January 10, 2014
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Epic Road Trip, day 19, part 2
There was a lot of driving to do today as well. I had hoped to be able to spend some time in Yosemite but places and geocache sites kept drawing my attention away. For instance, this mass gravesite. At least that's how I read it. Could have been the year it happened, I suppose.
It was kind of disappointing, actually. Not to mention impossible to park near. And then it was just an odd marker without much info. I'm sure it was tragic to someone, sometime.
Getting out of whatever town we happened to be in at the time (there were just so many), I had to laugh and get a picture while stopped at a red light. Let's see. Decisions, decisions. Dance with the devil or have a Gospelfest?
We stopped at a grave of an unknown prospector.
All that is known about him, apparently, is that he was really short. Or died in the fetal position, hard to tell. I'm somewhat irreverent about such things.
What was important to me was the cache nearby, and the view. And what a view it was!
We saw more views along the way, too.
It was weird to see mountains and trees. It felt very much like home here as we made our way into Yosemite.
The rock cliff faces look solid but there were giant trees growing out of them, which fascinated me to no end.
And the swirly patterns in the rock faces was really fun.
The kids were hot so when we found water, we stopped to play a bit.
Things were pretty but nothing spectacular, and nothing that resembled photos I've seen of the place. We drove for hours trying to find some familiar landmarks, only finding one after a short walk to some restrooms. Since I'd just been aiming for the bathroom, I hadn't taken my camera. Whatever.
So we continued on, stopping at the ranger station to ask about sites. Found out it's about an hour's hike to one place we wanted to see, a 45 minutes hike to another. We cruised on just seeing what we saw from teh car and regretting the day wasn't longer. We did stop to say hi to a raven.
The raven was so hot it didn't even fly away as we parked about 5 feet away and rolled down the windows and stuck cameras in its face.
It didn't close its mouth one time while we were there, just stood there staring into the middle distance with mouth agape. I suspected it would have been okay riding around in the A/C car for a while. It looked so hot and miserable. We left it in peace after getting a shot of the sign nearby.
And, maybe the only photo of Yosemite that looked "right":
After that we skedaddled to Roseville to my brother's house before it got too terribly late!
Comments (1)
You were getting tired! In 1872, there was a7.6-8.0 earthquake in Lone Pine -- 27 people are buried in that gravesite. Hmm -- Tioga Pass and Tuolumne Meadows -- Yosemite high country. You can't rush Yosemite, but these are great shots that capture some of its essence! I, too love the trees growing out of the rock -- and the swirly patterns, which are where chunks of rock flaked off! Love the raven, too!