| A little over a week ago, my beautiful friend Frances and I figured out that we could go to Yosemite. We had planned it, then things came up, and then those things were cancelled, so we figured we could go. Four years ago (what!? it's been that long?!) we climbed Half Dome, and since then, we have wanted to hike it again, but in the dark so we could watch the sunrise from the top. So that is what we set out to do! This story doesn't quite do justice to our experience, but here goes anyway.. We left on Friday after work.. let's be mindful that Friday was quite possibly the craziest day of the school year for me, as it was our California History Day, and the kids and I were outside with tents and stations and everything for the whole day. Needless to say, I was pretty tired, but also excited for the weekend ahead.  Somehow we turned the wrong direction on the freeway heading toward Yosemite, and so we didn't get there until about 1 a.m. The first campsite we went to wouldn't let us stay because it was too late. We set up camp at the second one, and had just gotten into our sleeping bags when we got a flashlight in our eyes from the ranger who informed us that we were on "no man's land" and that we needed to leave. So we packed up, threw the tents on top of us in the car, and went to the third campsite. That one was full, so we went to the fourth one and took the stuff out. The ranger there told us we could not stay without registering, but we couldnt register until the morning. By then, it was 4 a.m., so Fran and I just slept in the car, and her two friends slept outside on the ground, tentless, until we could register a campsite in the morning. I was most impressed at the character of these guys during this whole situation.. so calm. We slept for a few hours, got up, had breakfast, went around the valley a little bit, got our campsite, took a nap, had dinner, made a campfire and s'mores, and then got ready for our hike. It was a lot of good times with Fran and her friends. What fun guys. We started around 10 p.m. It was great. We used our headlamps at first, but around 2 a.m. we realized that we didn't need to turn them on because the moon was so bright. It was beyond beautiful. There were no clouds in the sky, and on one side of the sky was moon, and the other, filled with stars. It was amazing. Incredible sky, incredible friends, incredible GOD. With the breath that we had, we got to praise Him. So cool.  We recognized most of the path, but around 3 something, Matthew says "are you guys sure we're going the right way?" We assured him that we felt it all looked familiar.. until we hiked upward for the next couple of hours and started questioning ourselves. "hmm... I don't remember this part at all... maybe we're just delusional so we don't remember... this doesn't look familiar..." We looked to the side of us and asked if that mountain was Half Dome, but decided it was too small to be it. Then, at about 5 a.m. we see a sign going in the opposite direction "Half Dome: 5.8 miles." WHAT!?! That mountain was so puny because we were like 4 miles above it!!! But instead of turning back after that sign, we decided to go to Cloud's Rest and watch the sunrise from there. It was gorgeous, but cold, so we didn't stay too long. We turned back, walked for about 45 minutes, and then slept on the side of the trail for about 20 minutes because of the cold. Then we got to hike in the light, and see God's gift of the trees and mountain and all. So beautiful. Instead of our planned 16 mile hike, we came back after hiking 23 miles. whew!  Good thing we had a good story to tell.. Go Team Chuck! haha.. We got back to San Francisco around 8 and then had dinner.. us with our exhausted legs, smelling, tired bodies... and then I headed home after that. I was catching up with Jenie and then all of a sudden I hit some kind of animal. About 15 minutes later, I started to panic because my gas pedal stopped working....I get over to the side of the freeway, and was (praise the Lord) able to exit safely before the whole car just stopped working completely. My rescuers, Jenie and Karen (and the tow truck of course), came and brought me and the car home. I had the car towed again to the car place today, and many hours later, I find out that the animal destroyed my radiator, which then used up all of the coolant at once, which then made the whole engine burn up. It will be in the shop for almost a month. Yay for my new rental car! Seriously, in all of this, I think the lesson was praising God in ALL circumstances.. in having a car to sleep in, in sharing with amazing friends, in awesome meals, in fun campfires and marshmallow tattoos, in every single body part that we were made aware of while hiking, in beautiful creation to be awed by, in having plenty of water, in my car not stopping until I was off of the freeway, in my wonderful rescuers, in pleasant customer service, in being alive, etc. etc. praise the Lord. |
