National Parks Road Trip 2017: Yosemite 3

Yosemite Day-Three Highlights:

• We packed up camp and drove all the way to the north end of the park and Tioga Pass Road.  
• We drove past the lovely high alpine Tenaya Lake and stopped for photos at Olmstead Point.  The terrain of the park in this part was so different from down in Yosemite Valley.  It definitely looked and felt higher in elevation, and had parts that were simply huge swaths of granite with tenacious trees and wildflowers sprouting up among the cracks and crevices.
• Luke and Tommy received their Yosemite Junior Ranger badge--the last one of the trip.  The north lodge was closed for reconstruction, and we were afraid that they had missed their chance to get it because we were far from any other part of the park where they give them out.  Luckily we decided to check the backcountry permit office, which was open, and they were able to award the badge.  Phew!  The boys had earned five badges for the trip, and learned so much doing them.  Luke was able to add two more that he had earned on field trips with SITW.
• We ate a picnic lunch beside a quiet alpine meadow right inside the northeastern gate.
• After playing in the snow that still clung to the shady spots, we hiked up to the first and largest of the Gaylor Lakes.  It was quiet in the way that high alpine mountaintops are, where the sound is dampened, yet somehow still echoes.  The air was refreshingly cool after the moderately warm to blistering hot days of the past two weeks.  The partially-frozen lake was so still and reflected the cloud puffs like a mirror.  What beauty!!!  We would have liked to go farther to see the two smaller lakes, but we needed to get on the road.  We had a drive to St. George ahead of us and it was already late afternoon.
• My parents headed on to Reno, where my mom finally went to Urgent Care and they said her wound looked good, no infection, but she should see her doctor when she got home to follow-up.  She did do that, and it was deep enough that her doctor sent her to a specialty wound care clinic, where they gave it a good deep cleaning.  So thankful it wasn't worse and that she stayed free of infection!
• After leaving the park, the boys and I drove along some of the weirdest, loneliest highways I've ever traveled.  One section was totally flat with a flat view in all directions to faded mountains in the distance.  There was nothing but wild grasses all around and then out of nowhere, a forest that popped up--the trees eerily similar, like it was an illusion or a place to hide something that was secreted within.  And then we were through it and on these weird rolling humps, up and down over and over.  Then we drove through a tiny, spooky town where I got gas, but there were no humans to be seen.  Even though I wasn't even close to empty, I wanted to fill up the tank, terrified that I'd run out because we were driving through such long stretches of unoccupied land and I didn't know when we'd return to civilization.  At one point we entered cattle land, and twice I had to slow down because they were just hanging out on the highway.  All along, for about 3 hours of driving, we probably only saw 75 other cars total.  Maybe cows had taken over the planet while we were in Yosemite?  We followed the eastern outskirts of Death Valley National Park at sunset for awhile--which was lovely, in that barren, hot, desert sunset way.  
• We got into St. George at 1:00am, and because of a reservation snafu that was out of our hands, we had to wait almost 30 minutes before we got into our room.  The guy at the counter was so nice and apologetic, but we just wanted to go to bed.  I had the boys brush their teeth in the lobby bathroom while we waited.  When we finally got into our room, we all fell asleep in seconds.
• The next day's drive went smoothly.  We started and finished the second Magnus Chase book.  Then we were home to Dad and our own beds at last!

I am so thankful that we could share this experience with my parents; so glad Adam could join us for the first half of the trip; so blessed to travel with my five road warriors; so grateful for Zac, a great co-pilot for the long trip back; and so much deep, abiding gratitude for the beautiful places of this world and the people who had the foresight to preserve them for the generations to come.  It was a trip that I will always hold close to my heart.