Track 20: Smokin' in the Boys' Room

I didn't sleep well on Friday night: there were too many snorers, a group of people came in late and made lots of noise, and some more people got up at 5:30 a.m. and made even more noise. Oh yeah, and I was in the guys' dorm and NO ONE TOLD ME.

I slept much, much better last night. On the girls' side.

Anyway, I spent most of yesterday's daylight hours at Yosemite. I won't insult your intelligence and ramble on about how beautiful it is, because you already know it is, even if you've never been there. It's a national park, people! Of course it's amazing! Have you ever had one of those moments where you're just overwhelmed by the beautiful things around you, so much so that you start to choke up? That happened to me multiple times just on the drive into the park. And then, when I finally saw Half Dome -- goosebumps. I have worshiped Ansel Adams for so long, and to see that huge, rocky icon in real life was a moment I will not soon forget. They have an Ansel Adams Gallery in the park, so of course I had to buy a few postcards of his photographs. One is a portrait taken of Adams and his big view camera, and another is a candid photo of Georgia O'Keeffe (they were friends), whose biography I read last year. Somehow, the portraits of the artists are just as inspiring to me as their works of art.


After riding around on the hybrid shuttle bus, I embarked on a hike up to Vernal Falls. If there is a theme to this adventure of mine, it's Things That Kick My Butt. Driving across Wyoming, hauling rocks, hiking in Yosemite. I read in the guide book that the difficulty level was "moderate" and thought, "Okay! I can do this." Thirty seconds later, I was peeling off layers and already out of breath. I was pretty tired when I got to the footbridge that gives you a view to the falls, but I really wanted to get to the top, and it was only another mile or so to go. So I kept going, and then I reached the granite steps. The "steep granite stairway of over 600 steps," as the hiking guide (a separate pamphlet which I stupidly didn't read) states. The pamphlet also lists that second half of the hike as "strenuous". Whoops. I had flashbacks to my nightmare hike through the rainforest in Honduras, except I wasn't soaked through with sweat and I could stop whenever I wanted instead of trying to keep up with our flip-flopped 12-year-old guide. But I pushed on, stopping often, chatting breathlessly with the other red-faced and struggling hikers, until I reached the top. I rested there for a while, had a snack, and headed back down, which caused a whole different group of muscles to hurt. But it was a good kind of hurt. A funny thing happened on the way down: I saw a black fleece hat hanging from a tree branch (nature's lost-and-found) and thought, "Hey, that looks like my hat." Then I realized that I hadn't seen my hat in my bag when I was at the top of the falls, so I searched again and sure enough, some nice soul had found my dropped hat and placed it where I could find it. Yay! It's a good hat. It doesn't give me horrible hat hair. I would have been sad if I'd lost it.

I did some more walking along the Merced River, took a lot of pictures (most of which are pretty disappointing, but a.) I'm pretty hard on myself, and b.) I'd spent a good chunk of time looking at the professionals' pictures in the gallery that morning). When I got back to the hostel, I spent some time in Photoshop, changing some of the photos to black and white and making other adjustments to make them more pleasing to me.

Unfortunately, it's raining today, so I'm not sure I'll head back into the park. I would love to come back again, though, for a longer period of time. Then I can familiarize myself with the layout of the park, do some more research on good photo spots, and take more time to really photograph things.

This afternoon I'm going to head over to the Modesto area for a return visit with Delite. Then, tomorrow, I'll head up to Eureka to stay with my friend Shannon and see the redwoods. Then I'll start down the coast! Woo!