Yosemite

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the beautiful, mountainous, tree-filled wonder of Yosemite National Park. It was the annual college Fall Road Trip. Usually we drive to southern California and hit a theme park, but this year a lot of students wanted to go camping. And with Yosemite only being 4-5 hours away, heck yes!

I could not have asked for a better group of students. They were friendly, excited, and looking forward to seeing a bear. We reserved 2 camping spots at Crane Flats campgrounds, about 30 minutes away from Yosemite Valley. We set up tents, our eating/cooking area, campfire area, and got settled. Side note: I always forget how amazing the air smells and feels when I'm camping. It's like I can literally feel the fresh oxygen from the million of trees going in my nostrils. Random thought, but true.

I think my favorite part of the trip was just sitting around the campfire with the students. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Things ranged from eating, playing Catch Phrase, imagining a trio of brown bears doing the Thriller dance through our campsite, me and many others tripping and falling over all the tree roots in the dark, playing "I've Never...", singing, adding layers because it was so freakin' freezing when it got dark, playing "telephone", throwing powdered hot chocolate into the fire (have you ever done that? It makes the fire huge!), and much more.

I'm so glad we went to Yosemite when we did, because all I've been hearing is that a huuuuge storm is coming the next couple days. The weather was perfect when we were there. We even had 3 students and my intern Dan hike to the top of Half Dome!

P.S. And yes, a few students saw some bears on their Saturday hike. Good times.