Yosemite in Fall

We are just concluding a whirlwind weekend of hosting Karen and Calvin.  They arrived late Thursday night and left today after church.  We knew this precious time with them would fly by and it did, but our theme for the weekend became something Auntie Karen comforted Ella with, "We'd rather have even just a little time together than none at all, right?"

On Friday while the girls and I were at school, Dave introduced Calvin to geocaching at Knight's Ferry.  Then on Saturday we enjoyed lots of time to catch up and visit in the car as we drove up to Yosemite.

After a stop at Tunnel View (above), we took the winding road up to Glacier Point.  Late nights, early mornings and hours of hard play had the kids actually all fall asleep in the back like this!  Yosemite has a number of breathtaking sights, but the one of these cousins all cuddled up and snoring was probably my favorite of the day!

At Glacier Point we ate a picnic lunch, took in more great views of the valley and met a really cool family who noticed and commented on my school sweatshirt, then shared their own faith story with us.  How cool to be in such an amazing place to begin with and then to feel such a quick connection to strangers because of the Christianity we share!  A true taste of heaven! 

Yosemite is splendid all year long and to see it in fall was something new for us.  Up in higher elevations it looked pretty normal, but on the valley floor there was some beautiful color.

The strangest sight to us was probably that of Yosemite Falls (above) and Bridalveil Falls (below) completely minus the falls!  We anticipated the falls being low to nothing since major snow has not yet fallen, but to see just the dark path in the rock that the pounding water carves out was fascinating!

We made a new stop in the museum and watched a movie about the history of Yosemite.  There were lots of interactive exhibits that our super-smart nephew ate up.  We checked out the topographical map (above) and gave John Muir bunny ears (below).

Since the days are shorter now, we did something else new too-- stay at Yosemite all the way until dark!  As we drove up and out, we marveled at the huge "Man in the Moon" full moon that hung above Half Dome.  I think that's just about every season we've enjoyed Yosemite in now and close to every family member we've enjoyed it with!