Dustin made it to Yosemite on his bicycle with nary a glitch. Our only complaint, Uncle Dean, is that they charged the cyclists $10 to get into the park. What’s up with that? It seems that they should be rewarding the environmentally conscious who choose to bike in. Besides paying for 10 sag cars and several camping spots. Some of the riders, rather than pay the $10, waited for a sag vehicle got in and rode across the entrance in the car, got back out and continued their ride. This did little to dampen the weekend, however, and we had an amazing time—as we always do in Yosemite. The weather was beautiful and the blossoms and wildflowers were everywhere as well as hundreds of waterfalls. We only encountered two bears, though, which is a little disappointing—but otherwise saw everything we wanted to see. The kids and I hiked to the bottom of Vernal Falls and I was excited for Alice to be on her first ‘real’ hike. She did amazing…I only had to hold her hand and remind her that she was hiking just like Heidi and Peter do with the goats. Jane did well enough in the backpack, but was itching to get out and hike on her own (something I was not willing to commit to). The kids loved playing on the rocks and in the caves, wading in the creeks, making bark ships to sail down the Merced, and eat as much trail mix as they could inhale. We were sorry to leave, and, as always happens when we leave, we regret that we don’t come more often.
We were back in time to properly celebrate Canyon’s birthday on Sunday. Canyon, for the first time, has been counting down the days to his birthday for several months. I have been nervous because I was afraid, with that much anticipation, that I could not live up to his expectations. He had a great day though, and I think was happy with the peanut butter brownies, new legos, books on his new facination—mummies—and from Glen, tickets to see the King Tut exhibit that’s coming to San Francisco this summer. He was happy to announce to anyone and everyone that he’s seven and “so glad that I’m seven now.” We are happily settling in to post spring break mode and gearing up for the next great adventure that is summer.
