Yosemite and Reno

(found on top of a building in Reno)

Hey folks, time to bug you! (get it?)

Just in case you were wonder, yes, we have made it back home. With a couple of days to spare in the month actually.

Sorry about not keeping the posts up and current. The last week of travel I just didn't have the time or connectivity to post. There just was no reliable signal in Yosemite, Grand Tetons, or Yellowstone I could use to connect to the net.

So, I've saved everything up and figure I'll continue posting each segment until I get to the end of our trip.

If I've given away the ending for ya, I'm sorry about that. I should have said "Spoiler Alert!!! Spoiler Alert!!!" before the post started.

That way you could skip this part and keep wondering if we make it home or not.

I know my wife was beginning to wonder *grin*.



So, where was I? Oh yeah, Yosemite. The picture above might have given it away if you've ever been there.

First off, I know what you are thinking. "Could the tarantula-killing, squirrel-bashing redneck have started that fire I heard about on tv?"

Nope. Wasn't me. Luckily we were out of the area long before it started approaching Yosemite.

Seems we kept dodging disasters as we went.

For those of you who have not been to Yosemite National Park, the views rival that of the Grand Canyon on any day. As a matter a fact, I found the park to be much more visually interesting than that big ole hole in the ground with the rabid squirrels. Ever see a 2900+ feet tall waterfall?

Now you have *smile*

I can proudly say I harmed no animals in the visiting of this park.

One did seem to be looking at me funny at Glacier Point though...

Talk about a large park, geez! When we finally made it to the park entrance on our ride from San Francisco, the park range (a transplanted Georgia girl by the way) smiled as she pointed out that our campsite was still a 2 hour ride away.



If they would have let us, I'd have setup camp right then and there. But there was a line of cars behind me and it was getting late. No need to upset the nice park ranger from Cleveland Georgia I decided. So, I did the honorable thing and smiled right back, took my booklet on the park, along with the map to the middle of nowhere, and headed out.

The ride to the campsite took us down to the valley floor of the park and back up the other side of the valley. We went through multiple tunnels during our ride. These tunnels had been carved out of the cliffsides and connected a rather windy road back to the various campsites and sites within the park.



By the time we got to our campsite it was almost dark and the ranger assigned to the site had long since packed up shop and gone home. By this time we were camping experts and knew the drill. "Proceed to your campsite, setup, eat, go to bed". We did however have to make one slight adjustment. Since bears have such a presence in the park, they provide steel boxes at each campsite and you are required by law to place all of your food in these boxes. Or you face fines and even worse yet, a midnight meeting with Yogi or his cousin Boo Boo.

Now the box and the directions for placing our food in the box didn't bother me much. What did bother me was the fact that we were camping under the equivelent of a mosquito net. "Put food in box" you say? What about me? Where am I going to sleep? I'm quite certain bears also eat meat. I'm thinking that most bears would also consider me meat. But then I had a moment of inspiration.

When animals hunt they always go for the animals on the fringes of the herd correct? Simple enough. I just made sure I slept in the middle of the pavilion or aka mosquito net. Problem solved. They would go for the small tender kid burrito in the $100 sleeping bag on the edges of the area first. With such an arrangement I was sure to be in good shape the next morning.

I just gotta make sure that the wife doesn't find out I made such sleeping arrangements. She'll never know I'm sure. The boys didn't even realize my clever move. They just thought I was being nice by sleeping on the area with the rocks. I'm such a good daddy huh? *grin*



Anyways, we survived. The next morning, we broke down the campsite and had our nutritional breakfast of Captain Crunch and Pop tarts. Throughout the trip we kept a cooler in the rear seat with the milk, O.J. and squeeze butter. I made sure to give Ethan the first cup....errr I mean I made sure to have Ethan test the milk each morning of course. What's up with the squeeze butter you ask? You can't have pancakes without butter now! Come on. And yes we did on occasion have pancakes.

Well something that resembled pancakes anyways. We did use pancake mix but they didn't look much like pancakes most mornings. *shrug* What ya gonna do?

After breakfast we headed off to the sights. If you do nothing else in Yosemite, you have to go to Glacier Point. From this vantage point you can see the entire valley floor, the waterfalls, and the path carved through the mountain range by the glacier a bazzillion years ago.


It is quite the sight. If you look closely in the picture above you can see two very large waterfalls, both over 300 feet if I remember correctly.

While at Glacier Point we were able to get signal on our cell phone. So, the boys hastily texted friends and I called the wife. "Hi Honey! We are on the top of a big big hill." For some reason she wasn't as excited about it as we were. *shrug* It probably had something to do with the fact that she had returned home from San Francisco and was no longer on vacation. Sorry dear! Zachary made me call.

Anyways, we oooo'd and ahhh'd for a bit and headed for the road out of the park toward Reno Nevada.

It was on this road out the back side of the park that we hit almost 10,000 feet in altitude for the first time during our trip. We even saw snow on the mountain peaks around us. I can only imagine what winter is like out there. None for me thank you very much. The boys of course fell asleep on the ride out. I had to wake them up when we passed this beautiful mountain lake just before exiting the park. I convinced them they wanted to go swimming. *chuckle*

They thought it was a great idea... until they got in the lake and realized that the water was from the snow caps still on the mountains towering nearby. Can you say "realllly cold" boys and girls?



If you look closely at the next picture (really really close and squint at the black dots near the edges of the mountain), you might see something that made me just shake my head. There are people in this picture free-climbing this mountain! It was directly across from the lake and I wouldn't have spotted the climbers if we hadn't stopped. Simply amazing. The dots are people. Crazy people, but people all the same.



It took a few hours to exit the park and make our way to Reno. We had plugged into our trusty GPS to take us to the KOA campground there in Reno.

If anyone ever tells you, "Oh sure, there is a KOA in Reno. A nice one in fact", you should not believe them.

The GPS took us to a location just off the interstate in almost downtown Reno which just happened to be a casino. Go figure.

Apparently the campground property had more value as a casino than a campground and they sold out. Zachary and Ethan tried to convince me that staying at the hotel there at the casino would technically count as camping since it had in fact once been a campground. But I didn't buy it.

So, we backtracked a few miles to a state park I had spotted before entering town. Once again the ranger had long since gone so we paid at the "Self pay" station and picked our spot.

The next day we spent some time being a tourist in Reno. Not much to be a tourist about in Reno in my opinion.

The one shining spot was the National Auto Museum downtown.

The museum as an incredible collection of vehicles from the dawn of automotive history into the 40's. They even have THE 1907 THOMAS FLYER!!!


They do have cars from other time periods, including cars designed and built by the creator of Rat Fink (I'll let you look that one up if you don't know it)



If you are ever in Reno and can pry yourself out of the KOA errr Casino, I highly recommend the visit. You really should look at the rest of the car pictures we took (sorry for the blurry ones...was the light). You folks do know I'm a car nut right? Ok then. Nuff said.

From Reno we headed on to the Bonneville Salt Flats (car nut remember?) where both Zachary and Ethan got to race on the salt. It was pretty cool to watch.

I'll post more on that later.

You can see all the pictures of Yosemite and the cars here.
Until next time!