Happy Thanksgiving

We had a lovely fall day at Mom's for Turkey Day. I am most appreciative of my family, my husband, my health, our jobs, our home and pets. God Bless us all!

Road Trip Finale

After shooting photos and walking all over Bodie we had a difficult decision to make. We were absolutely starving having had a big breakfast in Yosemite before doing a large waterfall hike, no lunch, and then exploring all over Bodie. In the middle of nowhere hwe knew it would be some time finding a halfway decent place to eat. Then the question remained: do we get a room for the night and drive back in the morning or do we plow through after dinner to Southern Cal?

Tough decision to be made on empty stomach. It took a while to get back to a main highway and find a place to eat in a tiny trucker stop town. We did eat heartily at the diner - and decided to go for it and drive all night back home.

I am not going to lie - it was a painful drive home - we were physically tired by then and had been on the road since the previous Saturday. To push through all night at that point we just wanted to get home. Plus we had to detour the big "Car-maggedon" in the LA area where they closed the 405 freeway and people were freaking out about the traffic.

All I can say is thank God for Sirius Radio and a little bit of caffeine. I know the animals were happy when we pulled up :) It was a wonderful week together in nature. I felt really blessed to have that time with my husband.

click on picture below for the slide show:

Road Trip 2011

Bodie - Official California Ghost Town

Believe it or not, we left Yosemite by 3 to then make the couple hour drive north (some of it by dirt trail - boy, did we wish we had taken our 4-Wheel Drive Honda Element at that moment) to the Official Ghost Town of California - Bodie.

The place had a ton of photographers crawling about through the ruins. Of course, my P loved it for that reason as well. I like it because it was in the boondocks, off the beaten path and had such an interesting history about it. It boomed in the late 1800s when gold was found. According to Wikepedia: "As a bustling gold mining center, Bodie had the amenities of larger towns, including two banks, four volunteer fire companies, a brass band, a railroad, miners' and mechanics' unions, several daily newspapers, a gym, and a jail. At its peak, 65 saloons lined Main Street, which was a mile long. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences. As with other remote mining towns, Bodie had a popular, though clandestinely important, red light district on the north end of town."

Two major fires in the past 100 years destroyed a lot of the town that stayed after all the gold was gone. Only about 5% remains but it was fascinating to walk around the preserved buildings - some you can only peer through windows but clearly see remnants inside of a once Wild West lifestyle.

Day 6 - Part 1, Yosemite - Vernal Falls

After a wonderful sleep and hearty breakfast we headed back to the crowded Yosemite Park. The traffic was atrocious - - there is a main loop, essentially, where cars have to go with pull outs at specific trails. It was slow-going, parking was bad. Yikes. Once we did park we decided to do the popular Vernal Waterfall Trail. I am glad we went at the beginning of the day because there were hundreds of people on the trail coming back. It's a longish trail, and it was a lovely warm day without being too hot. Many people don't make the whole hike as it gets pretty steep and slippery on rocks the last bit of it. Now we know why some smart people were hiking with those rain ponchos - you needed them the last couple hundred feet as the several hundred foot waterfall sprays the trail 24/7 and we were getting soaked - - more importantly, our camera equipment was getting soaked. No way- Jose - - we had to turn around at that last bit of trail.

Now that we know what to expect we will return to tent camp and do more trails at a leisurely pace. I hadn't been to Yosemite since I was 15 so there were some things I didn't remember clearly. Sadly, 2 days after we did that waterfall hike we heard 3 people perished falling in - well, one young gal climbed over the rail for a picture (!!!!!) and 2 jumped in trying to save her - all 3 dying. People - learn to respect nature - this was very scary to hear and hundreds of people saw them perish from the trail. :(

Day 5 - west to east - Yosemite!

After leaving the beautiful northern Cal rugged coastline we headed back south towards San Francisco before heading east to Yosemite Park. What a treat! It was a looong drive that day - - getting into Yosemite around 4pm - just enough time to drive the main loop and do one shorter hike to a waterfall. The best thing, though, was that this was P's first time to Yosemite and it was my pleasure to share it with him. Also, coming at that time of day meant a lot of the day-tourists had left to drive back to their hotels, and all the campers had headed back to their camps for dinner and campfire. This meant the usual traffic of cars and people was substantially less and we enjoyed it greatly at the Golden Hour of sunset.



As the sun went down and we were exhausted from driving 8 hours that day we knew we needed to find a place to camp or stay. Of course all the campsites were full so we headed out of the park in a southern direction. I was on the phone with the closest town about an hour away trying to make hotel reservations for that night. As we exited the park and only about 10 minutes out of it was a large hotel that clearly was meant for those who wanted quick access to go back and forth to the park without camping in it. We were so tired, but we decided to go for it and see if they had availability and how much. (I told P of the story of when my ex and I went to the Grand Canyon and paid almost $200 to stay at the closest piece of junk motel to the park entrance.) Patrick didn't even park and stop the car but let me out at the lobby and I went in - where, miracle of miracles, I got the last room AND it was only $129! A DEAL!!! E loves a good deal!