For the long President’s Day weekend we decided to go to Yosemite. We were thinking of going up to Tahoe to go skiing but since this winter has left some to be desired in the snow department, we decided that Yosemite would be fun snow or no snow. We rented a cabin in Wawona, Ca. Wawona is a small Census Designated Place (a concentration of population outside of a legally incorporated area…yup I’m still a nerd) entirely located within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. There are a quite a few private cabins that people also rent for vacation rentals.
We did our normal program for taking Oliver on a road trip, which means we pack the car, have dinner, put Oliver in his PJs, and then hit the road. We got to Wawona around 11pm, unpacked the car, had a beer and hit the sack.
The next day we decided to go down to the Valley and check out the big rocks and some falling water. We brought Oliver’s little balance bike, so he rode and we followed. He’s pretty quick on the bike, but he’s pretty good at stopping and waiting for us. Riding his bike is his favorite thing to do in the whole world, so threatening to carry him puts him in line pretty quick. We walked/rode from Yosemite Village, up to Lower Yosemite Falls, down to Yosemite Lodge for a little lunch, checked out the Ansel Adams Gallery, and then back to the car at the village. All in it was a tad over 3 miles, which impressed me. I thought I was going to be carrying a monkey and a bike a quarter of the way through. But, nope, that wasn’t the case. He’s a pretty high energy kid, but takes it to another level on his bike.
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| Oliver riding in the Valley |
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| Oliver waiting for us to catch up |
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| Checking out the deer |
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| To bucks hanging out by Lower Yosemite Falls |
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| All of us at Lower Yosemite Falls |
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| Oliver and Meme checking the falls out |
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| Yosemite Falls |
The next day we hung out around the cabin went down to the river and threw some rock. Throwing rocks is Oliver’s second favorite thing to do. He could literally do it all day. We decided to have dinner at Yosemite Lodge. Prior to dinner we caught the sun going down in the valley. Dinner was good, the Yosemite Lodge does a pretty good job for being way up in the mountains and serving as many people as it does.
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| At the river preparing to throw rocks |
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| Sunset in the Valley |
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| Oliver was sleeping so just us |
On Monday we packed up the cars and headed up to Badger Pass to find some snow. The road to Glacier Point ends at Badger Pass. A few years back we snow shoed to Dewey Point, you get some phenomenal views of the valley from there in the winter time. It’s a great hike. We got Oliver some little snowshoes to get him use to going for hikes in the snow. We didn’t think he’d get very far in real snow, as the first night he tried the snow shoes on he was breathing hard after on lap around our upstairs.
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| Oliver walking around in the snow |
We parked the cars, went to the trail head were we strapped Oliver into his shoes, and started walking up the barely snow covered road. Oliver was more interested in playing in the snow. Which was completely fine, so my mom built a little snow man with him, he threw snow balls, played with icicles, and climbed snow banks. Oliver wanted to be carried back to the car. I anticipated that so I brought my gear sled that I use for snow camping and strapped a seat to it for Oliver. While initially he was apprehensive and held on with white knuckles, he got used to it and started to have a little fun. Once we packed the cars up we hit the road. For lunch we stopped at the Iron Door in Groveland, had a little mediocre pub food (homemade potato chips were solid) and a tasty beer. Then proceeded to blaze home.
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| Throwing snow balls |
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| Mush daddy...mush |
