Yosemite

Laura: This summer Alex and I ventured all the way to California for one last summer trip...destination: YOSEMITE!!!

Alex: Get yourself ready for a picture frenzy.  It was only a five day trip, with three days in Yosemite itself, but we crammed in a LOT in those three days and got so much more out of it!

Convertible.  Excellent choice.

Day 1 - Travel
We started by flying to San Francisco in the early morning.  Unfortunately we didn't end up having a lot of time to spend here on the way out or the way back, so we'll have to return sometime.  We did get some In-N-Out Burger, and drove across the icy cold bay (it was seriously cold -- the air temperature dropped drastically over the water).

As you can see, we rented a convertible for this trip.  This was a really fantastic decision and well worth the extra money to experience the wonderful weather and get a full view of the epic scenery to come.  We had the top down almost anywhere we went during the daylight.

We drove east for hours, out of the city, across the bay, over the hills, through the desert, between the orchards, into the hills, and right up to where the hills blurred into the Sierra Nevada mountains.







We arrived at our cozy little bed & breakfast just as it got dark. The Penon Blanco was wonderfully charming.  The Innkeeper showed us to our room with its tall bed (probably a good 3 1/2 feet off the ground), super old timey claw-foot bathtub, and home-brewed German beer.

 DAY 2

View from the Penon Blanco

Breakfast in the morning was candle-lit (even though it was very bright) with fresh fruits, Eggs Benedict, muffins and sweetbreads. As breakfast wrapped up, the innkeeper gave us some maps and sold us some cheap audio CDs for the drive that would give the history of Yosemite, give recommendations of places to stop, good trails to hike, and point out various scenic locations on the drive into Yosemite Valley and during the climb up to Glacier Point.

Entering Yosemite

Our first photo stop we found this interesting tree.  We didn't know it at the time, but later figured out it was a sequoia.

Fire damage made this section of the forest filled with little plant growth, and it was very hot in this area.













As we pulled into the valley we stopped at Bridal Veil falls.  This late in the year, there isn't a lot of water, but it still blows around a lot in the wind way up there, which is where the falls gets the name.  We trekked up into the rocks to get pretty close to the base of the falls, where there were a number of pools.

Laura: The hike up through the rocks at the base of Bridal Veil falls was really fun! The "path" is basically whatever way you can manage to climb up the giant boulder river rocks in the dried out bed. It was almost like climbing around at Elephant Rock State Park in Missouri. And as Alex mentioned, the reward for climbing to the top was a quick dip into the pools of waterfall/river water in some of the deeper crevice amongst the giant boulders.

We continued our drive into the valley, with massive cliff faces on either side, including El Capitan.

El Capitan

Shooting El Capitan, with Bridal Veil falls in background (I think)

One of the meadows along the road

Once we reached the heart of the valley, we picked a trail to hike.  Right near the beginning of the trail we saw a handful of people gathering to look at something just a few feet into the brush.

RATTLESNAKE!!!

Since it was a rattlesnake very close to the trail and crawling toward us, I shot a quick pic and decided to let all the other people gathering around to determine the snake's attitude toward humans!





 The first real trail we picked was hiking up to see a pair of waterfalls.  What we didn't realize was that the trail was practically vertical. (Laura: Wah-wah....)

These shots are partway up, where a bridge ran over the stream.  On the right you can see the lower falls in the distance.  The higher falls would be well behind that up the mountain.

As we got closer we got a better sense of proportion.  In the shot on the right, if you blow it up and look closely at the top of the falls, just to the right of the base of the first tree, there is a white speck just before the rock starts to raise up.  That's because there are a couple people standing there looking over the falls, and that's where we were heading.  At this point, the trail turns into all stairs.  There is a marker at the base of "The Stairs" where people have written their times to reach the top.

At the top of the falls (LEFT & ABOVE), you can look down and see your vertigo-inducing progress.  On the right, you can see other people coming up the stairs along the rocks on the left.

Behind the falls is the emerald pool (RIGHT), where some people swim.  It looks fun, as long as you don't float down into the flowing water at the end, which quickly turns into rapids and goes over the falls.


Assorted wildlife shots below...looks like a Stellar's Jay in a tree, watching us eat some snacks.  A squirrel burrowing under some rocks.  A Foof in a tree.

