last minute accommodations

Ahoy,

As a somewhat last minute trip, we scrambled and made our way out to Yosemite on probably one of the busiest weekends. It didn't take long to drive to the general vicinity, but there was a ton of traffic up to and past the gates into Yosemite Valley. It probably took about 1.5 hours to get through Yosemite Valley. In addition to our lack of preparedness, we weren't able to make any reservations because it was less than a week's notice we gave ourselves to plan this trip. The RRS selected one of the walk-in camp sites farther from the Valley, figuring it would be less full. He was wrong, they were full. All full. The whole park was full from now until kingdom come. The park ranger told us not to rely on cancellations and directed us to outside the gates to forest service or a hotel. I stuck around and asked questions that led to our eventual entry with the mission to go make friends with campers who had the foresight to be better prepared and forward thinking than us.

We got a "home run" on the second try and this nice family from the East Bay let us stay with them. They even had a fire roaring. I couldn't believe our good fortune in successfully finding somewhere to sleep, and also the fire that they let us cook with. You all are probably well aware that neither the RRS nor I were boy scouts and our perpetual struggles with making our own means of cooking. It probably would have taken him days to get a fire going like that on his own.

The folks we stayed with ended up being familiar with trad climbing, and one of the guys even wrote a book about Yosemite adventures. One of the best parts about places like this is the interesting people and friends you can make along the way. Everybody is always so nice. We even thought the park rangers were very nice during our trip. Their blatant avoidance of our infractions and cheerful greetings are definitely something to remember.

More to come.

sneakily mosquito'd,
jt