Here is our Top Ten:
10. Borrowing the Trailer and Escalade
While searching for a trailer to take, another co-worker offered to rent us his. It was bigger than I was comfortable with, so I ended up borrow my brother's Escalade to tow it. It was really big and made me nervous, which in turn meant I drove slower, which ultimately turned a 12 hour road trip into a 15 hour road trip. Let's just say I'll never use a trailer that big again.
9. License Plate Game
I got an official license plate game for the trip. I don't if Megan or the kids were more excited. She loves that kind of stuff. A couple times, Megan was lecturing the kids about something, then blurt out "Illinois!!!" as she spotted a plate we didn't have. We got all but 3 plates: North and South Dakota, and Delaware.
8. Building a Fort
When we got to Yosemite. All the kids, ours and our friends', wasted no time in building a fort a little ways off from the campsite. They worked on it everyday and spent lots of time playing there. I love that kind of free play.
7. Where's the water?
Apparently, while coming in September meant less crowds, it also meant less water. Some of the waterfalls were completely gone while others were dramatically reduced. Even mirror lake was bone dry. The kids played in the sand of the lake bed instead. Our friends felt really bad that we were missing it. But since we didn't know the different, it was still quite beautiful.
6. Riding Bikes
Probably one of the best things about Yosemite is riding bikes around the valley floor. It is so beautiful and majestic. We loved it. We did have problems keeping all the bikes up and running (kept getting flats) but it was a blast.
5. Melted Forks
A strange phenomenon from one night at the campfire was the melting of forks. Apparently, the kids felt we had a surplus of forks (which we did) and decided they needed to melt the forks into all manner of odd, artistic shapes. I admit, some were pretty interesting.
4. Dirty Kids
Well, we were camping.
3. Climbing
Yosemite is world famous for it's rock climbing, so I was excited to get the kids out on the granite. The hardest part was finding a spot that wasn't too hard, but challenging enough for them. We found a great place at the base of Glacier Point.
2. Shhhhhh...
What had to be the funniest and strangest moment of the trip was when we visited Mariposa Grove to see the Sequoia trees. As we were walking along the path, a group French tourists ahead of us were very intently watching something off the trail. As we approached, they furiously hushed us and motioned for us to check out what they were seeing. This was about half way through our trip and we had already seen all sorts of wildlife including deer, chipmunks, birds, etc... I was thinking it was a bear (we hadn't seen one yet), but as we moved forward, we spotted a tiny little squirrel about 20 feet away. All of us were so confused about what we were being seen. By the time we figured it out, we thanked the people and moved on. Our friends were good sports and even took pictures to make the group feel good.
[caption id="attachment_2300" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Here's a shot of the excited French toursits showing us the "amazing" squirrel.[/caption]1. Half Dome
As usually, the mountains were calling to me. Half-dome, arguably Yosemite's most famous peak, looked fun. I got a permit and took the girls. My friend and his son came as well.
It was an all-day event. We started at 6 AM and spent all day hiking. The subdome and cables on half dome were amazing - and a little freaky. The girls were AWESOME! Harper understandably got a little spooked on the cables, but we made it to the summit.
Bonus: Flat Tires and the Keys
So, after a big trip, everyone just wants to get home as quickly as possible. We definitely tried to do that. But then we ran into some problems. First, just outside of Lee Vining, the Escalade got a flat tire. It was a huge ordeal getting the tire fixed; especially with the large trailer. It cost us 2 hours of travel time.
Then, in the middle of the night, somewhere in Nevada, we heard a strange sound. We pulled over only to discover the trailer can blown a tire. In fact, it completely shredded the tire. That took about 45 minutes, but, unfortunately, after replacing it, the Escalade's battery died. Aaaarrrggghh!!! We then had to wait another hour for a Nevada Trooper to find us and give us a jump. We finally rolled in at 4 AM.
We thought the adventure was over. We were wrong. Some time between the Nevada flat and home, we lost the keys to the trailer. After tearing everything apart, I had to tell my friend, we'd lost his keys. He, of course, didn't have any spares. In desperation, I even drove back to Nevada to the place of the flat tire to search for the keys. No luck. I finally had to go through the painful process of getting new keys ordered. 2 weeks after the trip, we finally got everything square away.
