Backlog: Yosemite

So Jake got everything updated to the night we spent in Yosemite, so I'll finish off our day their in brief.
We spent the night in the White Wolf area campground on the north side of the valley and due to our looong day before we slept in late until 11am or so. It was great to slow down enough to sleep and enjoy the area a little bit. I think we managed to eat more peanut butter and jellys for breakfast - a treat for the hungry! We decided to spend the little time bit of time we had going around the south side of the valley to Glacier Point. It really surprised me how huge the valley really is because it took us a long time to get from the north side down and then back up the south side. The views from Glacier Point were really amazing though. I felt really touristy just pulling up into our little parking spot and walking a couple hundred yards to such a beautiful view. The valley floor opened up below our ledge and we could see several waterfalls and Half Dome.
All along this trip I keep thinking about how these beautiful places we're seeing deserve so much more than passing glances or postcards. It even seems like most of the stops people make, however long, are cheapened by how easily and quickly we can fly through something beautiful. Jake will laugh at this, but I keep imagining the wonder and awe that people must have felt when travel was so much slower and instead of racing through Death Valley in under a day they had to spend days. Hiking over the mountains around Yosemite valley and then finally peeking over the edge to see waterfalls flowing over beautiful mountains and Half Dome and Sentinel Dome and all the trees along the valley. That's a wonder and awe I don't know how to share today.
So all of these thoughts led us to go on a short hike. We hiked a little over a mile to Sentinel Dome which is a similar view as Glacier Point but well worth the effort. The hike was pretty easy, but the activity and talk were good for us. We found wildlife (squirrels) eager to meet us at the top and of course Jake tried to claim everything for Kansas. We paused long enough there to get a sense of how amazing the area really is.
I guess from there we loaded up and headed to Modesto, CA for the night to finally hit civilization again - AKA cell phone coverage and the Internets. We drove out 140 along a river which was really beautiful. There was a rock slide in that area a while before that covered the road, so we got to cross on a temporary bridge, which was cool enough to two guys. From there it was just open and pretty farm land rolling on into I-5 and then north to showers and beds. We might talk more sometime about who we stayed with and all the cool people we got to meet. But I'll leave that to Jake for now.

The Secret Photos of Ben G.

A small shop along the road in OK




Sunrise in the valley in Utah







Our secret campground. Amazing.




Leaving the magic campground.




The glorious mountains on the way into Yosemite.

Planet Earth: Mt. Sunflower

Our latest upload from Mt. Sunflower in Kansas.