Yosemite and leaving

On Saturday I woke up at 7:30 in the morning so I could up and ready for when we left for Yosemite at 8. It's about an hour's drive from Pine Mountain Lake.

We had planned to take the day easy - my brother had scraped the top of his foot in volleyball at boyscout camp (about 1 wide, 5 inches long) and couldn't wear shoes well. Pops (grandfather) also has a few heart problems; I forgot to pack my husband's tennis shoes and he was stuck with his sandals, and I was personally fighting with ingrown toenails that liked to cripple me after a lot of walking... but the whole point is that we decided to do the tour bus (just a bunch of seats in a row, no roof) of Yosemite, something we had never done before.

My sister and I decided that we would sit up front and she would sign to me what the ranger said. We checked ahead of time if this was ok with the ranger and she said it was fine. So at first we're the only ones in the front row (which can comfortably hold 4 adults, or maybe 2 adults, 3 kids) and at the very last minute a lady, her husband and teenage son hop up in the row! She kept trying to get me to move over more, but I kept saying I couldn't because then I'd just get whacked when Sarah started to sign to me. :P And it wasn't helping that Sarah and I were trying to face each other (ya know, so I could actually see the signs) so we were hogging a little more room than if we were facing forward.

I'm really glad that Sarah signed the trip out for me though, cuz the ranger had a microphone headset and it would bounce a lot, so she would hold onto it with her hands, and therefore her lips were absolutely covered and there would have been no way I could have understood what was going on. She's a great sister and I'm really glad that she's getting her Deaf Interpreter's Certification. :)

There were a couple of stops during the 2 hour ride, and on the last one the lady and her family beat us to the row. So we were like "excuse me, can you step out so we can slide over to our seats?" And she looked kinda upset and told us to use the other door. We responded that we couldn't. Said it again. And then they finally get out so we can get it. Of course we couldn't use the other door, it was welded shut! :P

But thankfully that was pretty minor - Yosemite is very beautiful and distracts you from bad thoughts. :) And all these lovely pictures are completely at the credit of my husband. He did great and I didn't have to crop anything out. :)

After a late lunch, we decide that we're not going to eat dinner in Yosemite and just head back to PML. At one point everybody but my dad (who was driving) and me (who was licking a lollypop) had their eyes closed. I do think I fell asleep towards the end of the ride though. :)

We arrive at the cabin about 4pm, I was looking forward to another swim. It was going to be a simple dinner of lasagna with salad. Maybe card games in the evening. And then to our surprise... the power was out! It turned out pretty much the entire county was out of electricity, since noon. PG&E were saying it'd come on at 3... then 6... then 7...

Sarah just threw the towel in at that point. Started packing up her stuff, and 10 minutes later she pops her head in the kitchen and says "what do you want me to pack now?" Ohhh, somebody wanted to go home. :D And in the end, we all packed and we left a little after 7pm. The power came on for one second once, but it was still off when we left. We were sooooooooo hot carrying everything up the steps into the car (the cabin was on a STEEP hillside). The AC was on full blast as we left. :)

Dinner turned out to be Carl's Jr. - Pops' favorite place. We were back home around 10pm. We turned on the AC and I don't think it stopped running for another 36 hours. But it was nice to sleep cooler, since the cabin only had fans. :)

And we had the lasagna on Sunday night! :)

Leah