Yosemite Valley

If you have never been to Yosemite, put it on your list and do it.  Having been raised in California to a family of "campers", I have been many times.  This is Marcia's first visit.

 

Above is her first view of the valley, coming in along Highway 120.   

This is the famous "tunnel view".  El Capitan is the large granite cliff to the left, Half Dome far center, Bridalveil Falls to the right.

This is a picture of Silver Strand Falls, an ephemeral fall which is seen pretty much only in early spring.  I don't remember seeing this one before myself.

This is Ribbon Falls, another ephemeral fall, but this one I had seen before, but it did not have the flow it had today.

Here is a better look at Bridalveil Falls, the mist at the bottom was full of the colors of the rainbow, which did not show up very well in the camera picture, but was a wonderful sight.

Above is a picture of Yosemite Falls.  You can see a small area of white just to the left of the trees in the center, which is the lower portion of the falls.  Below is a picture of this area close up.

It is much bigger when you get close to it.

Above is a picture of both falls.  We took the hike (me on foot, Marcia on her new scooter) to Yosemite Falls.  It was wonderful.  I was so very happy that Marcia will now be able to not only see, but to breath in, feel that which we can see...and now she can see things from many different angles.

Here is a close up of El Capitan.  For you Star Trek Fans, this is the cliff that Captain Kirk was climbing in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  Although we did not see any rock climbers today, I have seen rock climbers climb it years ago. 

We did miss a closer picture of Half Dome, but I will include the one below found in the public domain just to make the vision of our trip complete.  My youngest son Ryan climbed Half Dome about 10 years ago, I think he was around 12 years old back then.  No, he did not climb the face, there is route which goes around the back, and then you climb up a man-made stairway.  This year the Park is highly restricting access to the top, requiring one to register a week or more before your climb, and restricting the number of climbers each day.

It was a wonderful day.  Tomorrow we will see the valley from on high (Glacier Point) and visit the big trees of Yosemite in the south western portion of the park.  And with that, I will leave you a picture of our lunch view....

...as we sat in our HHR, with Skruffy and Bubba, looking out our front window at this view, thinking, "Wow, what a glorious Creator we have, and what a glorious creation which has been given to us to enjoy.  Even the trees raise up their hands rejoicing our God.  And the mountains stand as monuments to his Greatness.