Pondering the seasons

So I decided to take a little break from what I was slogging through at work (yep I am still at work and it is almost 7 - the norm lately and not the exception) and looked out the window. It dawned on me that it is almost October!! How did that happen? The year has flown by so fast, I can hardly believe it.

Looking out that window got me pondering the seasons (now I know I have been at work too long today). The fall in San Francisco is really nice. September and October are the best months to visit SF because of the great weather - not much fog.

Since I was pondering the seasons already (and since I am already half delirious it seems) I decided that my favorite season is Fall. There is just something exhilarating about the crispness of the air. I like when it starts to rain too (most people hate the rain but I actually like it a lot - it is very relaxing to watch - preferably with a warm cup of cider and a throw blanket while curled up on the couch).

The fall is a great time to take road trips as well. You can go practically anywhere before it starts to rain. The Benz is practically begging me to take a road trip (it is quite nice to drive). I wish that I had a free weekend, I would drive up to Mt Lassen and visit Burney Falls. Too bad though, no road trips for me in the near future because of work... This brings me to the end of this pointless ramble - back to work I go!

Sexy Benz!

I picked up my lovely SUV tonight! It is one sexy Benz! I love all the little gizmos that it has (my favorites so far are that it tells you what direction you are driving on what street on a screen between the speedometer and the tachometer and it has a compass on the main screen that shows you what direction you are traveling and what elevation you are at! - great stuff for a person like me). These pictures are taken in my driveway (the blue house is my neighbor's house) Below are some pictures, Enjoy!

Random stuff...

The past couple of weeks have been very interesting. A lot has happened, see below for details:

1) After much soul searching and debate, Baxter was returned to the breeder where he found another family (a little girl and a stay at home mom it sounds like). This was exactly what he needs. My household would not have provided the attention that he so deserves. Having a puppy was cool but it is better for all parties that he found another home. He will be missed but I am relieved that I am not tied down by a dog.

2) I attended my company picnic last Saturday. This year it was held at Angel Island. I managed to talk Louis in to attending this function and invited one of his co-workers who brought his girlfriend as well. The food was tasty and the ferry ride out to the island was very nice. I missed out on the rootbeer floats though because I was a bit too cold. Saturday night, the four of us also went to a Dragonforce concert at the Warfield in San Francisco. There were three bands that played that night: Horse The Band, All That Remains, and Dragonforce. The seats we had were great but the bands required a lot of audience participation. I like Dragonforce's music but I was not really in to all the participation. The show they put on was a bit over the top to say the least. Very theatrical but a bit cheeky.

3) The next thing that happened was that I received an unexpected promotion. This means that I will be really busy until around February but that is okay. I am looking forward to the challenge!

4) The newest happening in my life is that I purchased a new vehicle today! It is a black Mercedes ML 350 with a black leather interior. It will be arriving this week. I will miss my BMW a bit - it was a good car - but I needed a change. It was much more practical for me to have a SUV than a sedan at this point. Pictures will follow!

Pet Pics!

So this weekend I got a new puppy! He is soooooo cute. In light of that, I thought I would post some pictures of all three of my pets:


Baxter - Golden retriever


Big Ben - Red Spotted Tabby - British Shorthair


QE (Queen Elizabeth) - Blue - British Shorthair



So far so good in the harmony dept in my household. My cats are taking the whole puppy thing rather well. QE is not bothered at all it seems. Benny is not eating as much as usual and stays pretty much at the opposite end of the house, but, he hasn't hissed at Baxter yet so that is a good thing. I hope Baxter grows fast so that he can go on hikes!

Yosemite Again! 08/26/06

So after not going to Yosemite at all for about 5 or 6 years, I am making up for it now! This was my fourth trip since last November. It has been interesting to see the change of scenery each visit has brought. I am looking forward to visiting the park when there is snow!

This trip had been planned for quite awhile. My June trip inspired some co-workers of mine to visit and I, of course, offered to take them on my day trip tour. Miraculously I talked everyone in to getting up at 3:30am for this trip (I must have some amazing powers of persuasion or something :-p ) . I ended up waking up at 3am for some reason so that was when my day started. I made two stops to pick people up and we were off to the mountains.

