Into the Valley

I managed to escape the confines of the house this weekend and played the tourist card in Yosemite Valley for a day. Kind of fun to do that every once in a while. Teresa, Ryan and I wandered around, although I have to admit we didn't make it too far. The whole walking thing is still a bit of a hassle. We hit up Degnan's for lunch (because that's what tourists do and we were hungry) and then hiked up to Yosemite Falls. Ok so it's not so much of a hike as a stroll but give me a break. It may as well have been a mosh pit with the hordes of people that were constantly threatening to knock us off the path or run us over. Pretty fantastic. I think everyone AND their grandmother passed me. Anyway, we really only made it to Yosemite Falls and parts nearby before it started to get darkish. We had big plans to take the shuttle bus around but the bus we wanted only runs in the summer and apparently it isn't summer yet. Coulda fooled me!

So basically what we have here is a bunch of pictures of the falls from varying locations and the occasional dogwood. The dogwoods are blooming like mad but I am kind of a slacker and didn't take very many pictures. I guess I wasn't expecting it to take so long to get everywhere so by the time we got back around to the dogwoods it was too dark. Oh well.

The spray coming off of the fall was similar to a gale force wind and cold at that.

Ha! Gotcha! Not Yosemite Falls. Sentinel Falls instead, but don't get used to it. It's all Yosemite from here on out (and prior to this as well).

Oh, what's that? Yosemite Falls again?

The token dogwood.

Half Dome and the Merced River...awwww....pretty

House Bound

Pictures are some what limited at the moment since my world more or less consists of the house and the surrounding block. So let's see, that gives us the flowers in the house, flowers in the driveway and the "rehab" garden. We started a little porch garden a month or so ago but now I have plenty of time to expand it and stare at everything as it grows. We had to go the potted garden route because there are deer out the heezy-fo-sheezy and the dirt is not so hot.

Salad greens sprouting! They just popped up today, in a matter of hours. Like between the time I went to the coffee shop and when I got back. Crazy!

An herbal medley.

Mariposa tulips. These little guys just popped up recently...in the driveway thank goodness for me!

The indoor flowers. Nothing amazing here. I was just bored and took pictures for the heck of it. Messed around with some effects just make things a little more exciting. Great.

Additional Wildflowers

More wildflowers from Cherry Lake Road (or Cherry Oil Road depending on who you talk to).

Clarkia, possibly Elegant Clarkia...eh? Sure, why not?

Common Madia

Indian Pink

Snow Plant

Smattering of Owls

Yay, Owls!
A smattering of owl pictures from the season so far. So stinkin cool! Yup, I get paid to find these guys.

Glacier Point

The first time I went up to Glacier Point we were doing a big survey push...trying to cover as many meadows as we possible. The road wasn't officially opened so we were the only ones up there (one of the benefits of this job). At that point there was still a lot of snow and only one "lane" of the road had been plowed. I say "lane" because it wove all over the actual paved road and every once in a while ran off the pavement. We were pretty walled in by snow...there was certainly a lot of it. Nothing like 7 hours of snowshoeing in the middle of the night. It was awesome and extremely tiring. We ended up getting home somewhere around 4am. Oh, and we found bear tracks! Some of the first ones of the season (with many more to come I'm sure).



On a later occasion we went up to Glacier Point during daylight hours to set up some recording devices. The snow had melted significantly and for a brief moment we thought it might be possible to fore go the snowshoes. This turned out not to be the case though. After 10 meters of post-holing through the snow we back-tracked to get the snowshoes. It made traveling through the meadows a million times easier. After the work portion of the day was done, we drove down to the point as a little reward. The view (or views) is (/are) amazing. The sun wasn't terribly cooperative and kept hiding behind the clouds but it was fabulous all the same. So there you have it...the infamous Half Dome.

The waterfalls were, as some would say, "Going off". With the continued snow melt the waterfalls around the valley are still going strong right now. There are all kinds of little falls popping up in addition to the bigger mainstays. It's hard to believe so many of them will disappear in the near future.

Upper Yosemite Falls

Vernal and Nevada Fall (but don't ask me which one is which)

Just as we were getting ready to leave there was a rock slide at the base of Half Dome. See the dust cloud? That gets bigger and spreads out into the valley? Pretty crazy.

Salamander Tracks

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amerune/556137749/

In trying to take an optimistic outlook on this whole teratoma debacle I've decided my newly acquired scar looks pretty similar to the tracks of a salamander. That's positive, right?

Anyway, over Easter weekend...I know, ages ago...I drove through the Merced River Canyon on my way to Oakhurst for a little birthday gathering. Naturally, there were wildflowers galore. So here are a few.

Blazing Star

Broom-rape of some sort.

Lupines of the white variety

Oops, unidentified flower. You figure it out.

Poppies...just can't get enough of them

Chinese Houses

Hairy Fringepod

Lupine filled meadows