Ben's Blog

We left San Francisco around 6PM, which is less than ideal with traffic, but with everyone's hectic work schedules, it was the best we could do. Suprisingly the traffic was not bad, and we made good time until we stopped in Pleasanton at In N Out, a Yosemite tradition. Whenever I headed to Yosemite I usually stopped at the In N Out in Tracy, but Xavier pointed out the In N Out in Pleasanton, which will take future Yosemite trips to a whole nother level. It's like the Broncos discovering the talent of Mike Anderson when Terrell Davis went down. Alright, double prizes!!!

After a quick stop at Bev and Mo, we headed back on the road. Let me explain the car situation a bit. In my 4Runner we had the back cargo area completely full of stuff. I could not see out the back window--at all. And we had five people in the car. I don't know how the ladies survived sitting in the back, but they never even complained. But, as always, suffering on a trip makes for better memories and better stories in the end, and that's all I'm pretty much after on this site. So anyways, we're heading up into Yosemite, listening to some good tunes, and enjoying having the road to ourselves. I think we saw maybe one car from the 108/120 turnoff until we arrived in Yosemite Valley. We rolled into Upper Pines about 11:15 and picked out a campsite. The folks in the next site over were kind enough to shine their spotlights over onto where we were setting up our tents, which helped things to move quicker. In no time we had setup our tents and were crawling into the sack. Now for some very stupid reason, I had decided to pack my summer sleeping bag. Bad idea. I woke up around 5:30 and was freezing, but somehow managed to daze in and out of sleep, having some very trippy dreams. Suicide Sue was very brave and slept outside, but not without some fear of bears. ;)

We woke up a little late in the morning (my alarm got under my sleeping pad during the night and after breakfast, headed out to the trailhead. We drove back west through Yosemite Valley to Wawona tunnel, where the trail started. There was no snow at 5,000', so (much to the disappointment of Julie, Elaine, and Susan) we began the trek by carrying our snowshoes.

Shortly after starting up the trail, we had already lost the trail. We found out later that there was a spur off the main trail out to a rock above the tunnel that had a good view of Yosemite Valley. It's pretty embarrassing that we lost the trail in the first five minutes, but it adds interest for you, the reader, so I'm going to write it down, since I'm all about good stories on this site. Xavier and Susan headed up the hill and caught up with the trail again, so we were back in business. We made our way up the hill through switchbacks for an hour or so until we encountered enough snow to put on our snowshoes. This made Julie, Elaine, and Susan very happy, since this was their first time snowshoeing. They realized how easy and fun snowshoeing is, and I'm glad their first experience was a good one.

We trudged up the path and--losing the trail from time to time--didn't make the fastest progress. However, after four and a half hours we made it to (we think) Stanford Point, and stopped for a bit to enjoy our tasty sandwiches and incredible views of El Capitan, Cathedral Rocks, and Half Dome. It was worth the trip to see these incredible views.

After we took one thousand and one photos, we headed back down and made great time. We ended up getting back before sunset and without incident! After a quick stop down in Curry Village for firewood, we drove back to camp and had dinner. And what an incredible dinner it was! Corn on the cob, tomato salad, veggies, and some incredible steaks made for a rewarding meal after a good hike. My compliments to the chef(s). The ladies valiently attempted to make fried bananas but it didn't work out--instead they were quite successful with carmelized apples. Very nice with hot chocolate on a cold night!

The next morning we had a great breakfast (camping with Xavier's cooking should not be called "roughing it"), packed up, and headed back into San Francisco. We made good time and had some great conversations on the way down, rolling into SF around 2PM. I had to hurry since I was picking up a friend at the airport at 2:15. Oops...guess I was caught trying to throw my arms around the world. I dropped Susan and Elaine off and headed back home. Julie and X were nice enough to unpack the car while I cleaned up quick before dashing to the airport.

Fortunately, my friend Trevor was late in taking off from London. Since Trevor is an Aussie and enjoys watching American football, I figured I'd take him out to watch the great American sport with fellow Americans (yes, I just used the same word three times in the same sentance). We met up with my cousin and friends down at Perry's Bar to grab some dinner and watch the game. Trevor is quite the world traveler (as are most Aussies) and we had a good time chatting about work and travel. I am not sure if we were too busy talking, but the SuperBowl did not seem that interesting. To me, Pittsburgh didn't play great, and Seattle just couldn't get anything going. I wonder if Holmgren was trying too many tricks (aka Mike Martz) and couldn't establish a rythm for the offense. Anyways, at least it was close and kept us somewhat interested, eh?