The first official stop was at Scotty's Doughnuts in Oakdale. The earlier you get there the warmer the doughnuts are and let me tell you they taste GOOD! We were not there that early this time though, but that is okay, the maple bars I had were still tasty. We piled back in the car and continued on. The next stop we made was at the Rim of the World vista point. There was a forest fire burning a couple of ridges over so all day we were seeing helicopters with their buckets dropping water on the fire. After the vista point we were in the park! We stopped at my usual Hwy 120 stops (Big Meadow overlook, the Half Dome overlook, the Cascades bridge). There wasn't much water so a lot of my waterfall stops I skipped this time. We continued on to Bridalveil Falls which was a ghost of its former spring self. It was nice not to get wet at the overlook this time though, usually you can't go there without an umbrella or rain poncho. We looked at El Capitan and the Three Brothers, made a quick stop at Sentinel Beach (we tried to outrun the mosquitoes but failed), and parked at Curry Village.

We had quite a sight when we got to Curry Village... A buck was in the parking lot munching on apples that had fallen from the trees in the apple orchard that is the parking lot. He did not care one bit that people were around. After hanging out for a bit we headed out, our next destination being Lower Yosemite Falls. This waterfall also was a ghost of itself. It is a lovely walk though. We meandered our way to the base and back, stopping to pose for some pictures on a fallen log that I took pictures on in June. This time though it was all about the yoga poses! You have to have good balance to do those poses on a log! Once we were done with the area, we drove up to Glacier Point. This was the conclusion of the trip and in celebration we had ice cream on a stick!

It was a fun day and memories of my June trip were still vivid as I looked at the familiar landmarks around the Valley. I have always loved Half Dome but now that I have been most of the way up there I look at it in a different way - I love it even more now. After the long drive home, my day ended around 9:15pm. I skipped dinner and went right to bed!

Pictures in order:

Half Dome overlook from Hwy 120
Jennifer and I doing Yoga poses near Lower Yosemite Falls
Half Dome from Glacier Point

My Other Colorado Adventures 8/10 - 14/06

This is a long one....

The reason I went to Colorado was for my cousin's wedding but while I was there I managed to get in a lot of other activities, thanks mainly to my dad.

The trip started out a bit sketchy due to the increased security at the airport. I woke up to my cell phone ringing. It was my mom telling me to make sure to turn on the news that there had been a bunch of people arrested for plotting another terrorist attack. I spent the next few hours watching the news and going back and forth on whether I should check my bag or buy all of the stuff I needed when I got there. I finally decided that since the plane was small and we were flying in to a small airport, I would check my bag. My grandma did not see the part of the news that said that things like suntan lotion and toothpaste were liquids too so she was detained a bit and they threw out a lot of stuff from her carry-on. Hindsight said she should have checked her bag. Oh well, she took it in good spirits for the most part. My flight was delayed so we didn't make it to Colorado Springs until late afternoon. Once there though we were out and in to the rental car very fast (maybe a total of 20 minutes from getting off the plane to us driving out of the airport).

Friday morning was a play day for Dad and I. I didn't have any tasks until around 4-ish when I volunteered to pick up my grandpa, aunt, and cousin from the airport. Dad and I took the opportunity to visit one of the tourist destinations of The Springs - The Garden of the Gods. This is an area where unique rock formations sit. We started the morning at the visitors center (very impressive). From there we went down to Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site. This is a lovely living history area of the park. We saw a lot of wildflowers and visited an Indian village, an old Homestead, and the house of one of the owners of the property. There was more to see but it was getting hot and we knew we had to make it to the rock formations before it got too hot.

The next activity was to take a driving tour around the rock formations. We got out to hike to the Siamese Twins trail. It is a very short (1/2 mile rt) trail with only 150ft of elevation gain, but I managed to biff it quite spectacularly. I was totally stupid. I was wearing a cute Hawaiian dress with sandals that had no traction at all. I was just asking for a fall. Going up wasn't so bad, only a couple of slips. It was going down that was my undoing. It is surprising actually where I did eventually fall. It wasn't that steep but I hit those tiny pebbles on exposed rock and down I went. I skinned my knee and messed up my toe (I punctured it). I guess I just needed to give a little blood to the rock gods. My Dad was slipping around too on the trail and he had proper hiking shoes on. We took a lot of time to take pictures and made it back in time to take a trip to the airport. My Dad also took the time to patch me up back at my Uncle's house. Thanks Dad!

