Yosemite, The Final Frontier

I've lived within 4 hours of Yosemite National Park my entire life, but I'd never been until this week. It truly is a beautiful place. My Mum, Natalie and I went for two days. The first thing we did was visit the Mariposa grove. The trees are just huge. You can see me jumping to the left of the giant tree in the picture below.

While hiking around the grove, we first saw my spirit animal. This little guy was pulling bark off of the stick to make a nest. Over the course of our visit, I saw multiple little guys. They usually showed up when I was tired while hiking and needed some encouragement. And more than once they would sneak up behind me and scare the bejeezus out of me.

After hiking around Mariposa Grove, we headed towards the valley floor. This is the tunnel that you go through right before seeing the most amazing view.

The vista point is to your left just as soon as you exit the tunnel. It's impossible to drive by without stopping. You can see El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Falls. A guy near me chuckled when I shared, in detail, the significance of El Capitan in Star Trek 5 to Natalie and Mum.

It's necessary to stop and high five in front of Half Dome and Bridalveil falls. If you don't do this once in your life, you are most definitely missing out.

In the evening, I was able to take a bunch of beautiful star pictures right before the moon rose. Almost every picture had a shooting star in it. (Check out the streak on the right side of the picture just above the cliff) After stargazing, Natalie got a little bottle of wine, I got a bottle of beer, mum got a flashlight and we all played scrabble at the lounge in Curry Village.