Tuesday, August 22nd,
2017
Los Angeles, CA, Fresno, CA and Yosemite National Park
It’s about 7:30am and I am waking up
for an 8:50am pick up at LAX. I am fighting a
nasty headache and find time to make a quick stop at Sprouts and Starbucks. I buy some trail
mix for the road, along with a large coffee and some sous vide egg bites.
I arrive at the airport a full ten
minutes before Sarah’s plane is scheduled to land. This is the most on-time I have ever
been! I make my way to the cell phone waiting lot (for the first time ever!) and wait
about 20 minutes. At 9:10am we meet in Arrivals. Vacation has officially begun!
Our drive to Fresno is uneventful. At one point we stop for coffee and a snack, but otherwise we are making good time. Around 1pm we pull into the airport in Fresno. Laura has only been waiting for about 20 minutes or so. Our logistics are definitely on point.
Our drive to Fresno is uneventful. At one point we stop for coffee and a snack, but otherwise we are making good time. Around 1pm we pull into the airport in Fresno. Laura has only been waiting for about 20 minutes or so. Our logistics are definitely on point.
From here we make our way to our
final destination: Yosemite National Park.
The drive to Yosemite takes about an
hour. When we arrive we have to pay a park entrance fee of $30. It’s
okay though, we were warned about this on the website. Once we enter the park
it takes almost 45 minutes to make our way to our tent-cabin in Half Dome
Village. The roads are being worked on, which considerably slows our progress.
Around 3pm we finally arrive.
Laura takes a few minutes to check us in and then we start the laborious process of dragging our stuff to our tent-cabin, which is located approximately 100 yards from the parking lot.
Laura takes a few minutes to check us in and then we start the laborious process of dragging our stuff to our tent-cabin, which is located approximately 100 yards from the parking lot.
Our tent-cabin is aptly named because
it is literally half tent and half cabin. We have a wooden floor, a ceiling light,
4 cots and a bookshelf. The walls and ceiling are made of canvas and we have
about 2 feet of space on either side before a new tent-cabin begins. There are literally
hundreds of tent-cabins crammed into a small area. There are lots of similes to
describe this living situation, but I choose to think of it as being just like
the Olympic Village. Laura and Sarah disagree.
Now that everything is settled, it’s
time to explore. We head over to the center of camp. There are 2 gift
shops, a small, walk-up pizza window, a walk up burger grill, an outdoor bar and a
large cafeteria-style dining hall. There are 2 huge outdoor decks and some kind
of inside meeting area with rows of rocking chairs out front. This is smaller
than I expected, but it will do.
Now that we have the lay of the land,
it’s clearly time for beer. Our plan is to call it a (very) early night so that
we can wake up at 4:30am for our attempt at hiking to the top of Half Dome. We take our time with 2
rounds of beer on the deck. We are relaxed, but also keeping an
eye on the very aggressive squirrel population.
After drinks we head over to the dining hall for dinner. I am attempting to eat low carb and convince the server to give me a full serving of curry chicken along with 2 servings of broccoli topped with Alfredo sauce. This is a great meal.
After drinks we head over to the dining hall for dinner. I am attempting to eat low carb and convince the server to give me a full serving of curry chicken along with 2 servings of broccoli topped with Alfredo sauce. This is a great meal.
After dinner we head back to our tent-cabin. It’s not even 8pm, but we are determined to go to sleep. We
decide to push our showers until tomorrow and all crawl into bed. I read for
almost a full hour before falling fast asleep.
