San Francisco

And we’re on the move again… we packed our things and headed out of Yosemite this morning as we make our way back to Northern California for Corey (Bryan’s younger brother) and Amber’s wedding. Since Bryan and I have never been to San Francisco together (I’ve been for conferences and Bryan came through on a visit to his brother when our nephew, Cove, was born) – we thought it would be nice to visit the city together.

So what do you do with only 6 hours in San Francisco?

First stop, after dropping our bags off at Hotel California, was the Wholefoods Market for dessert before dinner. They have a GREAT selection of Carmela-friendly desserts so we prioritized going there first. Then it was onto the World Famous San Francisco Cable Cars. While you can catch these at various stops along their route, we decided to start at the turn station at Powell Street - it was cool to see them be manually turned just like the old days.

We then rode UP and DOWN the steep San Fran streets on the cable car – Bryan even got to ride standing up, hanging on the rails. I couldn’t help but sing “Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat! Ding! Ding!” jingle while we rode (yes I realize I’m dating myself and Bryan’s students will likely not know this jingle, but with the miracle of the internet I’m sure you can find it out there, somewhere). Our driver was fantastic! He had a great personality and really made the experience that much more memorable for us.

The cable car brought us from Market Street down to Fisherman’s Wharf on the water. The wharf is famous for many things, besides shopping (boring!), there’s the Pier 39 Sea Lions, Alcatraz, numerous street performers, a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and lots of places to eat, including The Crab House at Pier 39. Since California is known for Dungeness Crab, we opted to have local fare for dinner. It was delicious (yes, that's Bryan wearing a bib) and our seats were perfect – we were overlooking the bay and got to watch the Sea Lions and enjoy the spectacular sun setting behind Golden Gate Bridge. All in all, it was a lovely way to end our vacation for two since on Wednesday we’ll be meeting up with lots of family, from all over the country, for pre-wedding fun.

Arriving in Yosemite

It was so strange waking up in Death Valley this morning and having it already be 98 degrees at 8:30 in the morning. It was a little sad walking around and seeing birds hopping along on the ground with their beaks open, seemingly panting in the hot morning air. Dry heat or not – it was still ungodly HOT!

As we made our way out of Death Valley we were quite pleased to watch the external thermometer in the car go down as we made our way through scenic, winding canyons and along side the snow capped Sierra Nevada mountain range until we finally reached Yosemite National Park – where we’ll be staying for the next 2 nights in the Yosemite Lodge.

The first thing I should mention is - Yosemite is not only extremely beautiful but it is HUGE! Before going to the Lodge, since we drove in from the East on the Tioga Pass we planned to stop and hike around Tuolumne Meadows. After a lovely picnic lunch in comfortable 75 degree, breezy, sunny weather we headed up Pothole Dome. We had a choice of either going up the Dome via a nice easy, gradual trail – or to scramble up the Dome’s rock face… can you guess which way we decided to go?






The view from the top was postcard picturesque! Everywhere we turned our eyes were flooded with beautiful back drops, dramatic vistas and extreme color contrasts – it is no wonder that artists and photographers (like the famous Ansel Adams) flock to Yosemite! After playing on top of the dome, we made our way down to the meadow. On our way down, as we tried to find the meadow trail, we were startled by a Black Tail fawn that came bounding out from behind a downed tree only a few feet away from us. It leapt away from us with such speed and grace that we didn’t have time to do anything but stare at it racing away. It was SO neat!

After recovering from our deer encounter, we found the trail and decided that instead of heading back toward the car, we would head deeper into the meadow and the woods for a bit longer. I’m so glad we did! Not even 5 minutes into hiking we spotted a herd of Black Tail Deer amongst a cluster of trees in the center of the meadow. There were at least 7 deer that we could see – some grazing, some bounding around chasing each other, some laying stock still in the grass looking very regal. It was very impressive!

After watching them for about 10 minutes, we reluctantly decided to move on (the swarming mosquitoes helped to motivate us to get moving). After walking another 10-15 minutes on the trail, the trail curved into the woods and we spotted a Black Tail Doe and her TWO fawns! We very slowly moved in closer until we were about 50 feet away from them. We got close enough that we could see the spotted fawns playing and nursing. We felt fortunate to be so close to something so beautiful and lively. The deer were aware of our presence, but didn’t seem to mind as long as we stayed still and at a distance. We often use the expression ‘frozen like a deer in headlights’ – but as we stared at each other we could not help but wonder if we looked like ‘humans in headlights’ as we gawked at them.

After returning from our hike, we climbed back into the car (did I mention that it is a Mazda 3 – zoom, zoom?) and made the hour and a half drive into Yosemite Valley to the Lodge. I told you Yosemite was huge. We have a very short amount of time here to explore as much as possible – so for now, we’ll leave it that today was another incredible day and tomorrow will likely hold even more for us.

