camping in Yosemite for the first time

“Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be-still kind. Your animal fellow beings, so seldom regarded in civilization, and every rock-brow and mountain, stream, and lake, and every plant soon come to be regarded as brothers; even one learns to like the storms and clouds and tireless winds. This one noble park is big enough and rich enough for a whole life of study and aesthetic enjoyment. It is good for everybody, no matter how benumbed with care, encrusted with a mail of business habits like a tree with bark. None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree.”
– John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, (1938) page 350.

On the eve of the summer solstice, we escaped the bustle of real life and escaped with Miss L into the Sierra Nevadas for a weekend of refuge and firsts.

It was her first time camping in a tent somewhere other than the backyard. And it was her first trip to a National Park.

She got to enjoy the roar and smells of campground fires.

And discover that truly prefers plain marshmallows to anything that’s been toasted or melted.

She embarked on her longest hike yet (3 miles) into the wilderness…

smiling and laughing…

and posing for photos along the way.

She got to see a giant roaring waterfall…

then climb…

and climb some more…

until it tickled her with its mist.

There was the luxury of eating icy frozen sherbet in the shade…

along with the thrill of making Boy Scout foil campfire dinners at your campsite picnic table.

We found new rocks to throw in the river…

and perfected our throwing technique.

We stopped every now and then to look up at the trees with our binoculars and take a sip of water from our Nalgene bottles.

And we kept seeing new sites until the second we had to leave on Sunday.

It was Miss L’s first trip to Yosemite. And as we were leaving, she asked if we could live there forever.