Spontaneous

We are treated to a weeklong vacation by Mitch's company once a year. It's amazing how quickly these trips come around. It was held in July and in Sacramanto this year. Usually held in August, the week before the kids and I go back to school, it was nice to still have lots of summer to go after we got back home!

For months leading up to the meeting we toyed around with the idea of leaving a day early and staying and playing in Lake Tahoe, kinda breaking up the long drive. But I guess since we'd been there before nothing really caught our eye.

Then about two days before we had to leave, Mitch was looking at a paper map, we're old school, and suggested dropping down into Yosemite National Park, this way we would avoid the dreaded interstate drive across the top of Nevada, break up the long drive, and see something we hadn't seen before.

He reassured me that we wouldn't need reservations for the Sunday night we'd stay in Yosemite before heading to Sacramento, I agreed, really how busy could it be on a Sunday and Monday in  a National Park! Oh we are so naive spontaneous! And as I got into our rental to leave Sunday morning I noticed a couple of blankets in the back seat, "Just in case" he says.

Many, many hours later we arrived at the East entrance of the park. We stopped at the 'information center' and really didn't get any helpful info. So, we headed on into the park and were instanty amazed at the beauty and grandeur of the area! We soon learn that camping spots quickly fill up by noon regardless of the day of the week, oops. Finally, we make it to White Wolf  'Resort' closer to the West entrance, with the idea of staying there and then getting up early to enter into the heart of the park in the morning. The resort ended up being a camping area on one side of the road - first come first serve - of cousrse it was full, and then a little combined restaurant/office/store on the other side with wall tents and a few little cabins that you could rent.

Our 'Yurt',
after we first entered the wrong one
and started making ourselves at home
 in some elses yurt, ooops



We scored the last tent, what I like to call a yurt, and the lady assured us how nice and warm they were all night (this time of the year it drops into the high 30's, low 40's at night), once you got the fireplace going inside of them, since she lived in one all summer she knew. As an added bonus there were community showers and toilets, but don't use too much water (drought going on up there) things were working in our favor! We head to the restaurant and find that it's reservation only and they were booked for the night, luckily the the store where we'd also just booked our yurt was still open and had some sustenance.

Mitch building a fire in the fireplace before 'dinner'

 We got up real early the next morning, maybe in part that the fire didn't get tended too and had burned out and we could now see our breath or that we were just a little hungry. Whatever it was we reached Yosmite Village by 7 am an hour after we woke up and had enjoyed the early morning beauty of the area and watched the sun rise, got breakfast and were now headed to hike up Yosemite Falls.


Early morning headed into Yosemite

Remember sponataneous, we headed out on our hike with two bottles of water, tennis shoes, I had denim capris on, a camera and luckily we had both had dressed in layers. We thought we were quite the fierce hikers, we passed up a couple little groups and were making great time and then a lady, out for her morning 'jog' zips by us, show off'! Anyways, it was beautiful and quite strenuous at times but we were proud of our spontaneous trip and now hike. Nice to know we can still do these things, regardless of how old our kids tell us we are!

We made it to the falls and then headed back down, this is when the crowds started getting thick, about 10ish. It was amusing all the questions we got as we passed people on their way up, 'when does it flatten out', 'how much further', 'how long does it take'! Ahh so rewarding. Next, we decided to hike to Mirror Lake, so we filled up our water bottles and were off on another hike, not so steep this time.



Upper Yosemite Falls

Lower Yosemite Falls

Well, we never really found the grand and reflective lake, it was true about what they said about being short on water up there! But it was another nice hike and not on the paved trail either, oh no, we took the dirt one at the base of the mountains, the one that the mule rides travel on, lots of smells and piles and dust as one of the mule lines passed us! When we did meet up with the masses it was crazy busy, just in time to grab some lunch and head on to Sacremneto. So, at about 2 we were famished, bought a huge lunch, bought the t-shirts, filled up our water bottles, went pee and headed up the road to Sacramento! As you can tell we relished in the fact that we were so spontaneous and young! So much fun!

If you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip over this next picture!

The result of a day of hiking - looks tan, right!?!?

Sacramento     

Our welcome dinner was at 7pm, we arrived and checked in at the Sheraton at 6pm, still dirty, sweaty and in our 'hiking' clothes. We told ourselves we just looked extra tan! I'm sure no one noticed!
I have no pictures of my own of this part of the trip, I'll have to contact some friends and see what I can come up with. Or maybe what happens at the meeting stays at the meeting??

We did enjoy our time, we hung out by the pool, went on a winery tour and also a food tour and learned just how passionate both the wine makers and the head chefs are about their livelyhood. So much planning, time, preparation and thought goes into all that they do. Really cool seeing that side of it!
We had fabulous meals, great visits with friends, relaxed, and great entertainment! Always a wonderful time at our 'meetings'!