By the way, have you figured out who wrote today’s blog? Feel free to cast your votes in the comment section: Bryan or Carmela?

Death Valley

I wasn't sure if I should have titled this post "The beautiful colors of the dessert", or "Help me, I'm melting!". The surprising thing for me about Death Valley was how beautiful and colorful it can be. The part that wasn't so surprising was how tremendously hot it is. I know what they say about it being a dry heat - and it is - but so is a blast furnace!

Today was a day of extremes - we started out in Brian Head, Utah which is a ski town at almost 10,000 feet elevation and then we ended up in Death Valley, including Badwater which is 282 feet below sea level, making it the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. We decided that neither extreme is really for us. While the mountain top was typically 50 degrees cooler than Death Valley, we found the altitude a bit difficult to adjust to - headaches, plus trouble breathing and sleeping. It was difficult breathing in Death Valley, too, but that was because 118 degrees can take your breath away.

The drive from Utah brought us through the northwestern corner of Arizona (about 20 minutes), and then across Nevada before ending up in California. We planned to stop at the Whole Foods in Vegas in order to get supplies for this next leg of the trip, so we figured we'd spend a bit of extra time and drive down Las Vegas Boulevard for fun. We had been there about 7 years ago, and it was interesting to see how it had changed.

Once we got checked into the Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, we headed out to see the sites. It was already around 4, but we'd be leaving first thing in the morning, so there was no time to waste. Badwater, as mentioned before, was our first stop, and then the Devil's Golf Course. Both of these are areas that have massive salt deposits from ancient times when it was a saltwater lake. Next, we drove through Artist Drive and stopped at Artist Pallette - a beautiful area that has multi-colored hills from the variety of minerals. While there we also really noticed these interesting bushes that seemed to shimmer in the light (extra credit for any of my students that can post a comment with the name of these plants)

Our last stop was Zabinskie's Point, which was well timed for sunset. This was an overlook that was perfectly situated to capture the incredible effect of sunset on these "badlands". The way that the shadows give added dimension to the hills was amazing. Thankfully, it cooled down once the sun went down - I'll bet it actually dipped below 100 by the time we went to bed.

Arriving in Utah

I am so glad that we refreshed at Twin Springs Resort so that we could handle the 11 hour day on the road yesterday. From the Twin Springs Resort, we traveled to Brian Head, Utah. We did stop briefly in Salt Lake City to pick up groceries at the Whole Foods, but it was otherwise another big driving day. We took a different way out of the remote valley in Idaho, having us drive through slightly better forest roads and acres upon acres of vast wilderness. The occasional roaming cattle were the only reminder that people actually lived out there, somewhere. It was almost an hour before we saw another person. Once we were out on the highway, the driving got much faster, but the scenery stayed amazing. Speaking of speed, Carmela particularly enjoyed the long stretches that had an 80 mph speed limit. Our drive through the rain was the first precipitation we’ve seen since we left home.

Today is mostly getting ready for the week and doing some “chores”. While we had picked up specialty goods at the Whole Foods in Salt Lake City, that was 4 hours away from the destination so we didn’t do a full shopping trip. Today we drove to Cedar City to shop for the week. We also did laundry since we are in a place that allows for it (and we’re almost out of clean clothes). This is also the day to get on the computer and do work. Carmela is working a bit on her poster for work, and I am actually posting the blog for the past several days. At Twin Springs we were unplugged and then yesterday was far too long of a drive to get online last night. Now it’s time to plan out the week’s trips to Zion and Bryce Canyon.

Driving to Idaho

Today was a driving day – our first major one of the trip. It’s not that we haven’t driven quite a bit already, but today was all about the drive. We left The Dalles, Oregon around 10:00 this morning and arrived at our destination around 6:30 in the evening. While we stopped regularly to refuel and stretch our legs (the picture is of me at one of the rest stops), our only real stop was at 4:00 at the Boise Co-Op to buy groceries for the next few days (this is also where it hit us how hot it was). It was a cool store that was very reminiscent of Whole Foods (which we always search for when we travel because it is so much easier to find Carmela-friendly options).

The drive to Boise was all major highway, but scenic and beautiful (The video of the windmills was taken right after Carmela commented - "Idaho really does grow everything, not just potatoes"). The road from Boise to our destination, Twin Springs Resort, was NOT highway. “Remote” doesn’t even describe the place – I couldn’t even find it on Google Maps and had to use the GPS coordinates to navigate to it. It was only about 40 miles, but took us almost 2 hours. I’m really glad that we planned ahead and left early so that we would be sure to arrive during daylight – these were not roads that I would have wanted to be driving for the first time in the dark. As you can see in the bit of video that I included, there are twists and turns, rough dirt road, no side rail much of the time, and a long sudden drop if you were to go off the road. It was great!