This last weekend, the five of us (yep, we took Tuk) ventured south into the heat, to Yosemite. As the temperature display rose, we began to pray that it would in fact, be cooler inside the park! Praise the Lion of Judah, it was! We had a great time together seeing another National Park and doing it more this time with kids. Both girls were with us in Yellowstone, but they were more along for the ride than anything. This time, we made smaller ventures which included swimming. Big hits for the littles and bigs alike.
We camped Friday night at Crane Flat, which is just inside the entrance on the west side of the park. It gave us great access to the rest of the park and an easy place to return to at night. We were so thankful to even be able to find a campsite, as most are reserved by the time February rolls around. When we pulled into our campsite, we both kinda chuckled and smiled. It was tiny, on a hill, a steep hill and we were fairly certain our family size tent wouldn’t fit. But it did and the girls slid down the dusty, dusty hill (anyone know how crazy dusty that part of CA and the park is??! We will all have black boogers for days…) and we all had fun. Saturday, we headed to Glacier Point nice and early to avoid the traffic and the girls were cooperative and ate breakfast in the car to get going. We got there just in time, before the big crowds and before the heat. We got some great views and pictures of Half Dome and El Capitan. Then we headed towards Curry Village where it’s like Family Central.
There is the Merced River for playing in, a pool that the park runs, bikes to rent, climbing, etc and some places to get food and treats. Somehow they managed to get all of this in one place and keeping it not super commercialized. It still looked like an old fashioned base from the 40’s. We were all set to go swimming, when we learned they closed the pool because of thunder. The sweet girl at the desk recommended we head to the river and we could even take Tuk there with us. So that’s what we did and I think we liked it way better than the pool. That was one of the first times I have been around water with the girls and it was relaxing!!! It wasn’t super deep, very gradual entry and it was very calm. We crossed the river, swam, threw rocks, found sticks, threw rocks a lot more and dunked the girls. Much fun had by all, except maybe Tuk who was insanely disappointed that he wasn’t swimming. It was painful for me to not let him as we don’t have that opportunity at home and it was the perfect depth and speed to not worry about him at all. But there were just enough people to be around that I didn’t think they would want a crazed dog running around, out of control about his freedom in water. So now it really is a dream/goal to find a spot like this for him to swim until he is tired and calms down knowing we can stay a long time and he doesn’t have to rush around to take it all in. And he’s calm because he knows we get to go there regularly and he can swim and play with the girls… someday. sigh.
Sunday, we broke down camp early and headed towards Tuolumne Meadows which is just as equally is pretty in it’s own way. We stopped at a lake (I forget the name right now) to go swimming and have a late picnic lunch before heading home. And this was just as great as the river the day before. Slow, easy entry, rocks and sticks to play with and a beach. I am all about the lakes and rivers!!! I can see us in a place where some of this is more in our backyards. Not the national park, but a natural playground steps from the house…
Here are some pictures of the trip
May be kind of hard to tell here, but the pictures of the girls (specifically Tenley) with the tree is a progression of a situation that was playing out that we found to be pretty hilarious. Ethan was trying to get both girls on either side of the tree, looking at me. Tenely was there first and then got mad when Hannah Gray “wasn’t sharing”. You can then see how Ethan was trying to position Hannah Gray so they could see what he was asking. You see Tenley’s reaction. Next, it’s the infamous "Tenley pout” which we now refer to as pouty penguin, see the last picture of her sticking out her tummy and looking at it. Then she just was never quite as happy to be with that tre… so sad Tenley girl… 
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