It's becoming harder to write....as I go to more and more new places, I keep getting overwhelmed, to the point where overwhelmed seems, well, normal. It makes it hard to write about all of the amazing things, so instead, I'll mention a few things that stand out.
I went to Las Vegas last Tuesday, and stayed until Saturday. For those of you who don't know, my grandparents moved there about 13 years ago, and I went to visit them. My grandmother is 96; my grandfather is 94. And despite the fact that they are certainly slowing down, they are still incredibly vibrant. My grandfather cooked bagels, eggs, and veggie sausage for breakfast every morning; my grandmother puts on a cute outfit and makeup every day; we went gambling several times, and my grandmother won $389 at slots (I won $64); they took me to the strip to see the Encore Hotel, which is new since I last visited in 2008; we watched Glee and a couple of movies on cable; we talked politics and the BP oil spill; and we went out for dinner every single night. Really, they're amazing. When we went to the buffet at the Red Rocks Casino on Wednesday night, all of the wait staff there knew my grandparents, and kept commenting to each other: "Can you believe she's 96 years old?" To which my grandmother would reply, "I know! Can you believe, in four years, I'll be 100? Now that's old!" And then she'd burst into giggles.
My uncle and aunt, Richard and Shelley, were in town as well. On Wednesday afternoon, while we let my grandparents rest, Richard, Shelley, and I drove to Mount Charleston, and then we took Janie out onto a Jeep road through the mountains. We had a fabulous time. Unfortunately, at one point, upon exiting a ditch, Janie fishtailed a bit, and her rear wheel well struck a small tree trunk. So poor Janie has a bruise on her right hip. I called a mobile dent service to come out, and he was able to heat up the plastic and remove the dent, so now she's good as new. But I feel badly that Janie now has an injury....like I've mistreated my child somehow.
On Saturday, I went out to brunch with my grandparents, and then I left for Sequoia National Park area that afternoon around 2. It was a very emotional goodbye with my grandparents; after all, I never know if it might be the last time I see them, and I haven't been as good as I could have been about keeping in touch with them. But, as always, my grandfather had treasured words of wisdom for me about being happy with my life, and for that, I'm incredibly grateful, and sad that I don't see him more often. We both got teary as I said goodbye.
The drive to Sequoia National Park was much longer than I expected. From the map, it only seemed a 3 or so hour drive; but I didn't realize that you cannot enter Sequoia NP from the east side. That meant that I had to drive around Death Valley, to Bakersfield (which is further west than the park is) and then back east to the park. I didn't get to my hotel until 9:30 that night.
The next morning, I went to the park. It is beautiful, and the trees are magnificent, but the entire park is basically a forest (obviously, I suppose), and I realize that I don't find forests all that, well, interesting. So I saw some enormous, stately sequoia trees, hiked around a bit, spent time watching a bear pull bark off a fallen tree to eat the bugs, and then went back to my hotel for dinner. That night, the hotel where I was staying had a campfire, which I attended. I felt very Dirty Dancing, and I half-expected Patrick Swayze to pop out at any moment. Instead, I met two cool Australian guys, Glenn and Dugald. Glenn is a pilot based in Hong Kong; Dugald is a financier who lives in London. Both are traveling for 4 weeks through California, and we chatted at the campfire for a long while. I saw them the next morning, as well, and I had breakfast with them before I left to go to Yosemite.
Oh, Yosemite. What to say about it. I arrived on Monday afternoon, and I went to Glacier Point. The view is overwhelming, really -- it's so huge, so vast, so imposing -- I stayed at Glacier Point for several hours, just sitting and looking across the valley at the waterfalls and at Half-Dome.
The next morning, I returned to the park, and this time, I went to Yosemite Valley, which is super-touristy. I had planned on doing several small, or one larger hike throughout the day -- but the place is so huge, that I barely had time to even do a quick lap around the park by shuttle, much less on foot. I did see some very cool things -- I walked to the base of the Lower Yosemite Falls, and since it was peak snowmelt yesterday, I got completely soaked underneath it, as though I were standing at the base of the Log Ride at Six Flags; I walked to Mirror Lake; and I walked to the base of El Capitan along with a German climber, who aspires to climb the face someday. We talked climbing (I tried not to look or act TOO stupid), and careers (he's left engineering, and is about to join the police force in Stuttgart), and spent most of the afternoon together.
It was nice, hanging with the Aussies the other night, and the German today, as it's lonely for me to visit all of these parks alone. It's like I see the parks, and I pick up on certain details, but the people around me see details I don't see myself -- so it enriches my experience to have another traveler along for the ride.
As to my final impression of Yosemite: simply that I didn't have nearly enough time there to have a real impression! I didn't even get to see the Tuolomne meadows, nor did I have enough time to do even one "real" hike. I'll need to go back sometime, with at least 4-5 full days to spend in the park.
Anyway, I finally made it back to my hotel around 9 , and was incredibly sad when I arrived in my hotel room -- so much so, that I ate ice cream for dinner. I don't know what I was sad about, exactly: was it fatigue of the trip? Leaving my grandparents? Realizing that I feel lonely traveling alone? Or just coming down off the highs of being with interesting people for the past few days?
Now it's off to Lake Tahoe to visit Lars and Christine. Lars was a resident with me, and an avid climber, so I thought of him a lot while at Yosemite, with all of the climbing aficionados near El Capitan. He said he's climbed TWO routes up that bad boy. Wow....something to aspire to, I guess....
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