After picking up my family members we all needed to go to the rehearsal dinner. It was quite a large dinner. We had Italian food, lots of good conversation, and we saw the strangest thing. A fox decided to crash the party. I don't think I have ever seen a fox in real life before. They are really graceful creatures. This one knew right were the food was though. People outside startled the fox off finally because it was getting too close.

Saturday was the wedding and I covered that in my previous post!

Sunday, Dad and I managed to talk my Uncle Mike in to going hiking with us. My dad was the master planner of the excursion with my Uncle Mike's help on where things were located. We took a drive up to Helen Hunt Falls. This is a pretty little waterfall and the Silver Cascade Falls Trail goes up over the falls to an additional waterfall called guess what... yep, Silver Cascade Falls. It was a nice warm up hike for a longer one we took later up the Mt Cutler Trail. This trail was beautiful. It starts off gaining elevation and once you go over the ridge to the other side you have great views of one of the biggest tourist destinations in the Springs - Seven Falls. Normally (and maybe eventually) I would have been all over this attraction. I read though that they had an elevator and that they shine colored lights on it at night... Hmmm, I am not too sure about that whole experience. It was pretty though to look at from a distance during the daytime. We ended up on a point that gave us great views of the Garden of the Gods, pretty much all of Colorado Springs, the Broadmore golf course/resort, a shrine on the mountainside, and of course Pikes Peak itself, one of Colorado's fourteeners. While on that hike though the weather turned south and it began to thunder and lightening and rain. It was quite wet by the time we got back to the trailhead. It didn't look good for our next planned hike which, it looked, was right where the storm was the worst. Until we drove up there though (about an hour away from where we were) we decided that we were hungry so we stopped at one of the local burger places near my Uncle's house. It was pretty good, but I regret not getting a shake. My Dad had a Butterscotch shake and my Uncle had a Strawberry malt... YUM!

Our next destination was on the western side of Pikes Peak. I think my dad said the elevation of the waterfall at the end of that trail was around 8400ft. Unfortunately, by the time we got there the weather was terrible. It was hailing and raining heavily. I actually turned on the 4x4 on the Ford Explorer so that I would feel better driving on those wet soggy roads. We ended up in Cripple Creek. A mining town with lots of casinos. I had been there before a long time ago, and we did not stop this time. We continued on so that we could get back in time to BBQ. It was a completely lovely ride through that area of Colorado. I found a valley that I could move to it was so beautiful and peaceful. We ended up at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. It was really cool there because we saw fossilized Giant Sequoia trees. I have seen the real thing twice this year so it was really interesting to see the big stumps of the trees but made of stone. We made it back home for dinner. That night my cousin Gina, Dad, and Aunt Eileen all went out to see a movie (Talladega Nights is very funny!).

This brings me to Monday. The original plan was to go to Cave of the Winds - a place that I have been several times before, but my Uncle (who has lived in Colorado Springs for around 25 years) had never been. He unfortunately had to go in to work Monday morning so we (really I mean I) didn't have time to go there before I had to go to the airport. I, instead, dropped in on an old high school friend of mine. I haven't seen Damian in a good 7 years but I have known him for probably around 13 or 14 years. He dated my former best friend and I dated his best friend way back when. We remained friends though even after break-ups and when he got married, I made his wedding cake and was one of his wife's maids of honor. I even took his wife out for her bachelorette party!!! It was good to see him doing well. We talked about old times for a while but then I had to go so that I could pick up my luggage and say goodbye to my family before flying out.

All in all, it was a pretty busy and fun weekend!! I need to go back to Colorado though, there is so much to see that I could probably spend several weeks there!

A Wedding in Colorado 08/12/06

I have a lot of material to cover for my trip to Colorado so I am going to break it down in to two posts - one of just the wedding and one for the sight-seeing I was able to do.

My cousin Samantha is the youngest daughter of my Dad's brother Mike. Over the years I have spent some time with my Uncle Mike's family but not much due to the fact that they lived in Colorado Springs and I lived here in California. Even though I haven't really gotten a chance to get to know my two Colorado cousins very well, I was still very happy to be there to witness such a happy event and to get a chance to get to know them a little better than I did before.

