Yosemite

After bidding the deer a good day, we headed off for Lee Vining, a little town just east of Yosemite.  After breakfast and a stop for ice, we entered Yosemite via the Tioga Pass, which had just opened up a few days earlier for the summer.  We arrived in Yosemite, had a first look around at the area to get our bearings, visited  a museum, an Indian Village, and walked up to Bridal Veil Falls where we got soaked by the spray.  "Wicked cool!" I wrote in my journal.  We found a campsite at Lost Claim, a few miles away and enjoyed a picnic for lunch and cooked out for dinner.

The next morning, June 11, we went back into the park and to the Hotel Ahwahnee and made reservations for lunch to celebrate my birthday (I will not say which one).  We explored this beautiful old hotel, had coffee in the cafe, and walked around the grounds before lunch.  Lunch was great and the service was superior.  They presented me with desert with a lit candle.  HAD to eat it!

After lunch we drove up to Glacier Point for the view, and stopped at El Capitan again (we had stopped there yesterday, also) because we saw several people looking up at the cliffs.  We parked, got out with our binoculars, and eventually were able to spot probably a dozen climbers in various locations on the cliffs.  A nice young man about the age of our kids came over and shared our binoculars.  We talked to him for quite awhile about climbing.  He was planning to make the El Capitan climb in 5 years and was training for it.  He described the people up there on the cliff as the Olympians of rock climbing.  We stayed until sunset and noted several of the climbers settling in for the night on the side of the cliff, sleeping bags and all, precariously perched on little ledges.  We were suitably impressed but not envious.