Phenomenal Cosmic Landscapes

Update: Pictures of our trip are here.

I decided that after I die, when I am asked by a celestial government worker whether I have a preference in re: my next life, I will request to be a member of the Ahwaneechee tribe in Yosemite about a hundred years before the white people came. Hopefully the Lad will also request this, since I think it would be nice to be together in the next life. No doubt I will then die in childbirth and he will be eaten by a bear, but in the interim years between birth and horrible death we as Ahwaneechees will enjoy some truly phenomenal landscapes together.

On this trip, however, we came to the park as the aforementioned white people. Though we missed out on the more pure, tourist-free experience of the early Ahwaneechees, I was glad to be a card-carrying member of the now when I saw our hotel room, whose private balcony overlooked the grumbly river and whose Jacuzzi tub was big enough for two.

I can’t remember the last time I had so much unbroken time with the Lad. We schlepped around to the various waterfalls and hiking trails on offer, making fun of the people carrying ski poles on their hikes or wearing North Face t-shirts. We mocked the people filming the gift shop and laughed at the people trying to take good pictures of stunning views. We become known as “the two-baskets-of-bread couple” at the Ahwanee. We vengefully undertipped. We saw a fox and a baby deer but never a bear as I had hoped. “It would be great if a bear broke into our car,” I said. “Like being robbed by a celebrity.”

What I want to know now is, why haven’t we been visiting Yosemite all these years like Katie Vigil was always encouraging us to do? It’s only four hours away. It could conceivably even be a day trip. From now on, I intend to spend at least one Saturday a month there. Four hours in the car, three hours on a hike, two hours napping in a meadow, four hours back. Who’s with me?