Unfortunately, traveling to high altitudes and then immediately climbing to even higher altitudes is not recommended.  I got very light headed and somewhat nauseous about the time we reached the top of the first falls (Laura: And I was pretty darn tired from the wicked stairs). We had also run out of water, so decided to head back down rather than continue to the upper falls.  About halfway down I felt much better, so it was definitely the right move.

Here are some nice water-smoothing effects on the falls and the stream under the bridge.  The light started fading on the way down, making it easier to get these long exposures.






We took a quick bus ride back to our car, where Half Dome overlooked the parking lot.  The setting sun still illuminated the peaks, giving it a sort of glow.




On the way out we spotted some deer, and stopped to see the valley with all the cars driving through.

DAY 3

The first day in Yosemite we spent in the valley.  The second day we went up the south side.  Here's a shot of the valley, partway up.

We stopped for a quick hike into the woods to see some tucked-away meadows.  Here's a tiny cabin along the trail.  Many of the trees were covered with a fuzzy looking bright neon yellow moss.  It was incredibly quiet and peaceful here.

Pipe-cleaner Trees!

We continued driving up toward Glacier point, but stopped for another set of trails.

Along the road, overlooking the highlands (Yosemite Valley is the other direction)

The trails we took were to Taft Point and Sentinel Dome.  These were great trails, and I absolutely must recommend Sentinel Dome, as it was absolutely amazing to behold.  Here's the dome as we approached.  Laura is in the distance in red, the dome is still a long ways off.

Laura: The hike up to this dome presents a very intimidating perspective of the hike to come, but this trail was almost a gentle rise compared to the mega stairs we'd done the day before. Also, even if the trail seems steep at points the views from atop this rock are INCREDIBLE! Totally worth the extra energy and time spent exploring this area. 

 

You climb up and around through a section of woods, and then finish up the rocky far side of the dome.  Here (RIGHT) we've emerged from the woods, and this little trail of stones marks the final ascent.

At the top, 8117 feet.  Not bad - Rochester is about 500ft, so is St Louis...  And look, no elevation sickness today!

From the top of Sentinel Dome you have an epic 360 degree view of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada.  I can't begin to describe how awesome and breathtaking it was here.  We had lunch here and admired the view for a while before heading back down.

After returning from Sentinel Dome, we continued right past where we had parked our car to see Taft Point.  There may have been a faster way, but we didn't decide to do Taft Point for sure until right then.  Always wingin' it!

Chipmunk condo.  There was a pile of very white rocks not far from the start of this trail that was crawling with chipmunks.

The Taft Point trail hikes through the woods for a few miles.  There are some dips and winding trails, and then you pop out near Taft Point where the trees suddenly thin out.

Now the thing about Taft point that is one of my most vivid memories from my childhood trip to Yosemite is the fissures (BELOW with some rocks crammed in the crack).  These are basically cracks in the rock that are very narrow across and drop over 1000 feet.  You can't even see them until you're practically right on top of them because they're so narrow.







The view from Taft Point is great, and you're literally standing on the edge of a drop to thousands of feet below with only a corroded looking bar in front of you.  With blowing winds, stone underfoot that has been worn smooth and slick, and a chunk of rock missing under the finicky looking safety railing that has created a steeply angled ramp over the edge, unfortunately I didn't get a lot of great shots from the precipice.  Some people were sliding on their bellies up to the edges of some of the other nearby overhangs to get a better look, but I was fine without.  Between Sentinel Dome and Glacier Point later, I think I'm okay with that.

Laura: The fissures were really neat! Honestly it was hard to appreciate the severity of the drop from this area until we went to the very edge with the single area of metal-tube hand rail. Now THAT was a drop-off!

Speaking of, Glacier point was our next and final stop for the day.  The view is amazing, of course!  Where Sentinel Dome has a spectacular 360 degree view, Glacier point gives more of an edge view where you can see down into the valley.

On the right, toward the bottom-center you can see the falls we climbed the previous day, with the emerald pool behind it.  Just to the right of center is the upper falls that we didn't quite reach.

After another long day of hiking, we headed south to the Hounds Tooth Inn in Oakhurst - our next B&B. We hated to leave the nice cozy atmosphere at Penon Blanco, but this way we'd be a little closer for where we would be going the next day...

Hiking is dirty business.  Those aren't tan lines!

