March was full and busy for us B’s. Then end of the month brought a long weekend due to furlough days for the district. We took advantage of the time and booked a propane heated canvas tent at Camp Curry in the Yosemite Valley. We took our nephew, 11 yr old Bird of the Ontario Imbachs. We took our time going up the 5 and 99 stopping for lunch at Bravo Cheese Farms! What’s better than cheese?! We stretched our legs and spent an hour exploring this roadside adventure spot. There was a tree/fun house, lots of old and vintage signs, equipment, coke bottles and play things. We fed animals and ate fried chicken and mac n cheese topped off with some ice cream. HeaBug played with her daddy on an old fashioned porch baby swing. We topped it off by picking up some cashews, cheese and jerky.
Thanks to my trusty weather app, we knew to expect cold temps and maybe rain/snow. We got a call the day before we left from the camp to let us know that power was out in the valley and would probably be until Sunday. They offered to let us reschedule if we wanted but ever the adventurers, we knew that we’d be great with tarp covered luggage and four wheel drive on the truck. The road in to the valley was slow due to the snowfall (that I didn’t expect because I lost iphoneness just before we went through the great tunnel). Only one side of the road was open at times and groups of cars were being led by rangers.
We finally made it to camp and had to hurry to get our stuff to the tent before the sun completely went down since the valley was running on generators, the normal lights that are on throughout Curry Village were down. Then they told us at the front desk that we couldn’t even leave the car seats in the car because of BEARS! I didn’t know that we wouldn’t be able to cook our own food in camp so after a shared dinner of lunchables with trash carefully thrown away in the bear proofed trash cans we put any and all food, toiletries and car seats in the lockers. As we were doing that, Mr B left the locker unlatched since it was literally 12” away from our door. He came out with the next load to find an intruder! Of course while never once losing his composure, we deduced that it was NOT a bear (my first thought) or a raccoon but a ringtail squirrel. We shooed that sucker outta there and did not walk away from an unlatched bear locker the rest of the time we were there.
The dark night in a new and strange place made going to be a little difficult but traveling is tiring and it had been a long exciting day so with a small flash light hung as a night light, the tent was knocked out by 9pm.
We awoke to some serious snow that had been falling all night and bravely made out way to the bathroom/shower house. There was a work light lighting the facility but the water was warm. Showering a two year old when it’s 30 degrees outside is an hour long task.
We made our way around the valley floor via the free shuttle bus all day long. In fact, the whole time we were there, aside from walking, that was our only transportation and even in the snow they operate a great system. We took the kids to the Ahwahnee hotel and went to Yosemite Village, Visitors Center and Museums. Grabbed soup and sandwiches from Denagans deli and were glad we made the choice to rock the camelback as opposed to lugging water bottles around.
We played some uno and read books and scored some dinner at the pizza patio. Heard rumors that the power was going to be on again soon. Again, we were wiped from a full day and slept a lot more soundly.
Sunday we made our way back to the Awahnee for the infamous Grand Brunch only to find that they weren’t serving it because the power outage. It had come back on in the middle of the night but I guess that wasn’t enough time still. We settled on the regular delicious breakfast buffet and filled our tummies. The snow had stopped and we had an amazing view of the approaching blue skies and sunshine from our seats in the dining hall at the Awahnee. That was that, we spent the morning going to Yosemite Falls and then after a nap, reading and journal writing time, spend the afternoon hiking up to Mirror Lake. It was amazing and the upper portion had frozen over. We ate some astronaut ice cream before heading back down wait for the shuttle.
We spent the evening playing dominos and the kiddos got to watch Despicable Me on the iPad. We packed quickly in the morning and hit the food court at the Yosemite Lodge before making the trek up out of the Valley. I don’t know if the curves on the mountain were more noticeable but HeaBug was fussy and I felt carsick. She finally fell asleep but we had to pull over so I could donate my huevos rancheros back to the park. A few miles more and Bird was rudely awoken with the same carsickness. BOO. Once we were out though, everyone felt much better.
The ride home was smooth and we can’t wait to get back to Yosemite. Although a little less snow might mean a little more bear...
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