Saturday morning started very quiet and calm. The ceremony was at 1pm so all twelve people staying at my Uncle's house had plenty of time to get ready in addition to some of the bridesmaids. I only briefly saw Samantha getting ready but I was given a task that morning to give her husband to be a set of car keys and to retrieve a camera from him when he stopped by. He was already wearing his tux when he stopped by the house with one of his groomsman to pick up Samantha's car. Around noon, a group of us were tasked with decorating the church due to the fact that the people who were to decorate it were tied up at the reception location. I piled six additional people in to my rented Ford Explorer and off we went to the beautiful church. In my SUV was my Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Eileen, cousin Gina, and a close Colorado family friend, Crystal. Decorating was done in no time and we all sat waiting for the event to start.

It was a very nice ceremony. I didn't really get a chance to see Samantha's face but her husband Jon's face was beaming the entire time. I have to admit that I cried and even now I get a tear to my eye just thinking about the ceremony. In no time the ceremony was over and as we walked out to a waiting area in the church I saw that it was raining. I had heard some crashes during the ceremony and did not realize that it was thunder! It was pouring and hailing. Thank goodness we stuck around to take pictures, that allowed the cloudburst to blow over.

After pictures were taken, all the same people except for Crystal piled in the car to make the 16 mile trek to the reception at Mystic Meadows. What a beautiful place. The whole area was green and there was a lovely little pond on the property. The family made our way to our designated table and we feasted on appetizers - a chocolate fountain with various goodies for dipping. It was really my first experience with a chocolate fountain and I have to say I give it two big thumbs up!

The wedding party arrived and it was time to get the party started! There was great food, speeches (one 23 minutes long by the best man), the bride and groom's first dance, the father daughter dance, a Hawaiian dance performed by my Aunt Patty for my cousins Samantha and her older sister (and maid of honor) Cory, cake cutting, bouquet tossing, garter retrieving and throwing, dollar dancing with the bride and groom, all ending with a group dance of the electric slide. I had a great time and I am truly happy for my cousin. The bride and groom managed to leave quietly leaving the rest of us to close the place :-)

My car ended up being the car that carted home a lot of the alcohol (not the kegs though - no room for them!) in addition to a full passenger load. Once back at my Uncle and Aunt's house the party sort of moved there and continued for awhile. I don't know how late it was when I got to bed but I was tired!

I have included a few pictures throughout this post the descriptions are below in order even though the pictures posted are not in chronological order. Enjoy!


-The first picture is of Samantha and her parents, my Dad's brother Mike and his wife Patty.

-The second picture is of my Grandma, cousin Gina, and Auntie Eileen waiting to be driven to the church.

-The third picture is of Samantha and Jon during their vows.

-The fourth picture is of me and my dad at the reception.

-The fifth picture was one that was taken at the insistence of my grandma. All four of the girl cousins (from marriage) in one picture - in order Me, Cory, Samantha, and Gina.

-The sixth picture is of me and Gina. My Auntie E did a good job of taking this shot so I included it!

Congratulations again to Mr & Mrs Calm!

Randomness Part 4 - Special Photo Issue - Flowers Vol 2

The weather in Colorado has been very wet this year so even in August it was very green there. Flowers were in abundance!! The following were just a few of the flower pics I managed to snap during my recent visit to Colorado for my cousin Samantha's wedding. Enjoy!



This flower is Butter and Eggs

This flower is Indian Paintbrush

A Day Playing Tourist in San Francisco

I have lived in the San Francisco Bay area all my life and I work in downtown SF, but I rarely do touristy stuff around here. A co-worker of mine from the Hong Kong office of my company was in town, so it was time to put on my tourist hat and have a good weekend enjoying activities and sights that the tourists usually do!

Saturday morning started with a Segway tour of Aquatic Park and Fort Mason. For those of you who have never Segway'd before, it is REALLY cool! I had a lot of fun. They are controlled mainly by your feet... toe side you go forward, heel side you go backward (for those of you who have snowboarded before it is similar :-P ). To turn you use a controller that you twist it side to side. I didn't have any problems at all learning to ride the Segway - in fact I really took to it fast! It was an absolute blast and the weather was really nice. We couldn't have asked for a better day.