DAY 4

The last day that we would spend in Yosemite was at the Mariposa Grove, where a number of giant Sequoia grow.  It was a serious challenge trying to shoot pictures of these massive trees and really show their immense scale!

It was much easier to take pictures of trees that had fallen down

These trees are hundreds and even over a thousand years old.  They even last for ages after they've fallen.  The tree in the shot above (Fallen Monarch) had been down for over a hundred years.  The plaque on the plaque shows a picture of a cavalry troop perched on and around the tree.

The first branch on the right is 7' diameter

The behemoth to the right is one of the oldest trees, the Grizzly Giant, at 2700 years.

California Tunnel tree

As we headed further into the grove and started climbing into the hills, the crowds quickly thinned.

Telescope tree.  Hollowed out by fire, but still alive

Beautiful little grove with several big trees.  A couple people appear as shadows in the lower right.

Pic-a-Foof!

This is actually a Sugar Pine cone.  The Sequoia cones are about the size of a medium chicken egg

Hiking is risky business!!

The 2-room cabin tucked away here acts as a little museum and info center

Pit stop!

We really enjoyed hiking all the way to the top of the grove and checking out the various landmark trees, but alas all good things must come to an end. We headed back to the Houndstooth Inn, had some awesome Mexican food in Oakhurst, and prepared for the drive back to San Francisco early the next morning.  We had an absolutely amazing time and recommend visiting Yosemite to anyone with even the slightest love of nature!

See you on the next adventure!

-The Lorax-

Engels Invade ROC

Laura:
As summer wound to a close, my family came to visit me in Ra-cha-cha one more time before school started. With a pretty intense second year of medical looming on the horizon, it was really nice to spend some more quality with my family before things get crazy busy.

Of course we did all the "typical Rochester" activities:
1) Sightseeing at Rochester's Famous Bodies of Water:

Lake Ontario

High Falls

And then a Riverboat cruise along the Genesee River and Erie Canal - the ride was about an hour or so and actually picked us up right from the Staybridge Suites hotel where my family was staying (which is right on the river, really nice hotel!). There was a tour guide providing interesting stories about Rochester and fun historical facts all along the way. The weather was a little warm, but it was fun to see the city from the river and learn more about its history.

2) Breakfast at James Brown's Place (BEST EVER!!!)...you'll just have to come to Rochester and try it yourself. It's not worth trying to describe. I wouldn't do it justice. ;0)

3) Dinner at Dinosaur BBQ - one of two awesome BBQ restaurants in Rochester. The weather cooled off a bit by the time we got to dinner, and was just perfect for sitting out on the patio enjoying quality dinner time with the family.

4) Once again we attended a Rochester Red Wings baseball game. Mom almost got hi by a foul ball and there was an epicly long fireworks display synchronized to various Def Lepard songs at the end of the game. It just kept going!!! Here are some fun pics of us at the game and the crazy fireworks.

5) We also spent an afternoon wandering around looking at art and eating tasty treats at Park Ave Fest!!! Park Ave Fest is an annual festival that takes place on a street right by our house. Basically they shut down a huge stretch of the street and local art and food vendors set up tents to sell their wares. It's a great event for wandering, eating, and window shopping. While we were milling about the festival, we stopped at a stand where you could dye your own silk scarves. It was wicked cool. There is a tray filled with water and cellulose (makes the water thicker) to which you add colored dyes. The dyes have various chemical properties that allow them to not blend together and to float on top of the water (key part of the process).

So you add the colors...swirl them around a bit to make funky patterns...and then it's time for the magic! Watch this video.....

Play-by-play: The silk scarf is stretched out above the tray and then carefully lowered until it touches the dye. Then by magic osmosis/science/absorption, the dye is transferred to the silk scarf. Done and done! The vendor wadded my scarf up into a plastic bag for transport and when I got home all I had to do was hang it up to dry for ~1 week. That allows the colors to completely set. Pretty fancy, huh?! Here's the finished product ---->


That's about all I can remember doing....they did come here about 2 months ago. Sorry for the delay in reporting. Overall, everyone had a great time! Come to Rochester and you too will understand it's greatness. :0)

~THE LORAX~

Alex's Laser Beam Vision

Alex:
It is early August, and as a sort of personal adventure worthy of a blog post, I finally went ahead and let somebody slice at and laser blast my eyeballs, and I actually paid them to do so.  I figure I'll document how things are today and then make updates over the next few days or possibly weeks...  or however long until my eyes recover and then develop the super-powered x-ray vision that I'm pretty sure they promised.

