May 19 Yosemite

We get up bright and early, pack up the tent and head over to Camp 4. We start to take our stuff to the site we scoped out last night.  But, look at that one over there.  It looks really nice and is on the edge of the campground.  That’s the one we take.  Nick’s back is bothering him so I do most of the lugging of tents, sleeping bags, air mattresses, camp chairs…….

It is so nice to be here for 4 day so we can sit back, relax and just enjoy our awesome campsite.  Each campsite can have up to 6 people on it.  It’s first come, first serve.  You just walk around and see if there is a site with fewer than 6 people and then claim it.  Our site is at the back with the camp ground boundary right next to  our tent.  Our site is us, a very quiet Chinese couple that stay to themselves and 2 other young Chinese people.  She just graduated from Michigan with a BS in Astro-physics.  Her friend doesn’t know much English.  He is hoping to go to school here in CA for digital imagery.  He has big fancy cameras and is working on his portfolio for applying to programs.  The campsite next to us is full of East Indians (like 15 of them) Last night they were cooking a real feast and had Indian music playing until pretty late in the night.  Today they have a rotisserie going with some big chunk of meat smelling amazing.  Maybe they will throw us some scraps. 

Nick makes an eggs and bacon breakfast with cuties on the side.  After breakfast, I go take a shower.  This is a happy event for me and probably those around me as well.  Last shower was at the motel at Joshua Tree. That makes 7 days and not 7 days of sitting in an air-conditioned house.  Seven days of hiking in 90 degree heat! Pretty ripe!  There are shower closets for the entire campground which has about 100 sites with potentially 6 people per site.  Yesterday there were regularly 4 people at the picnic table waiting their turn.  Mid-morning was apparently not when most people were showering as I didn’t have to wait at all.  But it hadn’t been cleaned and there were lots of clumps of long black hair.  Glad I had my water sandals on.  Oh, it felt soooo good.  Especially to wash hair.  Nick enjoyed a shower too.

We dawdle enough that we ended up eating the lunches I had packed at the campsite before heading off for the day.  Aw we dawdled, we chased the shade and periodically moved our camp chairs to keep us with the shade.  I enjoyed watching the rock climbers.  Apparently, next to our campsite is a favorite place to go up.  I probably watched 30 people scaffold up the cliff to at least 250’  Nearby were the real beginners.  They were learning a wedging technique and going up about 20’.

The Lower Yosemite Falls trail literally goes right past our campsite. We followed it for about ½ mile and get to the Lower Falls.  Because of the massive snow melt, the river is raging and well out of its usual bed.  There is a bridge that crosses close to the bottom of the falls.  Lots of mist!  Second shower of the day.  This one was very chilly.  Snap that picture and get on across the bridge.

We walked to the next shuttle stop which was the visitor’s center. They are quite close together in this area.  A highlight here is the Ansel Adams Gallery.  I was thinking it would be an exhibition of his work.  There were a few of his pieces but was mainly selling other artists’ work.  I was really impressed with the photography work of Charles Cramer. Bought some note cards and post card of Ansel Adams photos. 

From there we walked to the village store.  We got a few things we needed to make dinner.  But, oh dear, clouds are rolling in.  We fear that if we start walking back to our campsite we could get caught in a real down pour and also wouldn’t be able to cook dinner outside.  We sit down and wait a bit.  Hmmmmm.  There’s a hamburger stand just over yonder.  We could get something there and have our camp dinner tomorrow night. That’s what we decide to do.  Luckily, the downpour never came where we were.  A bit of a sprinkle but that was it.  Catch the shuttle back to our place.  OHhhhh, the road is partly flooded now.  The bus is big enough to make it through safely. 

The East Indian neighbors are in full party mode.  Never got any scraps of meat.  We did get a lot of scraps of music, loud laughter, and frivolity until about 3:00 in the morning.  BLEAH!