get one program

The requisite Disneyland photo

My favorite part of the Disneyland trip was the last ride of the night. My parents watched our kids, and Rachel and I rode the Matterhorn together. It was very fun. Unfortunately, I have no photographic proof of the event, not even to verify that there is such a ride as the Matterhorn. (Allusion to previous post and reader comment--see Joshua Tree)

The next day we were all up and getting ready to go back home, except Meghan who is our late sleeper. I was messing around taking pictures, as I tend to do, when I just serendipitously captured one of the cutest and funniest wake ups ever. The following collage gives you a quick taste, but the stop motion video captures it better.

On the way home we made a side trip to the beach and pier at Santa Monica, and drove past the LA temple, and then 6 hours or so later, made it back home where the next item on the agenda was painting the exterior of the house, which just illustrates that it's not all fun and games with the Greens--just mostly fun and games.