{"id":864,"date":"2012-06-05T00:16:04","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T05:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=864"},"modified":"2012-06-05T00:16:04","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T05:16:04","slug":"vacation-day-10-toulumne-meadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=864","title":{"rendered":"Vacation Day 10: Toulumne Meadows"},"content":{"rendered":"
We started fairly early with breakfast up at the lodge.\u00a0 I got the biscuits and gravy along with Rich.\u00a0 Rick went for the French toast, which looked good, too.\u00a0 We had Michael again.\u00a0 Not too bad on the service this time.<\/div>\n

We headed up the very winding and hilly road to the park.\u00a0 This time, we took the Toulumne Meadows road out to the other side of the park.\u00a0 We headed for the Toulumne Grove with its large sequoia trees.\u00a0 The hike was on the old exit road out of the park.\u00a0 It was in service until 1996 when they put in the nice 2 lane road we had been using.\u00a0 It was pretty much a downhill hike with some switchbacks.\u00a0 It was 1 mile down and then it would be another mile back up.\u00a0 I dreaded coming back up.<\/p>\n

We got to the tree grove.\u00a0 You could walk through the single tree that was hollowed out to let traffic drive through it.\u00a0 On the nature trail, there were several sequoias.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t as big as the trees I knew we see in Sequoia National Park though.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We climbed around and took pictures.\u00a0 We came across those grade schoolers again.\u00a0\u00a0Their teacher said they were from Sacramento.\u00a0 I still didn’t envy those adults.<\/p>\n

So the hike back up took some time.\u00a0 Rick didn\u2019t need to rest so he went straight to the top without stopping.\u00a0 Me, I had to stop and gasp for air now and then.\u00a0 My lungs burned.\u00a0 I decided that I prefer going down with my legs hurting than going up with my lungs on fire.\u00a0 We finally made it up.\u00a0 We walked back up with a couple from Florida having the same trouble Rich and I were.\u00a0 He said that it was because they only have flat land in Florida and not these long, tall hills.<\/p>\n

We drove up and over the mountains to Olmstead Point.\u00a0 From there, we walked .2 miles out onto the rock to look into the valley.\u00a0 This time, we were on the backside of Half Dome.\u00a0 It was like completing the other half of the picture from yesterday.\u00a0 A rockslide in 2009 had cut off the path from the base of Half Dome to this side of the valley.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t see it, but we hadn\u2019t tried the path yesterday.<\/p>\n

I sat down on a step of rocks to enjoy the view while Rick and Rich ambled over the rock face.\u00a0 I figured I\u2019d be safer than falling off the rock face.\u00a0 They found several places where the granite rock was smooth like you would find on your counter top.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Climbing back up the stairs, we continued on to Toulumne Meadows for lunch at the grill there.\u00a0 We had hot dogs with and without chili and one sausage with marina.\u00a0 Not bad for a temporary place in the summer season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The meadow was pretty much a marshy land around the bottom of some domes.\u00a0 The guys decided to hike Pothole Dome.\u00a0 They took off around the rock and disappeared on the back side.\u00a0 Pretty soon, I didn\u2019t see them from the car.\u00a0 I waited and watched other tourists arrive and leave.\u00a0 There were some guys rappelling down the side of the dome and coming back to the top to do it again.\u00a0 No sign of my guys though.<\/p>\n

Pretty soon, I saw them come around the side and disappear again.\u00a0 Then I saw them walking top for a while.\u00a0 Before I knew it, they were coming around the side of the dome and headed back to the car.\u00a0 Turns out, they got lost and followed an animal track for awhile.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t see the way up to the dome until they were coming back!\u00a0 Still a nice walk though.<\/p>\n

We arrived back at the Evergreen Lodge around 4:00.\u00a0 I figured this would give me time to do some laundry and I wouldn\u2019t have to do anymore on this trip.\u00a0 I set the washers and went outside to write my notes for the day.\u00a0 A squirrel was out there wrestling with a McDonald\u2019s bag and not having much luck.\u00a0 I decided to take it away from him and put it in a bear proof trashcan.\u00a0 I figured the campers who were close by didn\u2019t want a bear coming to check it out.\u00a0 About the time I reached down for the bag, the squirrel got the remaining hamburger out of the bag and took off!\u00a0 He was quick.<\/p>\n

While the laundry was drying, Rick and I explored the compound some more.\u00a0 There was a really cool kids playground in the middle.\u00a0 They had taken some tree stumps and built a deck around them.\u00a0 Inside, they built another deck with stairs.\u00a0 The entire thing was decorated with branches and netting.\u00a0 It was pretty cool.\u00a0 They had also built a spider web out of thick boat lines.\u00a0 Rick could climb in and lie down in the center without touching any of the sides.<\/p>\n

Laundry finally finished, we had dinner.\u00a0 Rich and I got the angus burger, which was really good.\u00a0 Rich had his with truffle fries.\u00a0 Rick went for the duck breast on barley with figs.\u00a0 It was awesome!\u00a0 Of course, we had to help since we were paying for it.\u00a0 Dessert was the cr\u00e8me Brule with fruit.\u00a0 Then I was stuffed.<\/p>\n

Rich and I took a quick walk out to the sunset deck to check it out.\u00a0 The sun was already just below the trees, but the mosquitoes were horrible.\u00a0 We headed back to the cabin.\u00a0 Rick and I took a quick dip in the hot tub to loosen some muscles.\u00a0 But the mosquitoes were bad there too.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t stay too long.\u00a0 We took showers and settled in for the rest of the night.<\/p>\n

There was a Trivial Pursuit book in the game basket in the cabin.\u00a0 Rick didn\u2019t know anything about this game.\u00a0 Could he be my son?\u00a0 I love Trivial Pursuit!\u00a0 I had Rick read through some of the questions and we tried to answer them.\u00a0 We actually did pretty well between me and Rich.\u00a0 Then it was time for bed again.<\/p>\n

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This is the restaurant and tavern at Evergreen Lodge. This is like a resort in the middle of no where. It was so much more than I expected.This is cabin C5. The C stands for Cedar. Each grove is given a different name. We were right outside of the pool area and not far from anything.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is cabin C5. The C stands for Cedar. Each grove is given a different name. We were right outside of the pool area and not far from anything.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The pool was built and just opened the week before. It was so nice with a great big hot tub. There was an even a bar serving draft beers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Pacific dogwood were in bloom. There were scattered throughout the forests.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Toulumne Grove of big trees was a hike. You had to go down the original road for about a 400 feet drop in elevation. Walking back too a lot of time for me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is the drive-through tree that some of the original tourists to the Yosemite Park would have come through when they entered the park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is the back side of Half Dome. We were under it yesterday when we went to Mirror Lake. We got to see both sides of it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We started fairly early with breakfast up at the lodge.\u00a0 I got the biscuits and gravy along with Rich.\u00a0 Rick went for the French toast, which looked good, too.\u00a0 We had Michael again.\u00a0 Not too bad on the service this time. We headed up the very winding and hilly road to the park.\u00a0 This time, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}