Leading up:  I've pretty much had the same glasses for 10 years.  My prescription has barely changed and I'm not huge on going to the doctor, so I've had the same specs for ages.  I've had a pretty good idea I would get Lasik at some point anyway, so another reason not to bother getting new glasses.  Laura recently heard about a free seminar through her school at a local eye surgery place (Flaum Eye Institute, associated with the U of R), so I figured I'd check it out.  The people there seemed to be pretty reputable, having done a lot of research in the field to improve the process and not just a business to churn out patients.  So I went for a free exam, slept on the idea (for about a month), and then went in today.

D-Day:  So, I just returned from the surgery.  I'm on the couch with safety goggles and sunglasses over my eyes and tissues stuffed under the underside to soak up the tears as my eyes are very watery.   I'm keeping my eyes closed and typing blind and will have to review this later.  The surgery was pretty quick, but pretty tense as I was pretty apprehensive about the eye flap business.  It really didn't hurt at all, though they feel a little raw right now (kind of like if you spend a whole day out in the sun on the beach without sunglasses they'll feel a little dry and maybe sunburnt, that's about how they feel now, just a little more so).

D+1:  It is now Wednesday morning.  I went in for a checkup this morning and things are looking okay.  I don't have to wear the goggles during the day anymore, but I now have 3 kinds of drops to use.  Currently I'm in a dimly lit room wearing sunglasses with my eyes partially open.  My vision is much sharper, slightly sharper than when I was wearing my glasses.  I'm a little weirded out by my inability to focus on close objects.  I used to be able to read up to about 2 inches from my eyeball, and now I can't make my eyes focus any closer than about 6.

D+2:

Today my eyes were doing better, but it was a little rough day.  I worked all day and I've been fully opening my eyes, so they got pretty dry.  I had to increase my moisturizing drops from hourly to whenever I felt like I needed it -- maybe 30-45 minutes.  I wore my sunglasses all day, less so for brightness problems and more so because they shield any drafts and keep my eyes from drying out as fast.  We had our last kickball game and didn't have a full team, so I played the whole time, closing my eyes as much as possible.  They're not terribly uncomfortable, I'm just really picky about my eyes and paranoid about the eye-flap.  People thought I was blind walking down Park Avenue with Laura at night with my sunglasses on.  That was probably for the best though, since I was keeping my eyes closed half the time. Still, I put up with a lot of "I wear my suuunglasses at night..."

D+3:

By Friday I'd pretty well stopped with the sunglasses.  I put them on a little at work to keep my eyes shielded from draft, but that was about it.  I noticed some halos or starbursts last night around bright light sources.  If the image to the left shows, I'd say that before I was between a 1 and 2 before without glasses (due to blurriness), maybe a 2 with glasses because of the funkiness of the glass, and now I'm between a 2 and 3.  I think it will get better as they heal, and as I stop using the horrible steroid drops.

 

Here is a shot of my eye gear.  The surgical office gave me the black bag with most of this stuff in it.  My old glasses are on the far right.  It's disorienting to look through them now.  The brown cap bottle is antibiotics, and the white cap bottle with the red X is the awful steroids to keep my eyes from healing too fast.  They're like putting drops of whole milk in my eye -- they're very cloudy white, and leave a horrid salty bitterness as they run down my tear duct into the back of my throat that I can't gargle away.  I'll be glad in a couple more days when I'm not using those 4 times a day.  The big goggles are still worn at night to keep from pressing or rubbing, and are taped to my face using the roll in the top left.  That is some crazy tape that sticks to skin like nothing I've ever seen.  The first night we used a bunch, worried it would come off.  After ripping off the tape along with some hair and skin I realized I only need to touch a half inch of tape to my face on either side.  The wipes at the top are a soapy alcohol mix designed to help remove the strips of glue the tape leaves on your face.  They work okay, but it takes a few passes with rinsing in between, and then maybe a little rubbing alcohol when you find a few glue gob stragglers hours later.  The little vials are artificial tears without preservatives, to be used hourly or as needed.  They gave me 15, and I bought 60 more on Thursday.  Currently going through a little over 2 per day, that should last me a while.  Lastly, they gave me a DVD of my eye surgery.  I want to watch it, but I'm going to wait for my eyes to heal a little more before doing so.  If I see that flap being cut and lifted, I might think that every little tickle is it coming loose.

