Life of Wry

John and Alexis took River to Yosemite for the first time and posted a photo on Facebook today of the three of them hiking to the top of Vernal Falls (well.. two of them hiking, one riding).

And, oh man, I hope it’s the start of many a family tradition!!!

It brought back a wonderful memory of Jim, Peter and me hiking to the top of Vernal Falls.

It was October of 2005, and the whole family spent a long weekend at the Ahwahnee Hotel (some, like us, stayed in the tent cabins), celebrating Aunt Joy’s 70th birthday.  It was a fantastic weekend, full of fun. Here’s the group…

Jay’s looking down, Conner’s face is covered, Uncle Vic’s in the shadow of his hat, and Chris is partially obscured, but otherwise, pretty good shot. It looks like Uncle Bud and I had picture taking duties. Since the photo is missing Uncle Bud, here’s a particularly wonderful photo of him taken a couple of minutes prior…

(He was looking up at Yosemite Falls on a very sunny, bright day!)

Anyway, the reason I went back into this archive was to check out our own pictures of Vernal Falls. Peter, Jim and I went up with Jay and Chris that day and had a fantastic time. Peter was seven and did a great job on the climb:

Here are Peter and Jim grunting up the valley wall amid lovely fall color:

P and me:

(He had a very loose tooth on that trip which came out ten days later…. and could have been his first)…

Back to Vernal Falls…. here are we three at the top:

I love these guys and this place so much.