After the Segway tour, we took a walk on the Hyde Street pier and looked at all of the historic ships that they have there. We then took a stroll down along Fisherman's Wharf to Pier 39. At Pier 39 we did a little shopping. One of the things to do is to stop at the chocolate store - a tradition I have engaged in since I can remember. I also stopped at Na Hoku to replace the thumb ring that I lost last weekend :-( It is good that I have been losing a lot of weight but unfortunately my last thumb ring had become so loose that it fell off without me even noticing. The new ring fits quite snugly.

After we looked at the sea lions it was on to lunch. We had clam chowder, sourdough bread and salad with shrimp or crab on it. That clam chowder was good! It was time to start the driving tour of the day.

The driving tour started at Fisherman's Wharf (where we were parked) went through the Marina District, past the Palace of Fine Arts, and over the Golden Gate Bridge (we got out and walked on the bridge a bit and took pictures). The drive continued to the Seacliff area of SF with a brief stop at China Beach and Lands End. From there we drove past the Legion of Honor and down past the Cliff House for a stop at Ocean Beach. We dipped our toes in the Pacific Ocean and drove through Golden Gate Park next. We drove right past one of the waterfalls in my book but I didn't snap a pic so I need to go back! Our next destination was Twin Peaks where we enjoyed great views of San Francisco. By this time I decided that we needed to drive on the crookedest street in the world... Lombard Street! Coit Tower was our next stop (great views from there as well) and then a drive through North Beach and China Town to our dinner destination of Juban in Japan Town. I love Juban, it is one of my favorite restaurants! After dinner the day was over so I dropped everyone off and headed home.

It was a long day but a very fun day!

July trip to Hong Kong

I am yet again suffering from insomnia. This time it is really bad because I am still battling jet lag from my trip last week to Hong Kong. With that said, I figured that since I am up anyway I might as well be productive and write about my trip.

This is the second time I have been to Hong Kong. Last July I attended a finance meeting that included the various finance managers and guests for the international division of the company I work for. This year I was fortunate to be invited to attend the same meeting. I really enjoyed the opportunity to be able to be part of the meeting and found it very informative. It was nice to get to see old and meet new members of the finance manager group . Enough about that though, I am sure you all don't want to hear about some stuffy finance meeting.

What you do want to hear about is the recreational stuff I got to see! I was there for a week but I didn't have an extra day there like I did last year. The one thing I have to say about Hong Kong is that the food is wonderful!!! We ate arranged dinners on Monday night and Wednesday night (a nice Chinese restaurant and then a nice Thai restaurant respectively). Tuesday and Thursday we were on our own. The days we were on our own we went to a mall and had food at the food court (I picked Shanghai style pork chops and rice) and the other day we went to Lantau Island and saw the biggest sitting Buda in the world eating at a hot pot restaurant that evening. The night we all had Thai food the group rode the tram to Victoria Peak. The tram is very steep!

After the finance meeting ended on Thursday and after we visited the Buda but before dinner, we went to a fishing village called Tai O. While there we took a little boat ride to see if we could see any dolphins. Unfortunately we did not see any but it was nice to be on the water where it was at least a bit cooler.

All in all it was a nice trip. I will definitely go back to Hong Kong at some point. I really like it there... I can't exactly explain why, but that just means that if you as the reader ever get a chance to go, you should! I highly recommend it :-)

4th of July Weekend Activities

I have been suffering from the restless feet curse. I go through my phases where I always have to be busy and it usually subsides after a while - so far I am still going strong. My restless feet may have something to do with the fact that I am getting in to the best shape of my life and love to be outdoors, or it may just be because I have waited for a long time to be able to go out and do stuff and now I am in a position where I am able to do that. Having said that there was no way that I was going to be happy spending four days sitting at home.

Saturday we stayed local running errands and shopping a bit. We saw the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" and spent some time in REI where I finally picked up a water filter (it would have come in handy on my previous HD hike). We also picked up Louis' recent purchase - a Glauc. I have not generally liked handguns but since it is going to be in my house, I need to learn how to properly shoot and care for it. More classes to take! The upside is that now that we have one gun and will be going to the range, we will get a shotgun too for shooting trap. Shooting those clay pigeons is very fun!

