Family Vacation #3 - Yosemite

Since I started the story of our summer *yikes its now January!* vacation and haven't finished it, all other wonderful holiday stories will be put on hold. Sorry! I'm so bad at finishing things sometimes, so I feel this is something I need to complete before I can move on. :) Hah. I'll count it as one of my new year resolutions and hopefully it will be finished before a new summer starts! I never realized how big Yosemite is, and it sure is beautiful! We only got to spend a day here and we crammed it full of hiking and sight seeing. We want to go back and explore more another time.

Traegon got a lot of smiles and laughs from passing hikers with his cute get-up, complete with boat hat, sunglasses, and of course his ducky binkie! Our first hike was Bridalveil Fall. It was my first time hiking on slippery granite. We climbed up close to the fall and overheard a lot of people saying, "Well, he got up there with a baby, so I can do it!" Glad we could bring some courage to our fellow hikers...little did they know how nervous I was about slipping, let alone for Ben with some precious cargo. It was awesome to see the water turning into mist before it could even hit the ground. 

Next up was Lower Yosemite Falls. I hurt my knees before our trip and was really nervous about all the hiking and walking we were going to be doing. Luckily my friend Meesha introduced me to these, and I didn't have a problem! (Thank you!!) Once we got to the falls, Traegon was excited to get out and explore. He found a cool rock slab to climb up and slide down. While I rested on the cool stone. Ahhhh....

Traegon also felt very cool to be able to sit like a big kid on the shuttle. He liked looking out the window while kicking his legs. So cute! We ate lunch and explored the museum and shops at the visitor's center. It rained a little bit during lunch and the convenience store was extremely full and the lines were long...next time we'll pack lunches!

Ben and I were walking to our car (Btw...parking was ridiculous!) and we were trying to decide if we were going to drive up to Glacier Point or head to SF, when we were approached by a girl about my age. She was visiting from Austria (and was the spokesperson for her group since she spoke the most English) and was wondering if we could give her a ride up to Glacier Point. Two friends, her boyfriend and she had just missed the last shuttle bus up there after completing the strenuous hike from Upper Yosemite Falls to the visitor's center.  I guess she had been asking a lot of people, and because of the rain, no one was heading up there. Well, that solidified our answer, and we gave her boyfriend a ride up in our already full car. The poor guy was very squished in the back seat and was so nice to feed Traegon crackers. We did ask him for a favor and take this picture of half dome:

The ride was very rainy. Traegon usually gets scared when it rains a lot, so it was nice to have someone back there to keep him company. We talked about Austria as well as the places he's been on his first trip to the US. We bade farewells and good lucks and he headed back down to get his group. The view was spectacular!!!! We were very glad we made the trip and helped someone too! In this picture I'm pointing to the Lower Yosemite Falls where we had just come from:

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls

Half Dome

We also got to see a beautiful sunset! It was the perfecting ending to a perfect day at Yosemite. On our way back to the car we even got to see a rainbow...of course...the camera's battery died. :P We left the park and drove until we hit San Francisco very late at night, showered, and fell fast asleep in an actual bed with no bears. So nice!