Yosemite!

After hearing students mispronounce Yosemite for months (they say it Yo-see-might (yes, those are fake phonetics. I don't care much for phonetics in a general way...)) finally I got to go see it for myself! Martin and I went for his birthday, leaving Thursday afternoon and driving into rush hour traffic, extending our together time in the car perhaps just a bit more than ideal. I hate the stop and go of rush hour; and then it was quickly dark with nothing much to do and miles to go.

Luckily, Martin isn't only good-looking, he's also smart. So he suggested we play a game: someone picks a letter and then we both look for words beginning with it. I was skeptical, but quickly became very good at it. It was a theme of the trip, with a new letter either in the morning or after a long time being out of the car. There are lots of words that start with c, for example, along highway 49. Who knew? It was a fun way to watch the road as I navigated our way on twisty bits of highway and byway.

Because it was a last minute trip, we ended up staying in Sonora, a very tourist trap looking town with some nice people in it. Our Days Inn even turned out to be in a historic hotel building on the main drag (the soundproofing was less than ideal). It was a little over an hour's drive to Yosemite itself and then lots of time in the car once you get inside the park... I'm truly tired of sitting down.

Thankfully there was lots to see outside. We took some mini-hikes, enjoyed looking at incredible configurations of rocks, trees, and waterfalls that were endless in their combination, yet never boring. It's a magnificent place. I felt like I was in an Ansel Adams photo album pretty much the entire time (but in color!). There was a frightening moment when we were debating lunch options at the food court at Yosemite Lodge. Suddenly, a busload worth of European (mostly French) tourists comes flowing in like a torrent, swarming over trays and working to get into lines in a layout that is not well-designed for traffic flow. We were slightly scared, and so got out while the getting was good, fighting against the stream for the door and then outside to comparative safety. Unfortunately the next lunch possibility was a 20 minute walk back to where we'd just been, but the deli at the end made it all ok.

This weekend adventure means that I've not quite gotten my reading done for classes tomorrow, but look for a post with photos soon! Summary sentence: Yosemite is gorgeous beyond belief, though one acclimates after a few hours. Kind of. And then it gets dark... incredible stars at night too.

It even defies a summary sentence. How's that for a plug?