Archives for July 2009

I’m not sure what happened, but when I was in Yosemite I started drinking water. Lots of water.

I don’t drink soda or much alcohol, but do drink coffee and tea- mostly iced. Drinking more water has slowed my coffee intake considerably during the day too. I drink a cup in the morning and then one in the afternoon. Mostly cuz I love afternoon java. Not sure why….. but it’s great like about 3pm.

Anyway, I got a new water bottle and I am trying to drink 3000 ml a day. I fill it up at work in our water bottles there or with my fridge cuz it filters it and we don’t “buy water” anymore at home. It means filling my 1000 ml bottle about three times a day a goal. I try and have it polished off:

• by 11am
• by 3pm
• by 7pm

So far, I did pretty good this week. Although if I wanted to, evidently this water bottle will tell me all I need to know and more about how to drink water. Crazy. Computer water bottle. What will they think of next?

I think drinking lots of water is supposed to help me keep my body running right. Post making this decision, I decided to do some minor research to see if this is true or if I just made it up in my head. I found out that it:

• speeds up metabolism
• aids in healing and toxin removal
• helps with the removal of old cells and replacement with new tissue
• is 60% of what my body is supposed to be made up of.

So.. there ya have it. Anybody else do the water thing?

…. oh.. and it makes you pee a lot. They tell me this will slow down as I make this more habitual, but so far… yeah… I pee a lot. My bladder clearly is not 1000 ml strong. Oh.. just googled it and found out that my bladder is between 30 and 60 ml strong. That explains a lot!!!!!

Then packed up the swimsuits and a lunch and headed out of the campground for a day of bonding. We kicked it off just outside of camp in Wawona on a 3 mile flat trail around the Wawona meadow. We’re about as quiet as a semi-truck, so we saw no wildlife really, but lots of beauty to behold nonetheless. I hung with the kids and this trail allows dogs so Zeus went too… shannon was all hiked out. She stayed back at the truck and read her book in the shade.

We then made one final stop at Fern Spring for our final fill up on water from the naturally filtered spring.

Then after naps and dinner, Shannon stuck back with the 6 year olds to do some final packing and I took the older ones back up to Glacier Point to watch the sun go down.

After the crazy long hike day, we all slept in for forever.  When we finally did awaken, we had a lazy morning, hung out by the river near our site, and ate breakfast and some lunch in camp.

After lunch, we headed just 5 minutes up the road to the historical exhibit of Old Town.  We listened to a lady tell us all about how it took 5 days to get to Yosemite from SF just 100 years ago and about the home life and current state of the families that initially homesteaded this Yosemite Valley.  Left feeling ridiculously lucky to live in the age I do.  I have no idea what kind of ease will await a generation 100 years from now, but we have it massive cake walk of a life compared to those coming here in the early 1900’s.   After we were done chattin it up and checkin out old stuff, we walked to the store to grab some ice cream.

Then it was more lazy swim time at the river in our Wawona Campground before naps, dinner, and a trip to campfire to learn about bears and even sing a song.  The 3 youngest went up and helped.

Every night we got invited to campfire by the ranger walking through our site, but we never went cuz it always sounded boring and they told me there were no songs.  No songs. Are you kidding me. I have 5 kids.  No songs.  What is the purpose of campfire if it’s not to sing some silly song.  My childhood years of campfire songs and crazy slide shows and stuff made me want to slap someone for forgetting to sing at campfire.  I don’t care what budget cuts get made.  Figure out how to hire a Ranger with some personality and that can lead a lame song about “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmit” or a bunny that says “help me, help me, help me I say” or something.  One ranger told me I could lead it if I wanted to.  I opted out of being youth pastor for the week, so no song leading for me.  But if God ever calls me to be a ranger, slap me if I take the songs out of campfire… or my Grandma might come down out of heaven and slap me herself.  If we don’t  have ice cream, she surely will.  Ok.. rant over.  Here’s some pics of our afternoon. 

Day 5 was a HIKE around the rim and into the Yosemite Valley with the Phillipsons and Hammonds.

Not just any hike either.  It was a monster hike for 6 crazy parents, 9 endurance walking kids, one teen, and one backpack riding 2 year-old.  The 17 of us took a shuttle bus to the top of Glacier Point and then hoofed it the 8 to 8.5miles to the valley floor.   It’s called the Panorama trail and Yosemite lists hikes from Easy to Severe and this one falls under Moderate.  This means that when they call it Severe… they are not kidding.  When they call it Moderate, they are.  Wow.  I will say, while there are 5-6 miles of downhill on this trail, my calves were very mad at me at the end and I was super proud of our kids.  They hiked it like champs.   I would do it again for the scenery alone, but I can’t say that is true of all my family.  At least one anonymous wife is definitely of the “one and done, been there, done that, have the photo proof, and you can find me at the river reading my book” variety.   She and Zeus (who is not allowed on trails) will be bonding I think. 

Here’s the photos.

The pretrip views of the valley (the falls to the right of half dome are in our destination route).

We hiked from Glacier Point, down to Illilouette Falls for lunch and to cool our feet.

Then zigzagged back up the other side of the valley across from Half Dome to Nevada Falls where we rested, snacked up, and swam a little.

We then headed down the famous misty trail to Vernal Falls and finally to the valley floor.  All in all, we started hiking at 10:30am and ended about 6pm which made for some tired feet.

That’s enough to call it a very full day. 

DAY 4 was our first trip from Wawona into the Yosemite Valley. It was our first chance to see the worlds largest hunks of granite. Literally, the LARGEST in the world. (At 3,593 ft., El Capitan is the tallest granite monolith in the world. And believe it or not, the world record for straight up climbing right up it’s face is 2 hours and 43 minutes.) That’s nuts!!! Man what a crazy amazing beautiful place. I think you’d have to live there really long and get pretty jaded by the crowds to lose a sense of wonder and awe that this place inspires. God was on it when he dreamed this place up.

After some pics of the valley, we headed for a leisurely walk up to lower Yosemite falls and climbed up some rocks to chill and have lunch off the beaten path.

Then it was ice cream and hanging out at the indian museum thingy followed by some time in the river as it twists and turns through the valley floor with our friends and the kayak. This makes the second time I took it off my truck and hoofed it to the river with it. It’s like 20 minutes each time, but the kids love it so much it’s just plain fun.