After our complementary hotel breakfast we set out towards the east and Yosemite National Park. Typically this is about a 4.5 hour drive but we stopped in Oakdale to pick up groceries for the next three days (breakfast, packable lunches and dinner) and to have lunch at a local deli called Ferrareses Deli that came highly recommended on both TripAdvisor and Yelp. I had a very tasty avocado BLT, Mom had the pesto chicken sandwich and Jeremy and Dad both had the French Dip, yum.

Most of the trip we just spent looking out at the scenery, as it changed from tan dry grass hillsides with wind farms, to seemingly endless groves of pecan trees, then finally to tall pine and cedar trees as we entered the national forest and ultimately Yosemite National Park.

We are staying in the only private residential section allowed in the park (courtesy of AirBnB, the Yosemite Sunset House), about an hour’s drive (15 miles) from the main visitor’s center in Yosemite Valley. We couldn’t check in until 5pm so we decided to head to the visitor’s center to pick up maps, standard souvenirs (I always buy photo magnets from places I visit, my mom always gets one of the 8×10 photo tour books), and to see if there was anything we wanted to make reservations for while we were in the park. The Ansel Adams gallery hosts 1.5 hour morning walks for free most mornings so we called and were able to reserve spots to take that tour in the morning. We are also talking about doing w horseback trail ride, hopefully we can fit that in, I haven’t ridden a horse for probably 18 years but it would be fun to do again, so we will see.

(from left to right) El Capital, Half Dome and the Three Brothers

On our way to the visitors center we passed by many of the park’s most famous sites, Bridal Veil falls, El Capitan, Half Dome, it’s amazing to see these in person, the views almost don’t look real, the scale of everything is just awesome.

We arrived at our house around 5:30, lugged all our suitcases up the three flights of outside stairs to be greeted by a pine tree studded view of the mountains and the sunset on our big deck. The house is situated on a hillside, with three separate apartments, the bottom is not open to the public, then there is a one bedroom apartment on the second level (the folks staying there pulled in around 8pm tonight) and then the top level is a 2 bedroom, one bath place where we are staying. There is a big open living/dining/kitchen area with lots of windows looking out to the forest and facing west towards the setting sun (thus the name “Sunset House”). We bought the makings for chili and cornbread at the store so we got that going and then sat out on the deck, enjoying the cool mountain air and views. Dinner turned out quite tasty (even with some baking dish improvising for the corn bread). Now everyone is getting ready to turn in for the night (we are all still on East coast time, luckily this works in our favor when we need to be at the visitors center tomorrow before 8:30am and we have an hour and change drive to get there).

So tomorrow, photo walk and tips on how to take “nature photos,” then I think a short day hike of some sort is in order. There’s so much to see, and we have two full days to see it, but for now, as it feels like 11:35pm rather than 8:35, I think it’s time to head to bed.

We got through security and arrived at our gate with about an hour and change to spare then were informed the plane out of Philadelphia was delayed by 40 minutes. A lot of folks who had connecting flights had to rebook on different airlines or fly out later in the weekend unfortunately, we were lucky in that we had about two hours between flights so we had a bit of a cushion and were able to even have time for a beer (Magic Hat #9) and a snack at a little cafe right across from our gate in Philadelphia.

Our flight to New Haven was on a tiny prop plane (not Jeremy’s favorite option), it was rather loud so Jeremy and I opted to simultaneously watch an episode of Alton Brown’s “Feasting on Asphalt” on our iPads for the duration of the flight (it looked totally geeky I’m sure but it worked quite well once we got them playing at the same time). We landed in the (tiny!) Tweed New Haven airport and were picked up by Jeremy’s mom Eileen (we walked off the plane and she was waiting on the other side of the chain link fence, yes fence, although we did have to walk through the “terminal” to get to the parking lot) and headed back to her condo.

Even though it was late we decided to stay up and chat and catch up out on Eileen’s back porch with a glass of wine (Lobster Cove “Life’s a Beach” 2008 Chardonnay, really nice, citrusy, unoaked Chardonnay) and cheese and pita chips (I was hungry so this was awesome). Her condo backs up to the woods and a little stream so it was really nice sitting out there (and very few bugs, unlike Williamsburg) and after chatting we headed to bed around midnight. Tomorrow’s plan is to visit a local winery around lunchtime then head to Jeremy’s uncle’s place on Burr Creek in the afternoon for a cookout.