It's about a 4 1/2 hour drive to Yosemite, another 1/2 hr to our tent (White Wolf lodge/campground), and another 1/2 hr to Tuolumne Meadows, where we dropped off Kim and Brent. It took us a little longer, because, well, we got lost and probably had a 45 minute or hour long detour. Oops! Charli was being really good, though, and we weren't in a giant rush (especially since I had already made us leave 2 hours later than Brent wanted to leave. I told him the night before that there was no way we were leaving at 7am - he took that to mean, well maybe 7:30. I didn't mean that either, and eventually we left more like around 9), so it was pretty relaxed.
When we finally got into Yosemite, we went to Yosemite Valley, which was not in the direction of our campground, but it IS where all the big sights are. We parked and put on Charli's backpack and moments later we stopped under a canopy in the parking lot to readjust. Charli's backpack was on the ground, someone was holding Charli, and probably 4 of us were under the canopy when I think Kim noticed a car coming along that had a flat tire. Poor guy, we thought! Until we realized that he apparently wanted to back in under the canopy we were under. He drove by the side of it, drove over a bunch of cement parking space things that
were off the side of the pavement (gee, I wonder how he got a flat tire), starting backing into the canopy (we were all still there, not quite realizing what he was doing yet), backed into the canopy support as we were all shouting at him to stop and broke it off the bolt holding it to the ground, forwarded a little and then continued to back under the canopy as we all scattered. The guy was a menace. I should have flattened the rest of his tires for him, too. It seems impossible that he didn't see us, but he didn't show any awareness of our presence at all.Once we got over that and Charli's backpack was adjusted (to Dad), we wandered around and saw some waterfalls and El Capitan and Half-Dome. Yosemite has BIG ROCKS. They are, like, BIG. It's like whole mountains made out of one big rock. It rained on us and we put down the rain shield on Charli's canopy. I didn't have a rain shield. We then wandered around the visitors center, and then we got dinner at the food court. Charli was a disaster at dinner, and she didn't want to eat anything. Then we drove to our campground, at which point the joy of a perma-tent became obvious. It was already set up, and it had beds in it, with sheets and comforters, and candles ready for lighting, which was great since it was well after dark (and Charli's bedtime). We set up the pak and play inside and put Charli right to bed, and she went down like an angel. Kim and Brent slept on the floor using their backpacking gear, and we all went to bed.
The next morning there were mules behind our tent, so Charli got to see and touch them. We saw one lick giant boogers right out of its own nose; after that I didn't want to hang out with them anymore. After NOT taking down our tent, we had an awesome buffet breakfast at the White Wolf Lodge. I mean really awesome. Delicious biscuits and gravy, eggs with cheese, yummy sausages (the bacon looked gross), fresh orange juice, good potatoes... The fruit was good too, or so I heard. I didn't have any. Charli ate much better - she had oatmeal that I brought, malt-o-meal from the buffet, a bunch of Dad's toast, a tiny bit of eggs... Actually, she ate better at that meal than she had in days. Camping does that to babies, too, I guess! The funniest thing was that everyone was talking about how good the biscuits were even without gravy, and Kim was eating a plain biscuit with butter, and she gave me some, which I ate. What I didn't notice was that Charli was watching me eat the biscuit very closely, and when I ate the last bite, she burst into tears! Fortunately, Mom had a little bit left, too, which she gave to Charli and then everything was OK.
After breakfast, we headed on to Tuolomne Meadows, where we walked around on the PCT with Kim and Brent for almost a whole hour! We didn't get very far, since we kept stopping to look at Soda Springs and Parsons Lodge and take various pictures, but it was still fun. Dad and Sam tried Brent and Kim's backpacks, and Dad said, unsurprisingly, that Brent's backpack was a lot more comfortable than Charli's backpack. It probably doesn't pull his hair, either. Kim and Brent were supposed to leave us at Parsons Lodge, the northernmost point of the PCT we reached, but instead they had to come back to the car with us because Kim realized she'd left her wallet there. It was bad, but a lot better than if she'd remembered 2 hours later!After that we had to take off, because we had to get back to Oakland airport to drop Sam off for her flight. Charli was much grumpier on the way home than she was on the way out, but unfortunately we couldn't really stop, since we actually had a schedule to make. Sam made it in plenty of time, and we went home and unloaded the van. Right about when we were going to take the van back to the airport (where we had rented it from), Brian got back from his trip. I told him he could meet us at the car rental drop off if he wanted a ride home, rather than taking BART, which he decided to do. Dad drove the van over and I drove our car to bring everyone home. Unfortunately, Dad got lost on the way to the car rental dropoff (the signs are very confusing), and ended up swearing a blue storm when Brian called to check on where he was. Brian said he paid for Charli's college right there, but alas, Charli was not actually around, so it didn't count. Dad finally found the airport, Brian found Dad, eventually they paid for the car and left and found me and we all came home and are going to bed.
Phew! Super long post! More pictures here.
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