Yosemite, here I come! Ted's trip to California nears its end

[Moogle Pepper]

Index of threads made for the Journey.
The Beginning (http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=98019)
Disney land! (http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=98291)
San Diego Zoo! (http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=98600)
Balboa park and Mojave Desert (http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=99037)
Fear and Loathing Las Vegas (http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=99178)
The Ending part (http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=856294#post856294)I took a break from posting and much of online-ness since my last post..

But here we go, my last portion of my trip to California: Yosemite. We hit the Mariposa Grove first, take the light section before the big deal, Valley! We stayed at this RV camp that was only 5 miles or something away, which took us nearly 50 minutes to drive there cause of all the whacky twists, turns, uphills, downhills, loops, etc from the camp to the southern entrance.

Don't get me started on driving to and from the Valley, especially at night. My sister in law and I were readily spooked.

Some shots from our camp site, I was always the early riser so I was ready to go once the others just woke up.
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Our camp site! :clap
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Some morning shots, we drank a ton of water on our trip!!

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After a long drive and being made to turn the other direction to hop onto the shuttle, we made it to the Grove!! :clap

They have hybrid shuttle buses! Well we got to see the big map:
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Seems like someone was really excited to have his shirt taken off! :rofl

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Those things were huuuge!! But they weren't the cones of the Sequoia, in fact the Sequoia's one was really small in comparison!

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He took me down, he charged and tackled me so he could lay on my chest so I could shoot him and the big tree. :huh
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Yep pretty massive trees!!
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Hugging for scale! :D

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I think he is mooning me... :huh

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He got eaten by the tree jaws!

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peeee- you!

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BEar proof trashcans!

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When Sequoias fall they shatter from their sheer mass. That is when they do! Those things are soo huge and enduring!

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Food for thought.

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We got back to our campsite at about 7 PM to prepare for the big day at the Valley!

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And when night fell, we went to shower and to bed to prepare for the other big stuff!

[ian408]

If you go to Sequoia & Kings Canyon, the trees are bigger. They are truly amazing and I really do wonder what it must have been like in the early tourist days. Especially when they compare the "excess" of the day to current volumes of visitors.

[Moogle Pepper]

We woke up early the next morning, but we had to move our campsite over cause the next campers reserved that spot and we were in the other site.

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This was the third time I moved my tent. :huh One cause it was too close to the fire pit, then the next spot the tree was dropping its sap, and then finally to its last location! :barb

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Some morning breakfast!

It took us about an hour, an hour!, to drive to the valley!! It was only a 20 mile distance!!!

But we found some cool spots to stop and shoot!

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We were by the meadows..we could see parts of the mountains!

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His rock climbing preparation!

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Shooting them so they could ....

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Shoot me!!!

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We got to play with new camera gear on our trip! I got to use the 5D (they didn't clean the sensor or recharge the battery in it.. :scratch:cry) with the 28-200 L IS, XSi with the 150 macro lens, and the 40D with 17-55 IS.
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Me and the 5D and my 30D! I Feel so special!:clap

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Got my brother Eric into trying out photography and look at his face when he got the macro!

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And the little guy was getting into it too!

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Ann using the 40D and the 17-55

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A child's inquisitiveness is the best!

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This little guy likes to sit on me and stare into the lens whenever I shoot..

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This is one of my favorite shots from the trip!

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This was what I was shooting
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He was hopping around so much that he fell on his knee!

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OH SNAP!! I am holding three cameras!! :whew

After that, I went off on my own to hit the trail to Mirror lake. I could only be there for about an hour because our night tour around the valley would begin at 6 PM.

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I caught up to a bunch of horse back riders! The trails were tight so I stayed on the deep side!

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I had to run back to the shuttle to make it back to the inn to get to the tour, which was bad. Cause it was 4:55 already and that only gives me an hour to get back! What made it worse was that the shuttle was initially inoperable and was filled to the brim with people!! :huh

[Moogle Pepper]

If you go to Sequoia & Kings Canyon, the trees are bigger. They are truly amazing and I really do wonder what it must have been like in the early tourist days. Especially when they compare the "excess" of the day to current volumes of visitors.

I posted my Sequoia ones already, in the ending part of my trip. Yeah they are massive!!


I actually did make it back at 6:01! The guy let me on, :whew

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He likes wagging his bum around... :scratch

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Vincent's new buddy, Owen from Australia! They have a pretty interesting, funny bathroom incident.. :rofl

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Someone is getting tired.:deal:bow:clap

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Our tour driver is a rock climber and he told us about how expert climbers would take about 3-4 days to complete climbing El. Capitan! And what was astonishing and unbelievable was that he said one climber finished it in one day or something... I wonder if I heard right..

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This formation was like a face in a Miyazaki film.

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A close up of our tour driver, showing us his climbing gear!

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The sky was so barren of clouds, that once I saw the moon I was ecstatic and took as many photos of it as I could!

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Half dome!

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CLOUDS!! OMG!! CLOUDS!!


Thanks for coming along with me on my journey into California!

[cj99si]

Nice pics, Your wife seems to be quite the photog as well!

[Moogle Pepper]

She's my sister in law. :wink

Thanks for saying that though, I should mention that to her! :D

[davemj98]

Most excellent Adventure! Makes me wish I had been there.
Dave