Life of Wry

Here are a few shots from the drive to Yosemite yesterday and our first evening.

I’m a freak for road shots…so here are a few I liked of the trip in. I’d buy this if it were a painting:

A few cows:

That Lake Tulloch place…which always seems so random, out in the middle of ag, cows, and the golden rolling hills of California (as Kate Wolf used to sing of so silkily):

A logging truck making its way down the New Priest Grade..

And the effects of last year’s fires. Nice to see the undergrowth is coming back already…

We arrived and moved into cabin 6… pretty much our favorite for about 7-8 years and counting. Here is the view from the stoop:

And a shot sitting beside the fire. Nice to also see the view into the dining room…

Rose this morning to a brilliant, clear blue sky and mild temps. Looks like a good weather week in store.

Breakfast was with a guy named Fred Strauss, and his family. Fred’s 96 and has been coming to Yosemite annually since he was six, and Tuolumne Meadows as soon as the cabins were built (will have to check that date). Needless to say, he was a wealth of stories. He is a retired civil engineer–very sharp and engaged.. and a real delight. I was surprised that we’d not met him in our seventeen years! He grew up in San Jose (on 15th Street) and I later found out that he’d not only gone to San Jose State, but when I asked if he knew Professor Peterson, he said, “Chemistry. Of course, I had him for chemistry” and then told me a story about grandpa calling him a smart aleck in class one day when Fred tried to challenge him in a lecture.

Meeting people and hearing their stories is one of the best parts about staying in and returning to the tent cabins each year.

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Jim picked a new spot for an acclimation hike.  We started at the Murphy Creek trailhead, right on the main road. The Murphy Creek trail is one of the ways to get to Glen Aulin High Sierra camp. It’s also how most people get back into the Ten Lakes area (putting that on our list for a maybe backpack trip sometime), or is the long way to May Lake HSC. We hiked in about three miles… which felt great.

Here’s a shot to the west (I think):

And here’s one to the east (other side of the trail, in any case):

I love this terrain.

This was a test hike for me, and I was pretty tentative… very uncertain how my hip would handle it. But.. the cortisone shot a few weeks ago, plus high doses of ibuprofen seemed to work okay. I decided to play it safe though, and turn around at this point.. six miles total, though, with some decent elevation gain. Not too shabs!

Jim and Peter continued on. Their plan was to bear off trail toward Polly Dome in search of a cluster of lakes–not even sure they’ve got names.

I returned to the cabin and waited for a text from them letting me know they were somewhere (we didn’t know exactly where they’d come out) so I could come pick them up. This plan failed as there is extremely limited service in most of the meadow and surrounds. After finding the lakes they were looking for and Polly Dome, they meandered through the forest until they got to a place well up the road, but had to walk another three miles before they could get a bar of 1x. They called from Pothole Dome and I picked them up there.

I ended up joining the Strauss clan for happy hour at their tent, which was next door to ours, which turned out to be pretty fun and interesting. Dinner was with some folks from Texas.

Weather, hike, hip, folks… all good. A great first day.