Whirlwind Yosemite Trip: Part 1

Today, I will continue with the epic saga of "Relive my whole life in two months." This time I found myself in Yosemite for a whirlwind trip that lasted 37 hours. The players were Mum, Jason, Connor, and I. With everyone picked up, we were on the road by 9AM. An hour and a bit later, we stopped at Casa de Fruta, which my father once infamously pronounced as, "Caser de Fruter." To which Mum said, "There are no 'Rs' in Casa de Fruta." Dad responded, "I can't help if they are silent." And we all replied, "And nonexistent."
Connor noted that just about every spot was a "Casa de" something. It was at this point that I introduced the boys to the jumping shot.

We only live about 4ish hours from Yosemite, so it didn't take too long to get to the Mariposa Grove. Despite it being past Labor Day, and supposedly the "off season" the parking lot was so full that we had to park elsewhere and use the shuttle instead. But once all that was sorted, we did a little hike. The boys joined me for a second jumping shot in front of the Grizzly Giant.

We continued on with the hike, looking for the Telescop Tree, a tree where the center had burned out but still was living. It took a bit longer than we anticipated, and just about every burn tree we found we looked up into to see if we could see the sky. Pro Tip, the tree has a sign in front of it. We did eventually locate it. Mum thought that we should take a "selfie". I still think it's funny every time Mum says that word.

After we got back to the car, we drove to Tunnel View. I love that we reached it right around sunset. It is certainly my favorite time of the day to see the view. And as always, we did the obligatory jumping shot.

Connor was the only one of us to have not seen Yosemite yet. We were staying in Curry Village. When he learned that Curry Village was in the valley, his eyes lit up. Something about, "We get to stay down there?!" Yes.... yes we do.

By the time we checked in, it was around 8PM. Most of the restaurants were closed. The one that was left open (pizza) was going to be open until 10PM, so we all opted to put our bags in the tents and take showers. Another Pro Tip from me to you: even if you get back into the same clothes you were wearing, if you wear fresh socks, you will feel better. Jason in particular felt that I was right.
We ate a massive amount of pizza. (I might have "won" at 5.5 slices.) And afterwards we played Nertz. After finding that three of us had a two of clubs and only he had the ace, Connor invented a clever new move. He threw the two into the air, put out his ace and the two landed on top. I didn't even realize what had happened. But there was a two on the ace and it wasn't mine. We pronounced the move legal because it was kind of amazing.

Mum headed to bed and the boys and I did a little stargazing. I spotted the only shooting star of the night before we all turned in. In the morning we would be continuing on with the second half of our whirlwind trip.