Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

I didn’t mention that we did stop to pick up my fathers medical records. there was no paump and circumstance like I thought there should be. just a blank manila envelope handed to me. “that will $4.60 cents” she says. “i  wasn’t told there would be a charge”. “yeah, there is.” I wanted to make a scene but there were big  men with guns everywhere.

so I haven’t looked at them yet, and don’t even know when I will. but at least now there is something for when I do want to.  do you want a copy ted?  celia?

anyway, I wanted to include a picture of my father. this sits in the living room.

love to you all

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we got to the hitching post restaurant  thursday night and asked about staying overnight in the parking lot. “of course you can”. jackie, the waitress remembered us.  we’ve been coming here at least 20 years and Jackie has been here 13 of those.

jerry had the ribs and I had my favorite,the filet mignon.  I went to the window to check on our order and was invited in to take a picture.

and look what we got for dessert. Jackie made it special for us. she had just picked the pomegranate  from across the street.

yuuuuummmmm

we went to a couple of thrift stores in solvang and then headed out to see the miniature horses. well, they arent’t there anymore. i guess there isn’t much of a demand for tiny horses. so we went on to the little town of los olivos. there is a very nice nursery there. i could spend hundreds of dollars.

i hope the nighbors don’t mind if we buy this wind chime. not. it was $3,000.00. it sounded so nice. a very soft loudness.

this little trailer was parked nearby. isn’t it the cutest thing?

we headed for the campground we love in pt. magu state park, thornhill broom. remember we saved the pelican there a few years back. there was a full sign out. but luckily the park ranger drove in and checked the computer and found they still had three open. all right.

we picked one out and put our chairs out and sat and watched the sunset.

isn’t that the truth

we will be heading home in the morning. we don’t know when the next trip will be

so,

stay tuned

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WATCH OUT FOR THAT ROCK JERRY!!!!!!

we stopped right after the traffic jam and got you some rocks paula. outside the park of course. you can’t take even a leaf from Yosemite.

we took hwy 41 to hwy 46 from fresno. one of the most boring roads we’ve been on this trip. miles and miles of grapes.

but you can always make lemonade out of lemons.

I love the hills in this shot.  sorry for the dirty windshield.

we ate at ‘big bubba’s bad bbq’  in  paso robles last night and stayed in their parking lot overnight. we are at a starbucks this morning.  what a joy to have fast wifi.

we are going to Atascadero state hospital today to pick up the papers I had requested when we stopped there the last trip. I’m not sure how I feel about that right now. a lot of emotions are coming into play.

we still have a few days left

stay tuned

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snow on half dome

we made one last stop on the way out of Yosemite. I hadn’t taken any pictures of el capitan.  we walked across the meadow to take the picture. there was a young coulple pointing so we asked “what are you looking at”.  “climbers, we saw their headlamps last night so came back today”.

do you see them?

it took us awhile to find them. wow. incredible. amazing.

does this help?

this is the young couple we met. all they had was a little tiny scope to see the climbers. so we gave them a bigger scope we had that we don’t like and never use. it made us happy and they were very grateful.

oh, maybe these will help a little.

we finally drove out of yosemite. the trip was a heart and soul rejuvenation. we realized how much we love the roads of the nation and look forward to many more miles on them.

of course you do run into traffic jams once in awhile.( linda, is it ‘awhile’ or ‘a while’?) (frank, does the question mark go in the parentheses or out of them?)  anyway, as we did right outside Yosemite.  a big rig was on a road he shouldn’t have been on and couldn’t make a turn on a detour bridge.

but, as everyone else walked around and scratched their heads, we had a nice lunch on the south fork of the merced river.

cheers

stay tuned

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I never got the chance to show you the visitor center. it has a wealth of information about the whole eastern sierra region.  here’s a few facts about Yosemite.

we are at mcdonalds in fresno this morning. we stayed at Walmart last night. a far cry from the ahwahnee.  but the wifi is so much better here. it was like pulling teeth to get a post done in Yosemite.

there might be more,

stay tuned

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I wanted to share some pictures of our great campground that we spent six days at.

we had a light rain Friday night and Saturday morning. just a light rain. it was so nice and cozy in the coach. we just hung out and watched the deer wander in and out of our site.

the male calling his stragglers

we watched some squirrels run around camp chasing each other up trees, around trees, in hollow stumps. oh that’s why.

we had a hawk that liked the trees in our camp.

when the rain stopped, jerry read his book and I took a walk around camp.

there is a dusting of snow on the trees on top

well, I guess I better stop and end this post. I have lots more and it was hard to choose which ones to put in.

jerry made us grilled cheese sandwich’s for dinner. we had a toast, and went to bed happy campers.

stay tuned

oh wait, I have just one more picture from my walk.

