Posted by Karen on 24-Dec-2009
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I had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas weekend at Bodega Bay with Tersha and Vic. They invited me the spend it with them at the beach in their trailer and I’ve decided that is a great way to camp! Christmas Eve, we arrived at the Bodega Bay RV Park and set up house for the weekend. Next door to the RV park is the Bell Memorial, which commemorates the generosity Nicholas Green’s family for donating his organs in Italy during an untimely tragedy. In 1994, while vacationing in Italy, Nicholas was shot and killed by highway robbers. His family donated his organs to seven Italian recipients and it helped spur the virtually non-existent organ donation program in Italy and is known as the Nicholas Effect. The memorial contains bells from all over Italy and one large bell which was blessed by the Pope. Donna, a coworker from EDS, and her husband Gary, arrived at the RV park and parked next door, so more friends to visit with. Christmas morning, we walked a couple miles through Sonoma Coast State Park to the beach and enjoyed the solitude of a beach shared only with birds (and one state ranger). After a nice day spent relaxing and talking and getting to know the other RVers, we drove to one of the many lookout spots and enjoyed the sunset over the ocean. On Boxing Day, we took a ride over to the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve for Tersha’s big tree fix. After a few stops at beaches, we turned inland and followed the Russian River to the tall trees near Guerneville. Walking through old growth forest is always relaxing and peaceful, even if you’re being slightly rained upon. After a nice dinner at the Sandpiper Restaurant, it sure was nice to have a dry and warm trailer to retire to! Can you tell how much I liked camping in a trailer? After packing up Sunday morning, we had a leisurely breakfast at the Tides Wharf Restaurant and then headed back home.
Posted by Karen on 11-May-2009
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Our last day here in Yosemite this weekend, so I suggested we hike over to the Vernal Falls footbridge (according to the map, 3/4 of a mile one way) and check out Vernal Falls before heading home because it’s a beautiful waterfall, complete with tons of rainbows. We reach the bridge and ooh and ahh and then decide to climb the granite steps of the Mist Trail to the top of the waterfall. We don our ponchos and get soaked thoroughly on our way up; at this time of the year it should be called the Soaker Trail instead of Mist Trail.. LOL! At the top, we decide to cut over to the John Muir Trail instead of going down the wet granite stairs. While the path on the park map looked relatively short, it didn’t show that it was all uphill, but we made it, hot and tired and then took the JMT trail back down to the car. And that is how you accidentally climb a mountain and turn a 1.5 mile short hike into 5+ miles!
Posted by Karen on 10-May-2009
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The golf course at Wawona had been calling Vic’s name since our visit last year, so he went to play a round of golf this morning and we girls went and checked out the Yosemite Pioneer History Center. I’ve been to the history center before, but can visit it many more times. It’s a really lovely and peaceful setting next to the river and the buildings on display are all in really good condition.
After golf and lunch, we saw a truck drive over a road that cut through the golf course and we wondered where it went, so we went that way too. The road turned out to be the Chowchilla Mountain Road, a former stage coach route, now a rutted, dirt road that takes out out of the park. We followed the road over hill and over dale, next to the flowing river and finally made our way to the summit of Devil’s Peak. Only a couple of tough spots where there was still snow on the road, but we made it. We met a bicyclist at the summit and while we marveled at his strenght to peddle up here, he was surprised we made it in the SUV… LOL! There is a fire watchtower at the summit, but it was still closed and nobody was home. There is also supposed to be a geocache up there, but we all looked and couldn’t find it. 
Back to the valley and pizza at Curry Village (yumm).
Posted by Karen on 09-May-2009
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And it’s a moonbow and waterfalls in Yosemite this weekend. Tersha, Vic, Brianna and I arrived last night and settled into Housekeeping Camp. This was my first time saying at Housekeeping instead of Curry Village and it wins hands-down (if you can get a reservation there). It’s got beds of a sort (bring you own padding and bedding), a firepit and you can cook food there, whereas you can’t at Curry Village. After we settled in, I headed over to Cooks Meadow around 11pm to try and capture a picture of the Yosemite Falls Moonbow. The moonbow is a phenonemon that occurs only under the right conditions of a full moon at the right angle and enough water in the waterfall to produce enough mist for a rainbow. During the day, the naked eye can see the rainbows, but at night they appear silverly and can be seen with time-lapsed photography. So I joined the many dozens of people with their tripods along the path in Cooks Meadow and took a few photos and got one I like. 
This morning we headed up to Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias so that Tersha could get her big tree fix. We stopped at many of the tourist pullout spots on the way because this was Brianna’s first trip to Yosemite and we had to show her all the wonderful postcard views that we could. We took the open-air tram tour of the grove this time and enjoyed it quite well. Afterwards, on the way back to camp, we stopped at Bridalveil Falls, donned our rain ponchos, walked to the base of the 620 foot waterfall and took a shower! At this time of year with the waterfall at peak flow, there is no way to get near the base without getting drenched and we enjoyed evey minute of it!
