its worth it, keep going

This morning we headed into Yosemite National Park. This was one destination that I kept asking Joseph if we really needed to stop off at during our planning, I'm so thankful now that we did. From the moment we started winding through the mountains ( not so fun for a few passengers in the back) until we left that evening I had 2 songs going through my head pretty much all day: Indescribable and How Great is Our God – it was a wonderful experience. Here are some entries from my gratitude journal: granite mountains, the sound of water crashing down, mist on faces, children eager to explore, fresh air, cold mountain water, new birds to watch, children attempting to climb boulders and huge rocks, more treasures found for boxes (pieces of rock, moss), encouraging husband, incredible views, feeling just a taste of how big our God is, son carrying back pack, 3 mule deer on trail, snow on mountains, quick snowball fight, healthy/strong bodies that can hike, walking sticks to be shared, quiet hot tub at night, children ready to sleep.

-Katrina-

for any photo history buffs...to the right of the parked cars is the legendary golden oak, in Ansel Adams famous halfdome image, its a bit different now with tourists and tripods all showing up, but I cant help wonder how many mornings and evenings he spent watching the light as it defines such an epic geography. 

despite her efforts of keeping us to a plan, and trail, everyone went into full blown exploration and celebration mode off the paved trails of the park map, and into the foot paths of imaginatin

boulders along the way, called our names and people took turns getting to the top....now we know what our dear friend Aaron feels when he climbs!

for three states now, i've been taunted by the stunning "Stellers Jay" but never in full sunlight, finally near this stream one settled down in the sun.

Today we hiking at Yosemite National Park. When we saw the first mountains, it made me feel little. When we hiked, I liked to go off the trails try to climb any of the big rocks I could. I found a piece of green lichen that looked like seaweed. We found good hiking sticks and had fun exploring. Tomorrow we go to San Francisco and I'm looking forward to Alcatraz.

-Isaiah-

after walking on trails rated as "easy" we were up more of a challenge, and with our time before sunset choose the colombia point lookout...now we know what a trail labeled "strenuous" feels like.

many parts of the trail required us to go through streams, many, many times people wanted to go back, but did not.

when we would ask people coming down the trail how much further...one of them said, keep going, its worth it. As you can see from this photo, we had a totally different view of "half Dome" after two hours of hard work. 

we finally made it to our goal of seeing the famous Yosemite falls  from a much closer vantage point...just to give a sense of scale, if you look to the lower left of photo, thats abigail standing near that bit of left over snow.

on the way down, Samuel said he found gold in one of the streams...some things that shimmered were probably pirate  (ie fools gold) but there were some smaller, more yellow sand size pieces that could have been gold.  In fact, there were federal mining claims posted on some of the trees we saw on the way into the park.

after a wonderful day, I pulled over at one last view, of yet another waterfall, found my spot alongside other photographers "getting the shot" and enjoyed (or lamented)  how easy my life of digital imagery has become.  Thankfully, "this" nature that surrounds us has had the chance to stay the same!