The one thing missing from this package is possible some kind of shower goggles.  I'm careful not to get soap in my eyes, but just regular water is obnoxious if you can't effectively wipe it away.


D+4:
I did some driving today.  It felt pretty natural.  On the way out it was sunny and I wore sunglasses, so it felt pretty normal since my face was all wrapped up.  The way back it was dimmer so I drove without some form of glasses intentionally (not forgetting them somewhere) for pretty much the first time ever.  Whoa!  The few times in the past that I drove without glasses it was weird and would cause my eyes to water.  I was worried that without them could be rough, but it was no trouble at all.

I still have a little redness from the surgery.  Some capillaries get busted when the suction cup attaches itself to your eyeball so it can start slicing the flap.  Now you see why I don't want to watch the DVD just yet?  At least I got the laser cut flap, so there was no blade involved.

Laura pointed out the white in the corner of my eye here.  Yeah, that's the steroid drop again.  It leaves a film on my eye that slowly collects, so I'm always wiping it away.




D+5:
I realize that some of you jerks have natural perfect vision and probably can't understand all this fuss.  It's probably similar to how I can't imagine being deaf, colorblind, or having no sense of smell.  Here's a couple of pics I just took as an example.  The first is clear, the second is blurry -- nothing fancy, just an unsteady hand in low light.  The second is a little worse than my overall vision before, but is actually probably pretty close to what my left eye was (the worse of the two).








D+6:
Pretty okay today.  I have noticed that it takes a little effort to focus sometimes, and my eyes will feel tired.  What's really weird is that I can't seem to relax them.  It's like they have a new resting focal state and I don't know what it is, so I can't quite stop them from working.  It's pretty mild, and I only really notice when I'm sitting around and nothing else is going on.  I'll ask about it tomorrow at the one week checkup.  I figure I'll keep adding to this post for the first week, so most likely it will be published tomorrow.  See you then!

D+7:
Had my one week checkup and no biggie.  They said my eyes appear to be a little dry so I need to use more drops (I've been missing the hourly drops a little with work and all) and give them a some rest periodically.  The focus and tiredness issue was very scientifically referred to as "the wah-wahs".  It's apparently my brain trying to adjust to the new image, and will go away with time.  I'm showing 20/15 in both eyes as of today, and things should get better as they heal more.

Now I'm going to see how long it takes for the glasses imprint on the side of my head to disappear...  I'll let you know if anything else interesting comes up.

-The Lorax

Walex's Birthday Weekend

Alex:
In May of this year, I tacked on another decade.  Laura was wonderful enough to organize a surprise visit to Rochester from a number of my friends who live all across the country.  She hilariously spilled the beans about it, but it was just as well because it would have been impossible to coordinate it all in secret and without me taking off work or picking people up from the airport.

On Thursday afternoon I picked up people in Buffalo while Laura picked up and had lunch at Aladdin's (tasty Mediterranean place with great falafel) with people who flew into ROC. We grabbed some treats from Dogtown and the former Hollywood video down the street, and went to Magnolia's on Park Ave for pizza and some local brew.

We had some tasty beverages, talked about old times, reminisced about James' various injuries, and looked at some pics and goofed off well into the night.

The next day we had some delicious James Brown's breakfast and set out for Niagara Falls.

Most of us hadn't done the Maid of the Mist before, so we decided to try it out.  We threw on our blue ponchos and sailed up close to the falls.  It was crazy to see the water on all sides, and was incredibly loud and bumpy.

If you look really closely you can see us standing on the rocks under the falls

On Sunday we made some breakfast casserole and then took a stroll through Highland park at the tail end of the Lilac Festival.  The flowers were mostly gone and it was a little hot, so we didn't stay long.  Had we known what the rest of the summer was going to be like we would have stayed out much longer!

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!  Thanks to my friends who were able to come visit!  And thanks Laura for setting up this weekend!

Laura:
Thanks everyone for coming to visit! I am glad we were able to pull off this fun birthday "surprise" for Alex's birthday.