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<\/p>\nMonday, third and final day of the long weekend. We woke up early and got moving (well, some of us) before it got warm:
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Before we packed away the tent, Lelani decorated it with a flower. This was an idea I (Andy) had last year: why not count the number of camping nights with fabric markers on the tent. Sonja and Leilani decided to decorate it instead with two flowers for each for night (they each draw one):
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After all was packed, we hiked to some rocks right near the campground. It was the typical glacial boulders on granite outcroppings, which are always fun to climb on and around. Guess who climbed the highest one:
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Before leaving, we drove around the campground and realized it was really big, and probably really full. There were some really nice spots by the stream, but we were happy to be on the edge away from the crowds. And we were also glad we didn’t have a camping spot in Yosemite valley. It would’ve saved us some driving, but they were really packed in, right by roads, and looking really dusty.<\/p>\n
On the road down, we saw the sign for the grove of giant sequoias (is that redundant?) and decided at the last minute to go hiking here instead of up at Glacier point.
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There were even some wildflowers:
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Leilani turned some lichen into a fashion bracelet:
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After a mile walk on the old road to Yosemite, we reached the sequoia. They always take your breath away. Sequoia are the largest living single stem organisms in the world. This picture is a composite of 2, because the trees never fit into one picture.
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Close up:
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This one was already dead when they cut the tunnel through it so that stage-coaches on the old road could drive through.
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We didn’t see much wildlife so we resorted to photographing chipmunks:
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Back at the trailhead, Leilani sits on the reproduction of a trunk, showing tree rings going back to Roman times BC (the trees live over 2000 years).
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We stopped for lunch with a view on the road to Glacier point, made famous by Ansel Adams’s photos:
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Further along the road, we finally saw a bear. It crossed the road with some food in it’s mouth (you don’t want to know what it was eating), and went down into the forest to eat. We found a spot to park and were fortunate to have a safe spot to watch it. It must be a small juvenile, probably from last year now on his own:
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We finally made it to Glacier point in the afternoon, none of us had ever been there. The views were spectacular. Mt Starr King(actually from the road before Glacier point):
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And Half Dome with Vernal falls below it to the right in the forest:
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Leilani spotted this grouse:
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We climbed around on the rocks and enjoyed the views for a long time:
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I tried to take Leilani “on top of” Half Dome:
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While we were sitting here, Leilani ran off and played with the boy, daring him to climb as high as she did. I had to go make sure she was safe:
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There were lots of people gathering to watch the sunset, but we left early to go back down. We decided to stop back in the valley for pizza before the drive home. Unfortunately, that was really slow and it was 9 o’clock by the time we got in the car to drive home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday, third and final day of the long weekend. We woke up early and got moving (well, some of us) before it got warm: Before we packed away the tent, Lelani decorated it with a flower. This was an idea…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2245"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}