.

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this is the great room that we are sitting in right now.  we didn’t get good wifi in the room so i’m trying down here. we checked out and are in no hurry to leave this gorgeous place. what better place to do a post.

we got here yesterday and had brunch in the dining room. we have  never been to a better brunch. there was not one bad thing on the menu. we celebrated with a few memosa’s. we had the best waiter, paul, from Hermosa beach.

our view from the window

happy anniversary

we made two requests to the piano player. ‘moonlight sonata’ and ‘smile’. and our waiter sang along to’ it’s a wonderful world’.  it is a wonderful world.

the desert’s

and then they bring us this

we had dinner at the restaurant and weren’t disappointed. lobster risotto. steak with root vegetables with crispy kale. it is a wonderful world.   plus we got another cupcake.

we had a great view from our room. jerry got to watch tv for the first time two weeks.

our room is to the left of the fireplace on the 4th floor

looking the other way from our room

we just ate lunch again in the dining room. we hate to leave, but we get to  spend one more night in Yosemite,  at another campground.

stay tuned

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a few miles from wawona is a stand of giant sequoias. mariposa grove. it was a beautiful day . it wasn’t crowded, an advantage of coming in the fall. but coming in the fall you don’t get to see the waterfalls.

will we ever have another leader like Lincoln?

it was such a pleasant walk through the trees.

we left and headed back to camp. another 30 mile incredible drive.

we went through the famous tunnel view.

stay tuned.

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we made one stop before we got to the point. at this stop you see the back of half dome. it is an incredible sight. the whole place is incredible. for you that have been here, I hope these pictures bring back some good memories.

the ahwahnee

jerry spoted this heart

and a dog can always spot jerry

after spending a great day at glacier point,  we ate a late lunch in the coach and then headed toward wawona.  they have a nice hotel there too.

but we decided to stay in the campground here instead of driving back to north pines campground. it was right on the south fork of the merced river.

you can see the food locker on the right

it was so beautiful here. we have the merced in our campground too, but we aren’t camped by it. that might be good since there were bugs here.

the next day we go to the mariposa grove of giant sequoias.

stay tuned

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when we got back to camp last night, there was mama deer again and this time bambi was with her.

this morning we saw a bear. right near our camp. how exciting. a mama with her two cubs. and of all times the camera messed up. i had just taken the deer pictures the night before. but i picked up the camera to take a picture and it was nothing but a blur.

i tried a few  things  and  took  another picture.

the settings on this camera do different things than they did on my sony. but it broke before we left and it was going to be $250 to fix it. we could almost buy a new camera for that. i was telling kara my story and she said “i have a point and shoot nikon i don’t like and you can have it”.  she didn’t like that it didn’t have a view finder.

thank you so much kara. this is a nice camera.

but i’m still getting used to it.

i tried again.

dammit! what setting is it going to take to get a picture. here you can see the mama has a collar on. that is a gps tracker. the problem bears wear them so they can be found easily.

i give up. i’ve tried every setting. maybe my hands were shaking. no, jerry couldn’t get one either.

maybe the back window was too dirty, even though i had just taken pictures through it. so i stuck my head out the side window and finally got a picture. i think she saw me.

i don’t like the zoom on this camera as much as the sony. it was 20xzoom. this one is 14x.  it doesn’t get as good a picture zoomed in either.  that may have been one of the problems. i had it zoomed in too much and the bears kept moving. they stayed there for 5 minutes or so. they were in the shadows and behind trees a lot of the time though. but it was very exciting and fun to watch them forage.

the bears are a problem here. the park has really taken steps to keep them under control and safe. there are food lockers everywhere. at every viewpoint. every campground. at trailheads.

after all that we got ready and headed to glacier point. it was a beautiful day and the drive was gorgeous.

you can see by this screen shot you have to drive from #1, our campground,  all the way around the road to get to #2 glacier pt.,  which is  26 miles. but only 8/10 of a mile away as the crow flies. but boy is it worth it.

to see the view at glacier point,

stay tuned

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