Sunday was a go somewhere day. I had decided that I wanted to check a few more waterfalls off my list and finally decided that a trip to Lake Tahoe was in order. It is so beautiful up there. The beauty offset the fact that there were a lot of people. Emerald Bay was a madhouse. I had to shark a parking spot - it took me a good 20 minutes to even find a place to squeeze the Subaru into off the side of the highway. The paid parking lot was even full. The two waterfalls to see at Emerald Bay are Upper and Lower Eagle Falls. I only visited Lower Eagle Falls due to the overcrowding. It is an impressive waterfall and you can hang out next to the top of it. Last week a woman actually slipped and went over the waterfall to her death. With this in mind I was careful not to get too close to get "the perfect shot". It was amazing me that people were taking their small children through the water so close to the lip of the falls. The next waterfalls on the roster were Upper and Lower Glen Alpine Falls. While driving there we were treated to a wow view of Cascade Falls. Unfortunately the view from the trail does not offer such a good picture and thus we did not make the trek to that waterfall. The road to the waterfalls on Glen Alpine creek was a test in patience. It turns in to a one lane road that snakes along Fallen Leaf Lake. As you can imagine due to the popularity of Lake Tahoe this weekend there was quite a bit of traffic on this road. It was a not a fun ride for Louis at all. Add to that the fact that the Subaru was not so happy at this elevation - very sluggish and gutless. We eventually made it most of the way to the trailhead to Upper Glen Alpine Falls by car but we had to get out of the car so we walked the rest of the way to the trailhead. I enjoyed the short 3 mile roundtrip hike from Lower Glen Alpine Falls to Upper Glen Alpine Falls and back. After we were done with the falls, we headed to Reno for dinner and rest.

Monday we returned home early and hung out. I was attending a BBQ on Tuesday and I was assigned the task of bringing dessert. I have been wanting to make an apple pie for awhile but seeing as I am really the only one in the household that eats apple pie I haven't made one. This was the perfect opportunity! I made a pecan pie and an apple pie.

Tuesday started with the Tour de Pulgas Ridge! Pulgas Ridge is a small county park that I hike in occasionally and in the spirit of the Tour de France we turned our hiking excursion in to a mini tour. The first three "stages" were won by the sprinting Louis. Once I realized that I was three stages behind, I turned it on and won the King of the Mountains jersey and secured the yellow jersey on the final climbing stage of Stage 4 with a 55 second lead by jogging to the top! The final results ended in me winning 3 stage wins winning two jerseys (including the yellow jersey!) and Louis winning 5 stages and the sprinters jersey. Neither one of us qualify for the rookie jersey so that one went un-awarded. After that was my friend Ryan's BBQ! Tasty food and good company! I was recruiting hard for more hiking victims, I mean participants. All in all the weekend was nice but went by too fast.

What is tentatively on deck for this negative ion addict? Handgun lessons, Hong Kong for a week, my first kayaking class, two day trips to Yosemite, a possible mountain bike/hike to Feather Falls, and my cousin's wedding in Colorado!

Yosemite - Half Dome Adventure 06/14 - 18/06

Where do I begin this long tale...

About six months or so ago I set the goal of hiking to the top of Half Dome. Since then I have been working toward getting in good enough shape so that I could embark on the 18 or so mile hike comfortably. All that training paid off, but unfortunately I did not make it to the top of that granite monolith this trip.

My mini vacation started on Wed with me picking up my dad from my grandma's house (he had driven down the day before from his home on the northern coast of CA). My dad likes to hike and he was more than willing to join the crew I was trying to put together. Our drive up to the park was a nice one. We stopped at a few of the fruit stands along the way in the central valley to get fresh fruit and snacks and made a long stop in Oakdale to pick up the rest of the food that we would need. We ended up getting to the park around 1-ish.

Once we were in the Sierra's we made several stops to check out various vistas and wildflowers. In the park I made most of my usual tour stops with dad - I certainly stopped at my favorites like the Big Meadow overlook, the take-your-breath-away view of Half Dome (pictured above), and at the upper portion of the Cascades bridge. We also tried out a couple of potential new tour stops. We skipped Bridalveil Falls and the Hwy 41 overlook at this point so that we could make sure that we got checked in to our tent cabin in Curry Village also by this time we were both hungry and wanting lunch.

