What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Vernal Falls, Yosemite

I started writing a post about our vacation that read like your Uncle Maurice’s slideshow about the recent RV tour he and Aunt Mable took of America’s National Parks. I have abandoned the slideshow post, and offer in its stead the following clear and concise unordered list of questions and answers:

• Is Elmer the name of the one bear who visits Yosemite’s Upper Pines campground every night, or just the name given to all Campground Bears in order to better alert everyone to his or her presence?

Ryan cooking Thai Peanut Satay, Upper Pines Campground, Yosemite

• The oldest living thing on the planet Earth is a Bristlecone Pine tree named Methuselah, and although I don’t know which one it was, I am certain I have seen it.
• Even if the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is a bigger living thing than the General Sherman Sequoia, this tree is the size of a cruise ship. Not a SeaEscape, mind you, but the full on Norway.

General Sherman tree, Sequoia National Park

• Note to tour bus drivers on the Glacier Point route: tourists from other countries might not always understand sarcasm when you say “Or you can hike 8.2 miles down to the Valley floor from here if you’d prefer that to taking the bus back to the lodge.” Choose your words carefully, driver, and make sure you tell them to take plenty of water, and a map, so non-accidental hikers like us don’t feel obliged to worry about them for 8.2 miles.

Uphill View not far from Glacier Point on the Panorama Trail, Yosemite

• When looking up at the stars from a sparsely populated high desert campground, always tell your wife “That was just a bird, honey,” even if you know that she knows it was clearly a bat.
• Bring an extra can of fuel for the stove, no matter what.
• If the dirt road you’re on gets so narrow that only the ATVs speeding toward you from the other direction can fit on it, then the campground at the end of the road is not somewhere you want to spend the night.
• How do you say “Please don’t feed the squirrels” in German?

View From Four Mile Trail, Yosemite

More images will be added to this post and uploaded to Flickr as the week goes on.

Ryan and Veronica, Vernal Falls, Yosemite