Howdy,
Yesterday—beside wishing a happy Memorial Day and issuing a well-deserved ‘Thank You’—I told you I’d recount how my family and I boldly (a titch of crazy) visited beautiful and super-season, tourist-packed Yosemite National Park on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. Today is the day.
As was Saturday.
Saturday was the day to go.
I never thought I’d write that: that the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend would be the day to go for a leisurely and mesmerizing tour of world-renowned Yosemite—with three kids: one being a kamikaze three-year-old and another a touch shy of turning one, not to mention the Wild Kratt six-year-old (the “Green Guy,” as opposed to Kamikaze being the “Blue Guy,” and if you don’t know what I’m talking about you can either check out Wild Kratts or a few of the recent family photos from this stage, in which Jasper and Titus spend most of their time chasing creatures and their powers as Martin and Chris Kratt—a crazy part to all this is that I remember watching the Kratt brothers with my younger brothers when I was in school, and the guys (green and blue) have as much energy and enthusiasm now as I remember they ever had: good for them).
Anyway, Yosemite (a great place for critters, by the way—and later, Sunday, we saw a mountain lion a few miles from camp as we were driving home at dusk, as it crossed the road in front of us, slinking, bounding, in total control, the way cat’s can be …), on Memorial Day. On Memorial Day?
Why’d we do it. How’d we do it? Would we do it again?
Why?
Well, we did it because the water’s falling. Sarah and I had planned to take the boys this week, wanting to get up there before Everyone was out of school or on a summer vacation, but this week is a bit of a busy week (coming up—good stuff! … great stuff), and we were already scheduled to camp with our church at Yosemite Lakes over Memorial which is only a handful of miles from the Park’s entrance on Highway 120. Can you believe that Ti and Riah had never been? But we had heard stories of people we camped with a couple of years ago leaving Yosemite Lakes for Yosemite only to wait a line of cars for over an hour and never even get to the point of seeing the entrance before giving it up and coming back to camp. We didn’t want to sign up for that.
How?
I mentioned to a friend, Paul Posson, that we intended to get to Yosemite soon, and he, too, was planning to go to Yosemite—on The Rock Church camping trip. (Note: someday I’ll write more about the “coaching” that I am a part of, learning more about. It’s life-coaching, a discipleship ministry, about making disciples and providing accountability and providing/having a coach for encouragement and growth. It has been recently that I have begun to learn more about disciple making, coaching, in this particular format, presented by Steve Elliott, a heroic yet humble discipling coach of persons, churches, and peoples. Along with others, Paul and I are involved together in learning and practicin this coaching, and from him, as a side note, I learned a few tricks for even attempting Holiday Yosemite, let along tackling it. Thanks, Paul!) So Paul strategized, coached, and I listened, and we Haweses arose early from our tent and followed Paul and his troop into Yosemite.
Ever again?
Yes. It’s Yosemite. Yes.
Plus, we won. We beat the crowds. Beat them in. Beat them out. Circled the trail ahead of the holiday stampede. That line on Hwy 120, getting into the park? Well, getting in the layout was only one vehicle ahead of us—Paul’s—and one random early-A.M. traveler in my rearview. That same entrance on our way out at 1:00 P.M.? A radiator-challenging 0.75 mile snake-of-wait. When I noticed the queue of afternoon crazies, I glanced at my odometer and we rolled along the line, finally finding a bunching tail—each new, moving vehicle stuttering in like an additional button on a growing rattler’s talking tip—between the turn from .7 and .8 of a mile.
It was amazing—escaping the crowds not even nearly as incredible as God’s creation of and in Yosemite.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1), and in Yosemite National Park, magnificent rock faces mouth echoes of God’s grandeur and eyes scale up, mounting the sky stooping low—the expanse spilling over as water falling further still … rushes of resplendence, weighty within its wisps.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Hiking.
Word Count: 123,456 / On Pace: 124,300 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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