After we checked in and got our stuff a bit settled, we took off to have the before mentioned lunch and to repack our groceries at the Sentinel Beach/Yellow Pines picnic area. My experience has been that this little piece of heaven is not that crowded, even during peak season. When the Merced is lower there is quite a nice beach with picnic tables but when the river is high the beach is reduced considerably. The bad thing about this place is the mosquitos - there are tons of them there. After lunch and after I had made a couple of calls, I decided it would be cool to hike to the base of Sentinel Falls. We made sure everything was put back in the car and we headed up Sentinel Creek. We didn't make it all the way up to the base of the falls due to my tender hamstring (I have been recently recovering from a knee injury and had stupidly strained my hamstring earlier that day). I wanted to make sure I was in the best shape possible for Half Dome that Saturday so I didn't want to push it on this little excursion. Once we turned around though, I realized that we had gained a good amount of elevation and the view was one I hadn't seen before. We had great views of Yosemite Falls and El Capitan. We concluded the day with hanging out on the swinging bridge watching a fish and eating pizza.

The next morning was beautiful and sunny. The weather up there in general was gorgeous the whole time. A bit warm sometimes, but really nice. Dad and I ate some breakfast and decided that we were going to go out to Hetch Hetchy. Before we left though we took a little stroll to the base of Yosemite Falls and hung out in the meadow below El Capitan looking for climbers. We took our time to get out to Hetch Hetchy and by the time we got there it was quite warm and a lot of people had decided to spend the day out there as well. The goal was to hike to the base of Wapama Falls, a waterfall that you can see from across the reservoir. It is about a 5 mile roundtrip hike. I usually have found this place to be a bit creepy. There is something disturbing about the dam and the silence of the flooded valley. This time though I didn't really find it creepy at all.

Our hike was very pleasant but on the warm side. Hetch Hetchy Valley is at a lower elevation than its cousin Yosemite Valley is so it gets warmer. I guess on this trail was when I realized that I really like taking pictures of flowers. I am finding that I really prefer the purple ones... On to the showstoppers though, we saw four waterfalls during our trek. The first was the unofficially named Madeline Falls. Low flow but you could easily see that it was impressive when there is more water. The second one we passed was the also unofficially named Hetch Hetchy Falls. These two are relatively small. The big attractions though are Tueeulala and Wapama Falls. One is a graceful tendril of water dropping down a granite cliff and the other is a jaw dropping massive torrent of water thundering down the wall of the canyon. Wapama is the first waterfall that I have seen since my rating system started that I would give a 5 to, hands down. I find myself wanting to be there when there is water going over the bridges so that I can feel the raw power. Maybe next year... We had our lunch on a ledge beside the waterfall and I took a bit of a nap before we made our way back to the car. That evening we had dinner at the cafeteria at Yosemite Lodge.

Friday dawned bright and beautiful. After breakfast, we rented bikes and rode around the the valley floor. Our first stop was Mirror Lake up Tenaya Canyon. Very beautiful and tranquil. Half Dome loomed above us, inviting us to hike to the top of it. From there we meandered our way to Yosemite Village where we played tourist and saw the visitors center and an art gallery. We got back on our bikes and rode down over the swinging bridge and back up the southside of the valley. We got back and had just enough time to catch some lunch before I went to meet my friend Mark at the park entrance so I could play tour guide. The rest of the day for me was spent giving the tour while my dad did laundry and went on a hike/scramble to the base of Washington Column. Alex showed up as well Friday evening but I didn't end up meeting up with him and his crew until the next morning. Dinner that night was pizza again.

This brings me to Saturday... the big day. I managed to talk 3 people in to embarking on this trek - my dad, Alex, and Mark - in total there were six people present. My morning started at about 4am. I could not for the life of me get good sleep. Added to that was some sort of chaos that erupted in the tent cabin next to mine at around 1:45 - maybe a raccoon got in there or something all I know is that there was some shouting going on. When I finally gave up and got up I was in the showerhouse at around 4:30 when the power went completely out... Talk about an adrenalin rush to wake you up. I am just glad that I had a flashlight and that the water didn't turn off too. By 5:15 the whole party was assembled and we were off to Glacier Point. This was about an hour drive. We parked the cars and got ready to start the hike. Before we left though we checked out the awesome view from the Glacier Point overlook. Half Dome loomed before us looking majestic in the morning light.

Our route took us down from Glacier Point along the Panorama Trail. The trail was just beautiful - well maintained and very pretty vistas. The first highlight of the hike was taking pictures of Illilouette Falls. Passing this waterfalls was one of the reasons I chose to leave from Glacier Point. From there we climbed a bit along the Panorama Cliffs and the we descended down to where we met up with the John Muir Trail which lead us ultimately to Nevada Falls. This waterfall is one of my favorite waterfalls, if not my absolute favorite. We all decided to take a little break here to snack and to snap pics. For me it was also time for a sock change. I have to say that the sock change helped to insure that I didn't get any other blisters on my feet than I already had from the previous days hiking. From Nevada Falls the trail runs up the Little Yosemite Valley and then curves up the ridge to the granite base of Half Dome.

When we got back on the trail again after our break at Nevada Falls there was a bit of confusion as to where our whole party was. We eventually all ended up together again and started the difficult part of the hike. Up, up, up we went. Along the way we ran in to a guy who was filtering water from a natural spring so we filled up which ended up being a good thing. There is a really steep section that you have to go up before you get to the cables that many people have said is more scary than the cables. By this time I was feeling pretty lousy. I had a sore throat since Wed night and it was really beginning to set in in earnest. I had high hopes though that I would still make it so I started up the steep granite section but had to stop repeatedly because I felt like I would pass out. By the time I got to the top, my sense of balance was shot and I was pretty much done. I made the decision not to continue up the cables as I knew it would be very physically demanding and I just wouldn't be able to do it safely. Mark was the only one to summit Half Dome that day. Dad and I made it to the cables, Alex and his son started up the steep granite part but turned back, and the last member of the party, Frankie stopped before the steep granite began. All in all we did a great job! It was about 9 miles from Glacier Point to the base of the granite of Half Dome and we all got there feeling relatively good.

We began the trek back and it seemed to go on forever. At the point where the Mist Trail breaks off, we had to stop to do a bit of foot care. Frankie's toes were a bit worse for wear so she got a foot massage from yours truly and dad cut the toes out of her shoes so that her feet would have more room. After that she made it down the 2500ft granite staircase that is the Mist Trail with considerably more energy than she had when we stopped. We ended up traversing a good portion of that trail in the dark as well (yep, even down the really misty slippery part but oh well it was an adventure). We all ended up back in Curry Village in one piece and we were able to just order a pizza before the place closed at 10pm. Our day wasn't over yet though. We still had to be shuttled back up to Glacier Point to retrieve the cars we had left up there that morning. Logistically it is a bit of a pain to leave from Glacier Point for this hike but I would do it again in a heartbeat. That hike is really lovely. My day ended around 1am or so (I think - I can't really remember when I collapsed in to bed).

Sunday started out late compared to my previous days during the trip. I slept in a bit but not much as we had to check out by 10am. After everything was packed and ready to go the decision was made to take a drive up the Tioga road to have a picnic lunch up at one of my favorite places - Tenaya Lake. The Tioga road had just opened up on Saturday. We had lunch up at the lake and then decided that since Tuolumne Meadows was right there we would take a quick trip up there as well to check things out. What pretty country it is up there - absolutely breathtaking. The last stop we made in the park was to hike one mile to the Tuolumne Grove of sequoia trees. Until very recently, I had not known that there were two other sequoia groves in Yosemite National Park. I knew about the Mariposa Grove of course but not the other two lesser known ones. This particular grove had about a dozen sequoia trees, none of the huge awe inspiring ones, but they were still big beautiful trees

That concludes the report of my Half Dome adventure. It was a great trip and one that I will have memories of for a long time to come. It has sort of inspired me to put together more of these types of trips. The future ones may not be as demanding as this particular one was but I am sure I can come up with fun stuff none the less!!! Yay, a new objective :-) Stay tuned!